regenerate experience as a condition of receiving the sacraments, and make a distinction between the church and the congregation. To invite to the table of the Lord all who think they are Christians, whether they are baptized and connected with some evangelical church or not, is virtually to tell men that they need not unite with any visible church; that Christ was too strict when he required the members of the early Christian churches to suffer martyrdom rather than give up the profession which had made them such. It is an act which tends to abolish the visible church. In an age of formalism, it draws the world into the church; in an age of religious indifference, it dissolves the church in the world. In the one age, men will receive the sacraments, hoping to be saved by them; in the other, they will decline them with the conviction that, if deemed worthy to receive them, then they are good enough to be saved without them. It is true that some unworthy persons may receive the sacraments, if we make reputable standing in some Christian church the basis of our invitation; but the abuse will be far greater if we invite those who have never submitted the question of their fitness to the judgment of any Christian body, as one must in joining a church of Christ. In this matter we must either allow men to establish the rule for themselves, or we must establish it for them, or we must act on that given by apostolic usage. The first plan would abolish the visible churches; the second would substitute human dictation for divine authority; the third honors the wisdom of Christ in teaching us how to behave in the house of God.

The custom in some churches, of admitting "probationers" to the Lord's Supper, is unscriptural. Paul spoke of all men as either without and not of the church and under its discipline, or as within and of the church and subject

to the judgment of the brethren. 1 Cor. v. 12. There was no middle class, partly in the churches and partly out of them. As soon as believers gave proof of their faith, they were baptized as Christian confessors. The spirit of the church covenant grew out of their faith, and affinity for the disciples of Christ; and as soon as possible they associated with some Christian church, and submitted to its discipline. The sacrament of the Lord's Supper then implied full membership and communion in all who received it. There may now be reasons why we should advise apparent converts to test themselves for a time, before coming into the church; but there is no scriptural precedent for extending to them the privileges characteristic of membership, before they are required to assume the obligations of members. If it be said that while "probationers," they are expected to act as if holding the faith and under the covenant of the church, how can they differ from regular members ?

The church is called the bride of Christ, the Lamb's wife. The marriage relation suggesting this figure is too sacred to be made a matter of probation. It should seem that the relation of Christ's bride to him is of a nature admitting no experiment, no half-way union from which we can be "dropped" before the expiration of a certain time. This probationary plan may serve to gather in the unstable and the reluctant, under the idea that they can retire without ceremony if they do not like the experiment. It may afford an easy way of retreat from a position assumed before counting the cost; but it does not tend to secure high views of the Christian profession; it does tend to obscure the distinction which should exist between the church and the world. It enables the impulsive to take periodic excursions into the precincts of the church, from which they

can return without disgrace. It induces some under conviction to rest short of conversion.

There are certain side ways of egress from some churches, convenient for a certain class of members, but unscriptural. In a western community receiving a large immigration, we find cases like the following: A man from H. has a letter from the church in that place to the church in C.; but he decided to settle in W., and here he is with that letter given three years ago, and the church in H. supposes that he is in the church at C. or some other church. Another is found with a letter from the church in B., stating that the bearer is at liberty to join any Christian church he pleases. He has kept it two years, and the church in B. assumes that he is in some Christian church. These persons are still members of the churches from which they came. It is the duty of those churches to watch over them. It should be a rule that if these letters are not used within a specified time they are void, and the church accepting them should give notice of the fact to the church by which they are issued. Thus those coming West with Christian character, would be induced to keep their church connection good, and others would be made" an example," instead of being allowed to slip quietly out of this side door.

In organizing churches at the West, we sometimes find a wish for a clause in the covenant prohibiting the use of intoxicating liquors, or some other specific sin prevalent in the community. This is a vain attempt to secure, by the letter of the law, what can only be secured by moral power in the church. I have known a church with a "total abstinence" pledge in its covenant, tolerate a member in periodic drunkenness for years. Those inclined to loose living are apt to conclude that they may perpetrate any immorality

not expressly forbidden in the covenant. The pledges of this document should, therefore, be general. In its spirit it should forbid all unrighteousness, and require us to educate conscience and keep it tender. The evils in question can be corrected only by elevating the piety of our churches. It is impossible to secure a proper degree of strictness in the admission of members, impossible to exercise a scriptural discipline, in a wordly and spiritually weak church. It is useless to pledge those coming into a church to a higher Christian life than those already in it are living. They are not likely to rise above the average piety of the church; they are likely to fall below it. Scriptural discipline presupposes a spiritual and faithful church. Otherwise, no Congregational church can exercise such discipline and keep out of itself those who will weaken its influence for good. Some of the objections urged against Congregationalism derive their apparent force from this fact, that a church to whose members are left all the functions of discipline will fail to perform many of them. But, does it make a local church any stronger to take this work out of its hands because it does not fully perform it, and vest it in the clergy, or in a few? Can the local church be schooled into efficiency by thus relieving it of responsibity? Christ's plan is wiser. He requires the local church to retain the prerogative of self-government, and, in its exercise of this, to cultivate the sense of personal responsibility and secure spiritual strength. The evils of relieving a church from this duty can not be counterbalanced by any other plan of government. Even the isolated instances of "laxity and disorder," laid to the charge of Congregationalism, are more than neutralized by the advantages of self-culture, and selfexertion, and moral firmness, called forth by our plan of self-government.

In fine, this discussion indicates the duty of a class of persons who give as good evidence of divine renewal as one can give while refusing to profess Christ by joining some Christian church. We have seen that Christ requires local churches, and that all believers in any place, as Rome or Jerusalem, connected themselves with such a church. It is, therefore, the opinion of Christ that every renewed person needs the restraints and the helps of a church-membership. Those attempting to be Christians without them are liable to say, "Well, I have made no professions, I have no public reputation as a Christian to maintain, I shall dishonor no body of Christians let me do what I will." We must vow unto the Lord before we shall say, I can not go back. It was only after the Israelites had done this, that their leader could say, "Ye are witnesses against yourselves this day, that ye have chosen the Lord, to serve him." All the covenants of the Old Testament, the moral influence of the compact in the Mayflower, of the Declara

tion of Independence, - all testify that one undertaking the Christian life needs the restraints and incentives of a church covenant. To attempt this life without coming into some Christian church is to set an example which, if followed by all, would abolish the visible church and its ordinances, and be a virtual declaration that Christ need not have given them to us. If any regenerate persons ought to be churchmembers, and preserve this blessed institution, then every person who finds evidence that he is divinely renewed, ought to confess Christ in this way. We do not affirm that no person so refusing can be a Christian, but the presumptions are against him. He has not done what Christ required the primitive Christians to do, when it cost them their lives. He must show some reason for the neglect which they did not see, or he has reason to fear the words of Christ, "Whosoever shall deny me before men, him will I also deny before my father which is in heaven.".

and ourselves refusing or neglecting to join with them. In the first case, we may put up no bars which Christ has not put up. We may interpose no obstacle to those desiring Baptism or the Lord's Supper, which Christ and his apostles did not interpose. We find them requiring nothing but faith in Christ. When any desired baptism, the only question was, "Believest thou in the Lord Jesus?" that is simply, "Are you a Christian?" not "Do you accept this or that doctrine ?" but "Do you accept Christ as your Saviour?" We have been able to find no scriptural authority for any more rigid requirement of those who desire the ordinances of the gospel. By what authority may we exclude from the baptismal waters where we have been cleansed, or from the communion table where we gather, any whom the Holy Ghost has renewed, or with whom the Lord Jesus holds communion? The Lord's Supper is not our feast, but Christ's, and he says, "Whoso shall offend one of these little ones which believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea." If then we thrust away from his table the feeblest of all his flock, the weakest, the dullest, or most confused in intellect and understanding, we shall surely offend the Lord of the feast himself, who has enjoined upon us to feed his lambs. It is impossible for us to find any scriptural authority for interposing the test of a creed between those whom we, in the exercise of discretion tempered with charity, believe to belong to Christ's great family, and the table where he invites all his household to gather and celebrate his love. But when the question assumes the converse form, that is, how far we shall join with those of different creeds when they administer the ordinances, it is a very different thing; yet even

here the fundamental principle is unchanged. As we should admit to our administration of the ordinances those individuals whom we believe to be lovers of Jesus, so we should be ready to commune with any church that we believe to be a church of Christ. We here come to what is necessarily more limited than mere Christian fellowship, the one form of church fellowship. The tests by which we recognize a church of Christ are essentially different from those by which we recognize the individual Christian. There are many whose personal piety we cannot reasonably call in question, who belong to no church, or to organizations bearing that name whose creed is so contrary to what we believe to be Bible truth, that we can not and may not recognize them as churches of Christ. To these

individuals we are bound to extend Christian fellowship. But we are not bound, nor have we any right, to extend fellowship to the so-called churches of which they are members. Bodies of nominal Christians associated together upon a basis which denies the divinity of the Lord Jesus, or the doctrine of eternal punishment, or the necessity of the new birth, we may not by act or word fellowship as churches of Christ. There may be individual members, who give satisfactory evidence of loving the Lord with supreme affection, although intellectually befogged as to the nature of his person. There may be those who adore and love the justice of God, who nevertheless, from peculiar temperament, or unfortunate training, have no clear view of its inexorable demands. There may be those who, from confusion in their understanding, deny regeneration in words, who admit it in fact, and have felt its power in their own hearts. To all such, as individual saints, we should extend the hearty hand of Christian fellowship. But we must not admit that a church formed upon