part into the field of our present discussion. That the accomplishment of such a reunion, so far as practical difficulties are concerned, might almost be achieved to-morrow, will be every thoughtful Scotsman's conviction. But that it does intrude in a minor degree cannot be wholly denied. For, in contemplating reunion, it is undoubtedly important that the different branches of the Presbyterian Church should have a common understanding as to what precisely they hold, and what discipline precisely they will enforce, with regard to the Orders of their clergy. That every Church entitled to general recognition as a true branch of the Presbyterian Church must hold and put into practice clearly defined views as to the necessity of a duly ordered ministry, and a ministerial succession secured by adequate safeguards, no one will deny. The very word presbyterian implies it, and the acknowledged standards of the Church have prescribed it. There could be no more unambiguous definition of the position of the Church with regard to this matter than is to be found in the Form of Presbyterial Church Government and of Ordination of Ministers agreed upon by the Westminster Assembly of Divines, and approved by an Act of the General Assembly of 1645. Under the heading Touching the Doctrine of Ordination' we read that 'No man ought to take upon him the office of a minister of the Word without a lawful calling '; 'Ordination is always to be continued in the Church'; 'Every minister of the Word is to be ordained by imposition of hands, and prayer, with fasting, by these preaching presbyters to whom it doth belong.' These are but a few of a series of regulations which, as is historically demonstrable, have been systematically and painstakingly carried out throughout the subsequent centuries in the Church of Scotland.

With regard to one brief period antecedent to 1645, it may be acknowledged that there is an element of doubt. In the First Book of Discipline (1561) there was a clause to the effect that the imposition of hands was not an essential of the Act of Ordination. But this difficulty is less grave than might appear. For, in the first place, the Books of Discipline were never sanctioned by the Scots Estates'; in the second place, the Second Book of Discipline (1581) as imperatively enjoined the imposition of hands as its predecessor had disallowed the ceremony; and in the third place, there are considerations which render the possible breaches of practice in the doubtful years of secondary importance. Among these considerations are the following: The period was immediately post-Reformation, and, in the words of that fair-minded Episcopalian writer of Scottish Church History, the late Mr. Stephen, a considerable number . . . of the Protestant ministers had been priests of the Catholic Church, and may be supposed to have carried with them the virtue of their orders.' Moreover, there is evidence that the encouragement to laxity which the First Book of Discipline afforded was not very extensively taken advantage of, even in the few years of its partial authority. In 1571, halfway

through this period, we have it, on the authority of Erskine, Superintendent of Angus, that imposition of hands was the custom even at that time; whilst the Assembly of 1571 enjoined a public and solemn form of ordination.' The late Dr. Leishman, in an able argument, has made it clear that the proportion of irregularly ordained clergy at any time must have been negligibly small. And herein is one of the virtues of the Presbyterian system, according to which a number of presbyters take part in the ordaining act; for, granted the presence among the assembled presbyters of one or two whose manner of ordination may have been questionable; still, there would be present a far greater proportion of others whose Orders were unimpeachable; and these, by their participation, would secure valid ordinations when the universal imposition of hands was resumed.

Thus it is clear that, from the Reformation to the present day, the ritual and discipline of the Church of Scotland have provided ample safeguards for the valid transmission of ministerial Orders. These Orders she has received through the more ancient Church-Roman for a time, as it were by affiliation, but derivatively Celtic and indigenous. That Scottish Orders were and are presbyterially rather than prelatically conferred only strengthens our belief in their validity and in their immunity from corruption. The contention is one perhaps which Anglicanism may combat, but which is implicitly countenanced by Rome herself, when she proclaims that the presbyterate, not the episcopate, is the highest of her seven orders, and is the radical order of the ministry, and that there are but two generic orders-the presbyter or bishop, and the deacon.

So far, then, it is plain that the reformed Church of Scotland has always maintained, and to-day maintains, a clear and definite view with regard to the importance of Orders, and the necessity of their proper transmission. Of their necessity, and of, in her own case, their validity, she is in no manner of doubt or uncertainty whatever. But what is of importance, in view of schemes of proposed reunion, is to secure that this definite attitude with regard to Orders shall be similarly upheld and valued by those other Churches calling themselves Presbyterian with which she might come into alliance or coalition. Rumours which reach us from here and there of indifference of opinion and laxity of practice in this matter may or may not be well founded. If they be unfounded, the matter ends; but if, on the other hand, there should prove to be branches of the Christian Church calling themselves Presbyterian in which a laxity of practice obtains, it is undoubtedly the part of the Mother Church, and of those who hold along with her, not only to 'brace up' opinion on this point, and discountenance infidelity to the traditional and accepted theory of Presbyterian discipline, but even to contest the right to recognition as integral portions of the Presbyterian comity of those bodies which offend in so vital a particular.

Let it be clearly understood that what we have said in no sense constitutes a claim, on behalf of the Church of Scotland, to any disciplinary dictatorship among Presbyterian Churches. The appeal made to her practice is purely historical; and we justify it because that practice has been historically consecutive since the Reformation. The argument, however, extends still further back; for the practice for which we contend is in the fullest accord with the ideal laid down by John Calvin, the historical resuscitator of Presbyterianism, the fourth centenary of whose birth we are on the eve of celebrating. To Calvin belongs the honour of reviving the Presbyterian polity after a slumber of fourteen hundred years. There is perhaps no more loosely and ignorantly applied term in ecclesiastical language than that of 'Calvinism.' In the average polemic of the average English dabbler in theology it is a mere term of abuse, for which any other truculent expletive would be a suitable equivalent. It is used in depreciation of Scottish theology, in forgetfulness of the fact that the basis of the Anglican Articles is Calvinistic, and that the less lovely severities of Calvinism were intruded upon Scotland by the violence of English Puritans. So far as Calvin's influence controlled the Scottish theory of Orders, it was in the direction of what would be called in modern speech High-Churchism.' Laud himself was, in a sense, a no keener High Churchman than John Calvin. The character of the Church as a divinely constituted organism was so strongly held by Calvin that from his works we can easily deduce the formula 'out of the Church, no salvation.' The theory of the divine right of presbytery came to Scotland direct from Calvin and Geneva through Andrew Melville. The spirit of Calvin, the reviver of presbytery, lived again in Andrew Melville.

It is the stamp of Melville rather than that of Knox which has proved the more permanent in Scottish ecclesiastical polity. Andrew Melville was John Calvin translated into Scots. He formulated a thoroughly uncompromising theory of the divine right of the Presbyterian autonomy. The contemporary claim put forward in England for the divine right of episcopacy was strictly analogous to the claim advanced in Scotland on behalf of presbytery. One is, in fact, struck by the contrast in this respect between the attitude of the Reformation period towards these matters, both in England and Scotland, and the much more uncompromising spirit which sprang up at a later period. In the earlier times, the feeling in the Church of England towards Presbyterian Churches was generous and comprehensive. 'The English Articles,' said Dean Stanley, are so expressed as to include the recognition of Presbyterian ministers. The first English Act of Uniformity was passed with the express view of securing their services to the English Church. The first English Reformers, and the statesmen of Elizabeth, would have been astonished at any claim of exclusive sanctity for the episcopal order.' The Church of Scotland' was (and

'

still is) included in the bidding prayer.' Similarly, in Scotland, John Knox, whilst preferring the type of Church government which he had seen under Calvin in Geneva, held no brief for unadulterated presbytery as such; certainly never asserted its exclusive divine right; cultivated friendly relations with the Anglican Church and even with Scottish prelates; himself ministered for a time in an English parish; was offered, and declined, the living of All Hallows, London, and the bishopric of Rochester; acted as one of Edward the Sixth's chaplains; and sent his sons to Cambridge to be educated for the English ministry. The role of Hildebrand in Scotland was reserved for Andrew Melville, not for Knox; in England, for Laud, not for Cranmer. One turns with a sigh of envy to the civilities of the earlier days, when the two lands and the two Churches lived together in brotherly toleration, with but one aim-Reform; and one common aversion the Pope of Rome. It is well to remember that the battle of Orders in our country is not a Reformation battle; it belongs to a later and more pragmatical epocb.

The question may here be asked-and it is an important onewhich of these two views most generally obtains among those who are entitled to speak for Presbyterianism at the present day? Can we define our position with sufficient clearness to enable us to go to the rest of the Catholic Church and say 'This is where we stand with regard to Orders: let us compare our position with yours?' I think it is fairly safe to say that we still hold, with Calvin, that Orders are a necessity of the organisation of the Church; that they originated in apostolic times and have been unbrokenly perpetuated since; and that ordination by the laying on of the hands of the presbytery is Scriptural, and is indubitably valid. But while we hold with Calvin that presbytery is of divine right, we do not hold with him that it is of exclusive divine right; while we hold the validity of Presbyterian Orders, we do not simultaneously declare the invalidity of Orders otherwise conferred. We combine, in fact, the High-Churchism of Calvin and Melville with the Broad-Churchism of Knox. We go perhaps even further than either, and lay a greater stress than either on the Evangelical contention that a spiritual vocation is of an even paramount importance of such importance that its absence might make an ordination, otherwise perfect and unexceptionable in form, spiritually invalid. To this, as an approximate statement of the Presbyterian position, one might be reasonably confident of obtaining the assent of the majority of Presbyterians to-day, at any rate in Scotland; and, not improbably, of Presbyterians beyond the seas as well.

If, then, we, on our part, have reverted to the attitude of the Reformation rather than to that of Melville and the post-Reformers, can we say that those who hold to an episcopal polity have in any degree reverted to an attitude similar to that of the Episcopalians of the same era? The visible signs of this desirable change are not so numerous as might be desired. Yet undoubtedly there are some, even

on the surface; and there are still more beneath the surface, evident to those who have opportunities for watching the undercurrents of ecclesiastical drift, and the vigorous searchings of heart on this subject which are in process among earnest men in the Reformed Episcopal Churches.

What evidences have we of this? Let me adduce one of recent date and very considerable significance. As we all know, there was held at Lambeth last autumn an Ecumenical Council of Anglican Bishops. At the inception of the Congress its members met for common worship in Westminster Abbey, and a distinguished scholar, the present Dean of Westminster, was chosen to be preacher. His very subject was significant- The Vision of Unity'; and still more so were the following passages in his sermon :

It is plain (he said) that we cannot abandon what we have hitherto declared to be the four essential characteristics of our position-the Holy Scriptures, the two great creeds, the two great sacraments, and the historic episcopate. But we can and ought to recognise that where the first three are found, and where there is also an ordered ministry, guarded by the solemn imposition of hands, there our differences are not so much matters of faith as matters of discipline, and ought with humility and patience to be capable of adjustment. A fuller recognition on the one side of a charismatic ministry, which God has plainly owned and blessed; a fuller recognition on the other side of the permanent value of an episcopacy which has long since ceased to be a prelacy; a readiness on both sides to arrive at some temporary agreement which might ultimately issue in a common ministry, regular in the historic sense, though admitting the possibility of separate organisations and exempt jurisdictions-given such recognitions and such readiness, and what a prospect of reconciliation at no distant future opens out before us !

This eloquent and magnanimous utterance, spoken from Stanley's pulpit on an occasion whose importance was a guarantee that every word would be well pondered and well weighed, encountered, so far as I am aware, no hostile criticism; but, on the contrary, many signs of approval. Yet, more than once in the course of it, we meet with the word 'recognition '-a word which, to my mind, embodies the crux of the whole position. Dean Armitage Robinson advocates the 'recognition' of a charismatic ministry, which God has plainly owned and blessed.' He defines such a ministry as an ordered ministry, guarded by the solemn imposition of hands'; and the fact that it is presbyterially rather than episcopally conferred he regards, if I read his words aright, as a matter of ' discipline' rather than one of 'faith'-capable of subsequent adjustment. Of course it is obviously the personal view of this eminent author that what is ultimately to be desired is the general adoption of episcopal ordination in that united British Church which is the present limit of his dream. But that is another matter; our dialectic point is this, that during the transition period he advocates the 'recognition' of presbyterian Orders. It might be objected that the Dean does not here employ