Subscriptions and Donations in aid of the General Baptist Missionary Society will be thankfully received by Robert Pegg, Esq., Treasurer, Derby; and by the Rev. J. C. Pike and the Rev. H. Wilkinson, Secretaries, Leicester: from whom also Missionary Boxes, Collecting Books, and Cards may be obtained.

THE maintenance of public worship, and the law and government of Christian churches, present still further points of difference between us and the many in Christendom. Upon these differences our remarks shall be brief. We hold that religion is to be maintained by voluntary, not compulsory, support, by free-will offerings, not tax or tithe. I need scarcely stop to remind you that the Lord's house and the Lord's service require support, and that a portion of our substance is to be consecrated to this end. Religious worship has always needed aid and sustenance from the material resources God puts into the hands of his people, and they are called upon to offer willingly unto Him of his own gracious gifts. It was so in the days of ancient Israel. The tabernacle was reared in the wilderness by the free offerings of the people. The temple was built in the promised land by voluntary offerings. Its priesthood, sacrifice, service, were maintained by willing hearts and ready hands. The proportion of the gift was fixed, the kind and order of sacrifice and service were prescribed, but no forced levy was made of money, or produce, or cattle. The tithe was a matter between man and God, not between man and man. It was not a tax, like certain rates made by our Anglican church. It was not recoverable by any civil process, by any action at law. It was not even a bargain between man and man, like our seatrent. It was left to man's own conscience whether it was paid or not. No civil officer, no constable or magistrate, interposed when the offering was withheld. It was the prophet who was sent to summon the recreant people to return unto the Lord, the prophet who in God's name denounced the covetousness and sin of Israel, and said, "Will a man rob God? Yet ye have robbed me. But ye say, Wherein have we robbed thee? In tithes and offerings. Ye are cursed with a curse; for ye have robbed me, even this whole nation. Bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse, that there may be meat in mine house, and prove me now herewith saith the VOL. LXVII.-NEW SERIES, No. 14.

Lord of Hosts, if I will not open you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing that there shall not be room enough to receive it." Here is an appeal to conscience and the voluntary principle. Under the New Testament dispensation this principle is equally in operation. Those who were taught in the word were to maintain their teachers. Those who received "spiritual things" were to support with "carnal things" the servants of God from whom they received them. But there was no compulsion, no rate or tax. It was willingly, cheerfully, from loving and liberal hearts, that wealth was to be offered to God and the service of his house.

Now upon this we take our stand: many of us know at what cost to some who have held the same principle. In our day we have seen the seizure of goods, the trial and imprisonment of honest conscientious men for refusal to pay taxes in support of a State church believed to uphold and teach fatal error. In our day legal proceedings have been pressed to severest issues in the name of a religion whose God declares he hates robbery for a burnt-offering, and has pleasure only in the free gifts of his people. Our fathers tell us of still sterner sufferings endured for conscience' sake. And Baptists alone of the older denominations seem to have clean hands in this matter. They among the first, if not themselves the first, maintained complete liberty of conscience and the voluntariness of the support of religious worship. Congregationalists in the time of the Commonwealth expressed their "utter dislike and abhorrence of a universal toleration ;" and some of them in New England made "standing orders," levied rates for the church, and banished Baptists and Quakers from their midst, driving them to exile, famine, and death. To the voluntary principle we still firmly adhere. If men of piety endow a church, we say let the endowment stand. It is a gift sacred to religious But if to endowment of estate or tithe no title can be found save a legal enactment, let it revert to the people, for from the pockets of the people it originally came. Let Cæsar take his own and use it in his own way; but let God have his, and by the method he has enjoined and approved. Religion will not suffer. Free gifts are far better than tax or tithe, and are worth far more. The greater part of the accommodation for religious worship that now exists in our land has been provided by voluntary offerings, and even the State church falls back upon them as the best means of extension.

uses.

But the voluntary principle does not mean that some of you may escape, that you may give or not give to the Lord's treasury and be faithful to Him. You are bad scholars in this school, you show an imperfect apprehension of Christian obligation, if you close your hearts and purses against appeals to your liberality on behalf of the church, or suffer your place in God's house to be vacant when contributions are gathered. It is not upon the few, upon the rich or wealthy only that the duty is laid to supply the treasury of the church. Every one, as God has prospered him, is to aid in this work, and the widow's mite is esteemed of heaven more than the splendid donations of the millionaire.

But again, and briefly, we maintain that Scripture, and not tradition or human law, is the rule of faith and practice in religion. I speak not now with respect to mere arrangement of divine service, to style of architecture, to times and seasons of worship, or to minor details of organization. In these things we must follow good taste, convenience, decency,

The

fitness. I speak of religious doctrine and religious ordinances. word of God in all such matters is our sole authority and guide. This is acknowledged by the whole Protestant church. But it is not acted upon where tradition is accepted as an authoritative interpreter of Scripture in disregard of the plain meaning of its words to the honest and simple reader. It is not acted upon where the decision of a church as a clerical corporation, or a State institution, or the decrees of synods and councils are raised to the level of Scripture rules. It is not acted upon where any custom or practice prevails and is distinctly taught and enjoined for which no precedent or precept can be found in the word of God. Where, for example, is the Scripture warrant for infant sprinkling, for the rite of confirmation, for sponsorial vows, for the doctrine of sacramental efficacy, for an order of priests in the Christian church, for forced contributions for the promulgation of a gospel of grace? We would try every doctrine and ceremony by the touchstone of divine truth, and reject as corrupt and worthless whatsoever will not bear this test. Our watchword is, "To the law and to the testimony; if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them."

But finally, and still briefly, we hold that churches should manage their own affairs and administer their own government without the interference or control of the State. The province of the State is to protect life, person, and property, and provide for the good order and social welfare of the people. The province of the church is to maintain religious worship and ordinances, to guard her own purity and life by administering the laws and discipline of Christ, and to propagate religion in the world. The State has to do with temporal things, the church with 'spiritual. In all religious faith and observance we are to obey God rather than man, while we honour and obey the powers that be in the province of secular affairs. And Christian churches are best able to conduct their own discipline and government. They are composed of men enlightened by the word and Spirit of God, and better know their own wants and the law and will of God than any council of State, or mixed body of men in Parliament assembled. A State church, from the element of worldliness which will enter into its rule, can scarcely profess to guarantee that godliness shall be a pre-requisite to the holding of her livings. She vests them in the hands of patrons, she allows them to be bought and sold, she makes merchandise of spiritual offices, and does unholy traffic in the cure of souls. A State church cannot fairly and in accordance with Scripture enforce "godly discipline." The Bishop of Salisbury, in a recent charge, laments that "not only is there at present no attempt in our church to exercise discipline, but the very idea of discipline as an appointment of our Lord seems to have almost lost its place in our religious system." Dr. Pusey, in denouncing the judgment of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council in the case of certain Essayists and Reviewers, admits that there is no improbability in supposing that the "highest judicial functions in the church" should be exercised "by an unbeliever, or a misbeliever, or an evil liver;" and he says, "Let the church ask for the liberties dissenters enjoy." Moreover, a State church is always prone to persecute. In her worldly alliance she is too apt to fall back upon worldly means of propagation and defence. Assailed or alarmed, her hand grasps the sword of Cæsar rather than the sword of the Spirit. For it is in the very nature of state religions to seek the co-operation of state power. Nebuchadnezzar sets up his golden image, and thrusts into the fiery