we shall be open to receive manuscripts upon the same subject from a different point of view, not as replies, but as distinct essays.

We again commend our work to the kind sympathy and support of our friends and of the public at large, in the earnest desire that, amidst a vast number of more pretentious and potent advocates, it may prove a humble instrument in disseminating the truth, and in advancing the spiritual kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ upon the earth.

EDITOR.

LOVE AND DUTY.

THERE are some characters (like the late Frederick W. Robertson) who so fully accept self-sacrifice as the law of Christian life, that they fail in reaching that deeper experience where obedience is seen to rest on love; to be so prompted by it, that it is no longer sacrifice but happiness; an experience realized by Him, who, amidst all the suffering of His life of selfsacrifice for us, could say, "I delight to do thy will, O! my God."

With Christians of the order referred to, their whole existence becomes a martyrdom to sadness, and they are thus deprived of that "joy and peace in believing," which are the peculiar legacy left by Christ to His disciples.

We cannot but reverence that stern devotion to duty which carries the soldier of the Cross through all opposing wrongs, as at the bayonet's point; yet we must feel that there is a stiller and holier region, more full of joy and love, which is the Christian's true home. It is noble to do our duty even unto death, but nobler still to have duty's sanction and spring in joyful love. R. W.

THE ROOT OF RITUALISM.

THOUGH, strictly, the root of all error is in the corruption of human nature, yet if we look for the predisposing and formal cause of Ritualism-that out of which it has grown-we find it in the fact that some observance of an outward baptism and supper having obtained in the transition-period of the infant Church, was exalted into permanency, and expanded into ritual. It is the doctrine of Christ, and not the judgment or conduct of his Church, that God conserves from error. He presents truth tentatively to man, even from Eden; and if, when we see the consequences in the Church as well as in the world, we are ready to lament that he does not force truth upon man, we must rest in his will. Objections can only be silenced, and doubts only tranquillized, by this acquiescence in the will of our God.

There was doubtless an athletic contest between the powers of darkness and of light to impede the establishment of a pure Christianity, and to corrupt it at the fountain. I venture to believe that the infant Church was successfully assaulted on its weak and Judaizing side, by the temptation to assume that material elements in outward rites were to be perpetuated under the Gospel dispensation, which is "rather glorious" because it is a "ministration of the Spirit." It purports to be administered through the Spirit, by Christ himself as Head of the Church, High-priest of our profession, and Bishop of souls. Its whole character is irremediably changed, materialized, and confused by this perpetuation of “the elements" in the spiritual house. No matter how simple was the first form of their use. By the sure

law of a development that would expand with the increasing corruption of the Church, any external observance would slide into an "ordinance," and then into a "sacrament." Between the essentiality of "sacraments" and the whole ceremonial of Ritualism, I see no stopping-place; and, logically, I believe there is none. Indeed, except in the one point of carrying out the extreme ritual of Rome within and in the name of a Church that has certainly put forth antiRoman protests, the Ritualists seem to me less blamable than they are commonly considered. At all events, they are consistent, and their system coheres, if outward elements have, on the authority of Christ, the abiding place in his Church which is all but universally given to them by Protestants themselves. Under the conditions of human nature, according to the temperaments of men and the phases of their times, the abuse of such elements may be pronounced to be, in the long-run, absolutely inseparable from their use. Even human sagacity might foresee that sacramental bread would rise to the stupendous idolatry that has made havoc of Christendom; and that baptismal water was the spring of a flood that should submerge a pure Christianity.

Can it, then, be believed that the Lord Jesus, who, as perfect God no less than perfect man, saw the end from the beginning, did ever institute an outward supper and baptism, whatever may have been the inferences and constructions, even of the early Church?

The common consent of the Churches, to the present hour, avails not with those who, after patient searching of the Scripture, have arrived at the conviction that this common consent is contrary to the mind of Christ. In like manner, the few who hold that his law forbids men to kill one another in war,

cannot give up that belief because the Churches and their ministers believe and teach otherwise; but must hold their own conviction that this killing is not a Christian ordinance, unique and almost grotesque as their peculiarity may seem when opposed to the consensus of their fellow-professors. Of course, had there been direct evidence that our Lord designed to ritualize, by the elements, his spiritual dispensation, we must have accepted that design as one of the mysteries of the faith. So also must we have ignored all contrary deductions, whether from the very nature of a spiritual administration, from the tenor of Gospel teaching, and from the analogy that compares spiritual things with spiritual. Or had the apostles given such direct evidence, it would be conclusive upon those who receive the revelation that the holy city of truth hath twelve foundations, and in them the names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb. But if it can be shown that no such direct evidence is to be found in the New Testament, then the dispensation of the Gospel becomes, as the ministration of the Spirit, homogeneous and consistent.

But otherwise, while we must receive whatever is clear upon the record, the importation of the ritual into the spiritual would still remain a marvel for the exercise of the most submissive faith. Our Lord remarkably avoided all institutes in relation to the services in his Church. So far as we know, he did not prescribe even any mode of its worship: he emphatically taught that it must be in spirit and in truth, but left the matter there. He has revealed that his supper is spiritual ("I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me," Rev. iii. 20), and his baptism, the "one baptism" that abides, is administered by himself exclusively. It is his own distinctive prerogative, and, being a divine ministration, it marks him as the Son of God.

John's testimony is precise and unmistakable," "He that sent me to baptize with water, the same said unto me, Upon whom thou shalt see the Spirit descending, and remaining on him, the same is he which baptizeth with the Holy Ghost: and I saw, and bare record that this is the Son of God" (John i. 33). And if the disciples, after that pouring out upon them of the same Holy Ghost, consequent on the ascension of Jesus, were to perform the same and even "greater works," was it not by being "endued with power from on high" to preach baptizingly, that, as they spoke, the Holy Ghost might fall on them that heard their words?

Certainly our Lord's manner of dealing with his disciples seems greatly condescending to their Judaizing weakness. Foreseeing the anomalies of their transition-period, he appears to allow them, he even contemplates their continuance of some sort of passover-supper, without rebuke, while admonishing them, so long as they did continue it ("so oft as ye do it"), to do it not in prospect, but in retrospect, of his death. It might be, as appears by the context, a life-long observance by those to whom he spoke, till he came and received them unto himself. As all things were to be brought to remembrance by the Spirit, in that ministration of the Spirit rather than all others " glorious," it certainly would appear a signal wonder if there had been an institute for periodical reminders, by outward symbols, of the grand event of all! That event must lie at the heart and abide in the memory of every one who has found by his Saviour's death reconciliation with God. It is his theme, his rejoicing, and his continual feast. He needs as much that he should be reminded of his daily meal, as of the necessity of his faith to feed on the atonement. The "decease accomplished at Jerusalem" is so