be no presiding elder; and then nothing could be done, since the presiding elder is at the head of everything. You have an express law that "missionaries shall not be eligible for the office of presiding elder in any circuit." You must either, therefore, dispense with this law, and indeed with most of the rest, or your missionary can make no progress in his work. In fact, you cannot employ a missionary in a strange country without allowing him to exercise all the prerogatives of a New Testament evangelist, or Conference preacher. But I suppose he must create a posse of Protestant officers as soon as possible; must resign his power into their hands; and, instead of instructing and governing them any longer, must beg of them to teach and guide him in the way to heaven. This looks rather queer! What an edifying spectacle it would be to see an English missionary led in strings by a troop of Hottentot elders! This would illustrate the modern cant on the march of mind; and if I were in their rear with a good rod, I would do my best to provoke them to a quick march!

But you will think, perhaps, that though the government of the church at first by missionaries might be very proper, yet, when it had attained to maturity, some alteration would be necessary. I am inclined to think, however, that it would not argue much maturity in either grace or modesty, to make the founders of churches the lackeys of their converts.

The New Testament contains an account of churches in a state of maturity, as well as in a state of infancy, without dropping a hint respecting the adoption of 'any such regimen as your rules prescribe. We are informed of the formation of a church at Ephesus in Acts xix., by the apostle Paul, who remained there three years. About a year after he had left them, he sent for the elders to meet him at Miletus; and they must have been rather numerous, as in his address to them, he says, “Ye all,” which would not have been proper, if spoken only to two or three. It will not be disputed, I presume, that these elders were put into office by St.

Paul during his stay at Ephesus. About four years afterwards he wrote an epistle to this church, in which he speaks of evangelists, the next in order after the extraordinary officers of apostles and prophets, " For the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ." The first epistle to Timothy, according to the best chronologers, was written about nine years, and the second epistle about ten years, after the church of Ephesus was planted. Nine or ten years is long enough for a church to be in its minority; in this time it may attain to a great degree of stability; and elders of this standing must be fit to take the supreme government out of the hands of the missionaries, if it were the intention of the Head of the church that they should rise to that dignity. Among the Protestants an elder is supposed to be qualified to domineer over an evangelist, as soon as he has been put into office; and it is not necessary he should be in the church long before he become an elder. "Elders must be preachers; but a person may begin to preach in a year or two after joining the society; as a preacher, he must be on probation for a year, and may then be put upon the plan; and when on the plan, he is eligible for the office of elder Three or four years' standing in the church, then, is all that is necessary, as regards time, to raise a man above an evangelist. Eight or ten years' practice as an elder in the church of Ephesus, and two or three of them spent under the tuition of an apostle, one would think, after making some handsome allowances for the precocity of genius which distinguishes this astonishing age, would be amply sufficient to put him on an equality with a Protestant elder. But Timothy, at the time these epistles were addressed to him, was at Ephesus; and instead of a committee of elders governing him, we have seen that he exercised authority over them.

About thirty years after this, our Saviour addressed a letter, through the medium of the apostle John, to the angel of the church at Ephesus. To explain exactly what may be meant by the word angel, in this

and the other six epistles, would be rather a difficult task. A few things, however, are plain enough. 1. That the government of a church was in the hands of the angel. That this officer must have been the highest, is evident from the circumstance that he had a power to try those who came to his church with apostolical pretensions. This was a point upon which no inferior could have a right to decide; because, if the pretensions of the stranger were valid, he would, as an apostle, exercise supreme authority during his stay; and in order to this, he must submit his testimonials to the examination of the officer whose situation he intended to occupy. If his majesty were to send a person to supersede the governor of a colony, his credentials would not be submitted to the scrutiny of a constable, but would be presented to the governor. Now it belonged to the angel to investigate the powers of any who might come to his church in the character of apostles; and for doing this he is highly commended by our Lord: "Thou hast tried them which say they are apostles, and are not, and hast found them liars." (Rev. ii. 2.) The angel of the church in Thyatira is blamed for suffering wicked people to remain in communion with him; from which it is manifest that he had power to put them away, and ought to have done it. (Rev. ii. 20-23.) 2. The supreme power was in the hands of one person: the angel, not angels; it was, consequently, not exercised by a committee of elders, of leaders, or local preachers.

Here let us pause for a moment. The church of Ephesus had existed about forty years when our Lord sent this epistle to its chief officer. Elders had been in it from the first; but they are never noted as its chief rulers. If any of the primitive elders were living at this time, they must have been from sixty to eighty years of age; and if at that time of life, after forty years' experience in the office of the eldership, they were not intrusted with supreme authority, the fact furnishes a moral certainty, that God never intended to subject his church to their sway. At the end of ten years this

church was governed by one person; at the end of forty years, and towards the close of the first century, it was still governed by one person. The church by this time was pretty well established, and its extraordinary helps were fast declining; the apostles were all dead but one, and he was tottering over the grave. If the Head of the church intended any alteration to be made in its polity, because of its altered circumstances, as this was his last revelation to it, it was the proper time to notify it. But not a word on the subject. There were abuses in some of the churches, it is true; but he left these in each church to be corrected by the angel of it, and never thought of the expedient hit upon by our Solomons, of putting all to rights by raising to the supremacy a committee of elders.*

* No sect has ever taken such liberties with the sacred writings, as the papists have done, in the framing of their church polity. And as our Protestant neighbours are perpetually charging us with being papists, without attempting to show wherein our system agrees with theirs, I will take the liberty to remind them, that they are much more nearly related than we are, to the mother of harlots.

Who is the head of the Roman church? a travelling preacher, like our president? Quite the reverse. He resembles your president, and has the cares of this world upon him, as well as the care of the churches. He is both a temporal and spiritual sovereign; and has quite as much to do with secular concerns as ecclesiastical. Thus the head of your church, like the pope, is immersed in the business of life; and neither the popish nor the Protestant head is wholly devoted to the ministry. It is the union of temporals with spirituals that has made the pope what he is. His temporal power has been increased by his spiritual, and his spiritual, by his temporal; and their mutual co-operation, acting incessantly for centuries, have made him the greatest tyrant, over both the bodies and souls of men, that ever existed. Had he been restricted to mere spirituals, he would have been comparatively a harmless animal. Your presiding elder is a pope in miniature. The child is only just born; he is sickly, and likely to die; but should he survive he will grow, and may in time become another giant grim. There was a period when a pope of Rome was not a much more important personage than a Protestant elder.

Who possess the legislative power in the Roman church? Not evangelists, nor, itinerant ministers, as with us; but the three orders of bishops, priests, and deacons, with the pope at their head,

It will perhaps be taken for granted by the Protestants, that the angels were presiding elders. It must be

in council assembled. And three orders of officers possess this power amongst you,-elders, local preachers, and leaders, assembled in the yearly meeting; for you can scarcely have a person sent to this meeting who does not belong to one of these orders, except two or three missionaries; and I have shown that they possess no legislative power. The names of the officers in the two churches differ; but in substance they agree. The first order in each communion, means the same class of officers; among the papists they are called bishops, and among the Protestants, elders; but Mr. Leach, and your people, generally, admit that in the New Testament these two names denote the same office. An elder, then, is a bishop; and a presiding elder, a presiding bishop, or, like the bishop of Rome when he presides,-a pope. The second order among the papists are priests, who conduct public worship, preach, and administer the sacraments; and this is the business of your second order, the preachers, who are subject to the elders, just as the Romish priests are to their bishops. The deacons of the papists form their third order, and are a grade below the priests; and the leaders form your third order, and are a grade below the preachers.

Who possess the executive power in the Roman church? The same three orders which make the laws, administer them. The pope, with his council of local officers at Rome, called cardinals, govern their church; and these cardinals represent the three orders of bishops, priests, and deacons. Hence some of the cardinals are bishops, others are of the order of priests, and others have only been ordained deacons. Here again you exactly imi.. tate the papists; the administration of your laws being in the hands of those who made them-the elders, preachers, and leaders. You know how violently your rulers have declaimed against us, under the pretence that the same persons who make the laws ad. minister them; and yet they have adopted the very principle themselves, against which they have been vociferating till we are nearly deafened.

What has been objected against us, on this head, is not true. Our trustees, leaders, stewards, and local preachers, have much to do in the execution of our discipline, although they have nothing to do in the enacting of it. The Conference in a few cases administer the laws as well as make them; and this is in exact accordance with our political system, to which your people are perpetually appealing. Every one has heard of the high court of parliament, and of causes which have been tried before it. Our preachers preside in our spiritual courts; and members of parliainent are often magistrates, and preside on the bench. The objections urged against us, therefore, will equally apply to the civil