2. The same thing is true as to the jus liturgicum, as it is called, of the Church. The ministry cannot frame a ritual, or liturgy, or directory for public

sequi, anathematizare eos qui aliud evangelium prædicant. 5. Ex praxi apostolorum. 6. Ex ecclesia primitiva.

Gerhard, the great Lutheran theologian of the seventeenth century, teaches the same doctrine. Tomus xii. p. 85. Cuicunque claves regni coelorum ab ipso Christo sunt traditæ, penes eum est jus vocandi ecclesiæ ministros. Atqui toti ecclesiæ traditæ sunt a Christo claves regni coelorum. Ergo penes totam ecclesiam est jus vocandi ministros. Propositio confirmata ex definitione clavium regni cœlorum. Per claves enim potestas ecclesiastica intelligitur, cujus pars est jus vocandi et constituendi ecclesiæ ministros. He quotes Augustin, lib. I. de doctrina Christ. cap. 18: "Has claves dedit ecclesiæ suae, ut quæ solveret in terra, soluta essent in coelo, et quæ ligaret in terra, ligata essent in coelo."

In the Smalcald Articles it is said:-Ad hæc necesse est fateri, quod claves non ad personam unius certi hominis, sed ad ecclesiam pertineant, ut multa clarissima et firmissima argumenta testantur. Nam Christus de clavibus dicens, Matt. xviii. addit: ubicunque duo vel tres consenserint super terram etc.

worship, and enjoin its use on the people to whom they preach. All such regulations are of force only so far as the people themselves, in conjunction with their ministers, see fit to sanction and adopt them.

3. So too, in forming a constitution, or in enacting rules of procedure, or making canons, the people do not merely passively assent, but actively co-operate. They have, in all these matters, the same authority as the clergy.

4. And finally, in the exercise of the power of the keys, in opening and shutting the door of the communion with

Tribuit igitur principaliter claves ecclesiæ, et immediate; sicut et ob eam causam ecclesia principaliter habet jus vocationis.—Hase, Libri Symbolici, p. 345.

Ubicunque est ecclesia, ibi est jus administrandi evangelii. Quare necesse est, ecclesiam retinere jus vocandi et ordinandi ministros. Et hoc jus est donum proprie datum ecclesiæ, quod nulla humana auctoritas ecclesiæ eripere potest.—Ibid. p. 353.

the Church, the people have a decisive voice. In all cases of discipline, they are called upon to judge and to decide.

There can, therefore, be no doubt that Presbyterians do carry out the principle that Church power vests in the Church itself, and that the people have a right to a substantive part in its discipline and government. In other words, we do not hold that all power vests in the clergy, and that the people have only to listen and obey.

But is this a scriptural principle? Is it a matter of concession and courtesy, or is it a matter of divine right? Is our office of ruling elder only one of ex. pediency, or is it an essential element of our system, arising out of the very nature of the Church as constituted by God, and, therefore, of divine authority?

This, in the last resort, is, after all,

only the question, Whether the clergy are the Church, or whether the people are the Church. If, as Louis the XIV. said of France, "I am the State," the clergy can say, "We are the Church," then all Church power vests in them, as all civil power vested in the French monarch. But if the people are the State, civil power vests in them; and if the people are the Church, power vests in the people. If the clergy are priests and mediators, the channel of all divine communications, and the only medium of access to God, then all power is in their hands; but if all believers are priests and kings, then they have something more to do than merely passively to submit. So abhorrent is this idea of the clergy being the Church to the consciousness of Christians, that no definition of the Church for the first fif teen centuries after Christ, was ever

framed that even mentioned the clergy. This is said to have been first done by Canisius and Bellarmine.* Romanists define the Church to be "those who profess the true religion, and are subject to the Pope." Anglicans define it as "those who profess the true religion, and are subject to Prelates." The Westminster Confession defines the visible Church, "Those who profess the true religion, together with their children." In every Protestant symbol, Lutheran or Reformed, the Church is said to be the company of faithful men. Now, as a definition is the statement of the essential attributes or characteristics of a subject; and as, by the common consent of Protestants, the definition of the Church is complete without even mentioning the clergy, it is evidently the renunciation of the radical principles * Sherlock on the Nature of the Church, p. 36.