committee to the National Council of 1880, on "Ministerial Responsibility and Standing," in which it was shown that "five classes of ministers are not covered by the present rules for calling councils in cases of delinquency. 11* The defects of this platform left our position defenceless. Under the Cambridge Platform, it was a partial excuse, in case of neglect of ministerial discipline, to say, that by our standard uninstalled ministers are laymen, that the discipline of laymen belongs to the local churches of which they are members, and that other churches can not meddle with what does not concern them. Hence, if any church, in this regard, neglected its duty, it was only a case of lax lay discipline, for which other churches could not be held responsible. The platform of 1872 took away this defence by recognizing the ordained as ministers, whether installed or not, and gave no adequate rules for bringing the uninstalled to account for unministerial conduct. It was this fact that gave such urgency to the Report on Ministerial Responsibility and Standing, and to the debate thereon, in the National Council at St. Louis, in 1880. The discipline of ministers, under the true theory of the ministry, cannot rest on their church membership. This foundation is local and inadequate. Is there a principle universal and adequate, which is consistent with our polity, on which ministerial discipline may securely rest?

Such a principle is "the relation of the ministry as a class to the churches with which they stand connected." This principle had been embodied in the manual which formed part of the report made by the committee of the General Association of Massachusetts, in 1846, but without formal statement.† The principle was more fully discussed in a paper read before the General Association of Michigan in May, 1879, and made by formal vote in May, 1880, the foundation of a process of ministerial discipline, which the said Association commended to the churches. In that process the principle is stated in these words: "The relation which exists between every man ordained to the ministry of the Word and other ministers, and the churches of the same ecclesiastical connection, constitutes a * Minutes, 85. Chap. xv., Sec. 8.

valid and sufficient ground for the following process of ministerial discipline," etc.* In November of the same year a committee reported a plan to the National Council, "resting on the established principle of the responsibility of a Congregational minister to the communion of churches." The substitute, adopted with only one dissenting voice, expressed the same principle in these words: "Resolved, That the body of churches in any locality have the inalienable right of extending ministerial fellowship to, or withholding fellowship from, any person within their bounds, no matter what his relations may be in church membership or ecclesiastical affiliations, the proceedings to be commenced by any church and to be conducted with due regard to equity." The adoption of this resolution while supplying a defect, completed a revolution in our theory of the ministry. Ministerial discipline rests no longer on church membership, but on ministerial connection with our churches. Any man serving one of our churches as minister falls within the provision of this rule, and can be dealt with "by any church," "no matter what his relations may be in church. membership or ecclesiastical affiliations." Thus, this rule is as wide as our ostensible ministry, and covers all possible

cases.

Neither the principle nor the rule based upon it are Presbyterial, since they do not give the eldership authority over churches, but instead give the churches increased power over the eldership or ministry. The churches, recognizing in all other respects as ministers those whom they ordain, have resolved henceforth to treat them not as laymen but as ministers in matters of discipline. There is nothing Presbyterial in this. It does not say who shall be pastor of a church, or bring the church as such before the council, or review its records, or interfere in any way with the internal affairs of an independent church; but it does give to any church the right to inquire into the character and standing of the man who min. isters to another church. The ground and reason for such action lie in the relations of that man as minister to the fellowship of the churches. Recognizing him as a minister every. where, the neighboring churches rightly and consistently claim *Minutes Gen. Ass. Mich., 1880, 21. + Minutes, 17.

the power to inquire into his fitness for the high calling. If the church choosing him will not call a council to make the inquiry, then any church can call one for the purpose.

Thus, one of the important factors of our polity, which the Boston Platform neglected to bring into its normal place, has been restored by the action of the St. Louis National Council. It is now possible to reach any and every minister, or man claiming to be a minister, connected with our churches, either as pastor, acting pastor, stated supply, evangelist, or member: and, for cause, withdraw fellowship from him. It may require much grace, and the urgency of great peril, to lead any church to begin a process of discipline with a sister church's minister; but the ecclesiastical way is now open for it to do so, when its courage becomes for any reason adequate to the emergency. Any church can bring him to trial.

It must be admitted, that, human nature being what it is, this remedy, though possible, is not likely to be often used, especially in States where our churches are far apart, and the influence of one church upon another is less than in the original Congregational States. Michigan is larger than England and Wales, yet she has but two hundred and fifty-five Congre gational churches,* while England and Wales have three thousand, one hundred and seventy-four.+ Our churches are seldom near enough to touch one another, but a bad man in the ministry has all the greater opportunity for evil, while his damage is the more fatal. We need a more certain and universal and constant guard to purity than that offered by this rule, though right in principle.

Let us search for that better guard. A man is put into the ministry at ordination by action of a church through a council. He may never call another council though he serve many churches. Between his ordination and his death or deposition, has he any recognized responsibility to the churches besides that involved in their right to call him to account by council, as above stated? Has he any recognized ministerial standing? If we mistake not we shall find our better guard to purity here, and one that is normal to our principles. In

* Minutes for 1882.

+ Canadian Year Book for 1872-3.

developing a consistent Congregationalism, we need to restore the neglected factor of ministerial standing, which we will next consider.

II. MINISTERIAL STANDING.

1. This term defined. We understand what ministerial standing means in other polities, but in our own the most vague notions obtain respecting it, and perhaps some will deny its existence in our polity. Yet, so long as the churches regard the ordained as ministers, as we have seen that they do, not only in practice but also in their authorized platform of prinples and usages, issued in 1872, there is a necessity of ascertaining what such standing as ministers involves, and of locating that standing in some body which can call ministers to account for unministerial conduct, and which shall be held responsible for the faith and practice of its members by all the communion. We would, therefore, define ministerial standing to be a responsible membership of ministers in bodies that have the right and duty of watch-care over them respecting their faith and practice as ministers. Such membership seems but the logical outcome of recognizing the ordained as ministers.

2. The Cambridge Platform recognized ministerial standing.-This standing was a very definite and fixed thing with our fathers. Inauguration into the pastoral office created it, removal from the pastoral office destroyed it; but, while it existed, it made the pastor responsible to the church in which it was held, responsible as a minister as certainly as responsible as a church member. He could be called to account by his church for unministerial conduct, and all the other churches held each church accountable for its pastor, and provided a way of dealing with the church that neglected this duty.* This was ministerial standing somewhere. A council was usually called to assist in instituting and in terminating it, but the standing was held in the church of which the minister was both member and pastor. Standing was never held in a council, never given by a council, never taken away by a council, under this Platform. It was given by a church with advice of council, was held in the local church, and was taken away by * Chap. xv. 2, (3).

the church with advice of council. The church was held accountable for the faith and practice of its pastor.

3. Limitation of ministerial standing under the Cambridge Platform. The pastoral theory of the ministry limited this standing to the one church of which the minister was pastor. Everywhere else he was only a layman; even he preached as a layman when on exchange; ministerial associations were lay associations. This position the theory compelled, since to be out of the pastoral relation was to be out of the ministry, and no one could sustain this relation beyond the people who had chosen him as pastor. John Owen could not endure the limitations of this theory, nor could others;* so it was soon abandoned by our churches and writers; but the theory gave ministerial standing somewhere, real, definite, valuable.

3. The coercive power of the magistrate under the Cambridge Platform. When our system of councils arose the question of ministerial responsibility and standing was not an open one. Ministers as such were held responsible to their churches, and their churches were held responsible for them. But our fathers did not trust purity to councils, or to ministerial standing, or to both conjoined: for these are local, and might fail while the whole fraternity of churches were involved in the matter. And this brings us to an element which has been strangely neglected. We have no occasion any longer to read the last chapter of the Cambridge Platform on "the civil magistrate's power in mat ters ecclesiastical;" and so we skip it. But our fathers did not skip it; for it stands as a part of the ecclesiastical system framed by the Cambridge Synod, declaring that "it is the duty of the magistrate to take care of matters of religion, and to improve his civil authority for the observing of the duties commanded in the first, as well as . . . . in the second table;" that "idolatry, blasphemy, heresy, venting corrupt and pernicious opinions that destroy the foundation, open contempt of the word preached. . . . and the like, are to be restrained and punished by civil authority;" and that, "if any church, one or more, shall grow schismatical, rending itself from the communion of other churches, or shall walk incorrigibly or obsti nately in any corrupt way of their own, contrary to the rule of

* Mather's Magnalia, ii. 238, 239.