study of God's word for the benefit of others who have not the opportunity and the means of making profound and extensive researches into its signification, and who are by far the majority of the world.

But that which is alone sufficient to establish the point, is the practice of dissenters themselves. Their great dispute with the church as to ministers regards the mode of their appointment. There is no question respecting the apostolicity of a ministry. Its divine institution is always assumed as an admitted principle. Besides which, one of the chief uses of ministers is avowedly to give instruction. The language of authority among dissenters is decisive: "The ministerial office consists in preaching the gospel; and if the gospel is faithfully and intelligently promulgated, the office is fulfilled. It is this office which the Apostles committed to faithful men, charging them to commit the things which they had heard to other believers, who also should be able to teach. The perpetuity of this ministerial succession in the church of Christ, is obviously essential to its existence." (Conder, p. 71.) The term minister has all along been used in reference to what must be considered as the main purpose of the sacred function, the preaching of the gospel. (Ibid. p. 72.)

Thus far such a happy agreement appears to have existed at all times and in different parties of Christians upon this subject, that the formal establishment of the truth of our position seems to be superfluous. Still, however, there are records and declarations which require it to be prominently brought forward. The illiterate among the sects of methodists (though

with apparent inconsistency, as they are all hearers of ministrations) are much addicted to the protestation, that they look for instruction or edification, only to the Lord. The passages which have been quoted in this chapter from Scripture amply prove that instruction in righteousness, according to the will of the Lord, is to be in some degree received through the agency of man. Add to this, it is proclaimed as one of the three great principles of nonconformity, that every man has an unlimited and inalienable right to expound the word of God for himself, and to worship God according to the dictates of his "own conscience." (Mr. J. Angell James, p. 10. Dissent and Church.) And this avowal proceeds from the pen of one who is deeply impressed with the magnitude of the ministerial office. He goes even farther than churchmen probably on the point. The minister of the church has, I apprehend, a desire rather to lead his people than to rule them. I do not impute to this writer an ambition to "lord it over God's heritage; " but in one of his works, as we have already seen, he laments the imperfections in his scheme of ministry, with a force and feeling which strikingly declare his ideas of the ministerial rights. (See p. 42, 43.) One does not clearly per

ceive the justice of the author, in complaining of much of this treatment from men whom he himself acknowledges to have an unlimited right to expound Scripture for themselves. The profession of the unlearned, as to looking only to the Lord, and the assertion of the literary dissenter of the unlimited right of the people to be their own interpreters, might almost have been left to confutation, from the

practice of the one, and the lament of the other. I have, however, deemed it prudent to establish our position more argumentatively. And to return to the point: the church admits most readily, advocates most vehemently, the right of the people to search the Scriptures, and to learn from them to the best of their ability. But the conclusions to be drawn most particularly from this chapter are, that the right of the people to expound Scripture for themselves is not so unqualified as to exempt them from the duty of attending to the arguments and the advice of men appointed to the ministry of the word; that a church is not complete without such an order of teachers; and that one of the designs of its institution is the guidance of the people into religious truth.

CHAPTER VI.

OF PRIVATE JUDGMENT.

If men were allowed by any philosophy of the world to decide for themselves, independently of human authority, what is the sense of Scripture on various disputed points, according to the knowledge which they may chance to possess at the time of their decision, it would no doubt be extremely pleasing to nature, it would flatter our self-sufficiency, and gratify our pride; but at the same time it would be extremely presumptuous and unwarrantable. It would in the first place be inconsistent with the institution of an order of teachers, a ministry of the word; and in the next, it would inevitably result in much dissension and error.

Let it be well understood and remembered, that notwithstanding this may be a tenet of the church, she does not deny the use of private judgment in its right sense. She always addresses her members as men of understanding, and requires them to deliberate and to judge of the excellence of her doctrines and the validity of her claims on their respect, in the hope that they will judge favourably

of her pretensions. If at any time there are those among the people who are not prepared to receive the words of any of her ministers, let the dissentient hearers dispute amicably with their instructor, as much as is necessary, remembering however that the minister ought to know better than themselves, and approaching him with some degree of diffidence in their own opinions, and of respect for the sacredness of the office which he sustains, and for the education of mind which it properly implies. Let the questions in debate, or the objections which offer, be sufficiently discussed, and then let judgment be pronounced on the truer side. All that the church condemns in private judgment is what any reasonable man must allow she has a right to condemn that the people should determine for themselves before they have the means of determining right the knowledge necessary to qualify them to make a final decision. All men at any time are entitled to think according to the best information they possess. But there are various kinds and degrees of ignorance. The literary dissenter must be among the first to acknowledge that there are multitudes of unlearned persons whose minds are not prepared to form a correct judgment on many religious subjects. It must be well known that no man can judge truly without good information; that even the best information will not always enable a man to make a wise and just determination; still that knowledge in all, and much knowledge in many cases, is indispensable. In reason, all men, with whatever knowledge they may have acquired, however perverse, have a right to form an opinion,