to their heart's content. In that and other respects it gives liberties before unknown in our Zion. But ministers who have the heart to take such liberties, and the preachers who present the Bible's great impressions, will not long labor harmoniously together. Sufficient experiments already demonstrate the evil of endeavoring to unite such diverse elements under one creed, or in one communion. If this creed is not discarded, we shall soon have still more candidates of lax views for both our min istry and our membership, attracted to us from evangelical and unevangelical denominations. Under that growing evil some of our better ministers and members will seek fields of labor and relations of fellowship within other denominational lines. And that process will ere long reduce both our spiritual and our intellectual denominational power, and will prostitute to Satan's schemes many of our opportunities for revivals of religion and the salvation of men.

Is it said that we need not receive men to our ministry on the basis of this creed; that each council or association can prescribe their own terms of membership? But picked councils and associations will evade all such stringency. Is it thought that associations in licensing candidates for the ministry, and councils in ordaining and installing ministers, will not think of accepting assent to this creed as evidence of orthodoxy, and of fitness to preach the gospel? See what the Andover Review says of this creed: "It will be of service to councils in the settlement of ministers. When there seems to be vagueness or peculiarity of opinion, hearty assent to this creed will be considered sufficient" (April, 1884). Is it said that any of the denomination who wish to fall back upon the Westminster and Savoy confessions as a standard can do so still? But what is this creed for except to relieve us from those confessions, and give us what would be more expressive of our real views, and in language more suited to our day! And if some take the new creed for their standard, and some take the old creeds, how long will our denomination remain undivided? The Commission's creed admits elements in membership that the old creeds do not admit; elements which also the Burial Hill creed does not admit. Will any say that we must discuss these theological questions, and keep out errors

in other ways than by creed committals and covenants? Pray, what is a creed for, if not in part to help repudiate and disfellowship error and errorists? Is it said that Congregationalists in general, and even the Commission themselves in general, have higher theological views than the new creed expresses? True. Why then sacrifice or discard Scripture by adopting the new creed? And why consent to be let down to a grade where, as a denomination, we do not belong, and where disunion will be the result?

VI. The new creed, without some amendments, is not the best adapted to forming and building up churches in new communities. A weak creed will make weak churches. That creed will do best which is put on the highest plane of the evangelical basis. It should be so constructed that all evangelical people can unite in it. But if Scripture be excluded for the sake of getting more members, that process will soon get less and less members. What is exclusively Calvinistic, or exclusively Arminian should not be inserted. But such a creed should embrace a strong statement in respect to God's attributes a distinct and emphatic view of the Bible as the word of God, and of entire sinfulness of moral character after that character is begun until conversion, of the blood of Christ as a propitiation for the sins of men, of the final resurrection of the dead both of the just and unjust, and of eternity as conditioned on time. Any church that makes concessions to modern notions on these points will soon be the loser for it. Other churches of stronger creeds will draw off their members, and, other things being equal, they will be more blessed of God in winning souls. Minor points, like the mode of baptism, and the mode of church government, need not be embraced. On points like the purposes of God, and the perseverance of saints, Congregationalists should be content to use the stronger scriptural expressions for their views, and then people of Methodist proclivities will not dissent. The parental covenant, and baptism to the child as the seal of the covenant, may have full recognition in a creed without compelling one of Baptist preferences to say that he believes in infant baptism. Strange it is that the Commission's creed has no place for a list of God's attributes, and yet has room to require every church

member to say that he believes baptism is to be administered to the children of believers. This is the more objectionable, because while the creed makes baptism "a sign of cleansing from sin," it does not make it "a seal of the covenant." Dr. Hawes, of Hartford, many years ago, said in substance that a creed, on the subject of baptism, can be made satisfactory to Congregationalists in general without being repulsive to Baptists. Dr. Porter, of Farmington, said the same, and both practiced substantially on that principle. A creed fashioned by the foregoing liberal spirit and rules in respect to all evangelical people, gives great advantages to a church for enlargement and usefulness in a new and growing community, and indeed in any community. These principles have been tested by experiment. And on their basis churches have been built up by gathering people from seven or more different denominations, besides the many received as converts from the world. Some entertain the idea that a church should have no more creed than a child can understand. But that will make weak churches. A church creed should be so constructed and compacted as to command the study and respect of the strongest men. The bugbear of making children and the uninformed assent to a creed a part of which they do not understand, is easily disposed of by simply requiring an affirmative to this: "So far as you understand this statement of belief, do you give it your hearty assent: and do you intend to conform your heart and life to its requirements?" The Commission's "Confession of Faith" has a similar sensible condition for assent. Either form is a sliding scale for committal to doctrinal belief adapted to the understanding of each candidate for church-membership.

A summary of what has now been shown is the following: The Commission's creed is not what was contemplated in the original movement for a new statement of doctrine; it does not fully meet the instructions given to the Commission by the Council; it rejects important Scripture language and thought on some vital doctrines; its extensive adoption would tend to disunion and demoralization; its method of laxness for the sake of enlargement has been tried and found wanting; it is not the best adapted to forming and building up permanent churches.

When Professor Mead's essay in behalf of a new creed was read to the Council of 1880, there were certain valid reasons for securing the object for which he plead. The Commission's creed has greatly increased the reasons for still another creed. For the new creed already given, if widely adopted, is certain to make confusion and division among us unless amended. The Commission's creed may be regarded as one stage towards obtaining, if we will, another creed which would far better express the religious views, and satisfy the better desires of the great mass of Congregationalists. There still remains a grand opportunity for some denomination, or other body of men, to make an elaborate Evangelical creed well adapted to the present time.

The Westminster confession was the fruit in part of the great Puritan awakening of the seventeenth century. The Assembly to make it was designed to be composed of one hundred and fifty-one men, chiefly clergymen. But only a portion ever engaged in that great work. Those who did, labored upon the confession upwards of five and a half years, and met eleven hundred and sixty-three times. The Congregational denomination, then, should not at this time despair of having a creed fully suited to their need and their want. Any one of various methods could be adopted which would secure the desired object.

ARTICLE VI.-GOVERNMENT BY THE PEOPLE.

I HAVE hitherto spoken of the State in our polity as the association of all the people, partly for the transaction of business in which all are alike concerned, but principally for protection from dangers to which all are alike exposed; a definition which affirms the solidarity of government and people, the perfect obedience of the representatives to the will of a unanimous constituency. This is the theory, and if the facts conformed to it there could, of course, be no such thing as dualism and discord in the action of the State. The whole power of an association of that kind would necessarily be furnished at the cost and expended for the benefit of all, without distinction of person or class; for a constituency unanimous in conferring exceptional privileges, or imposing exceptional burdens on a part of the constituents, is nearly a contradiction in

terms.

It is now necessary to recall the fact that the State, if theoretically one and indivisible, is still practically two, and that the government, while existing only to give expression and effect to the will of another, is itself an individual with a will of its own, and accessible to all the motives which determine individual action; perfectly capable of entertaining purposes which are not those of the people, or of the whole people, and of carrying them out with the power which the people has put in its hands. The State-said one of the last of the real monarchs, I am the State; meaning that the sovereign power was his by absolute right, and used according to his notions and purpose. We are the State, say the people, meaning the same thing. Both are correct according to theory, but as a matter of fact the transfer of power had already gone far under the monarchy and is not yet complete under the republic. A new dogma has been substituted outright for the old one, an achievement always easy upon any sufficient display of force; but as the will of the people counted for a good deal before the substitution, so the will of the government counts for a good deal to-day; and nearly all the political per