ing that the minister's original title to officiate, which he and all Christians possess in their character of believers, is simply human; and that the other part of his commission, that which accrues to him through election and admission to office, that this is the divine element in his appointment. This great error—this portentous reversal of the prime canon of regenerated Christendom—has been the origin of all the ecclesiastical usurpation which has arisen since the days of the Reformation. It is certainly a prodigious confusion to suppose that ecclesiastical affairs have any sort of reaction upon the constitutional character of those to whose care their administration has been intrusted. But it is a natural confusion, and one which requires to be most sedulously guarded against, if we would retain the two titles of our ministry in their Protestant places, and preserve the blessings of the Reformation. That these affairs react, often with the most salutary effects, upon the personal character of the ministry—this is not to be disputed.
There are two points of view under which ecclesiastical affairs fall to be regarded in the theory of the Reformation—their administration and their legislation. Spiritual administration is the proper and peculiar province of the ministry: and its most important departments are preaching, and the dispensation of the sacraments. There can be no doubt that these, and analogous duties, are the special business of the clerical profession. It is precisely to perform these duties that ministers are appointed to their vocation. Here, then, no other class of persons can interfere. But a question arises, in regard to the legislation of ecclesiastical matters—Is this to be left exclusively in the hands of the office-bearers of religion? There can be no doubt as to the terms in which the Reformers of the church of Scotland answered that question. According to them, the legislation of the church is not to be left exclusively, or anything like exclusively, in the hands of the clergy. The clergy, indeed, are not to be excluded from the legislative council. That would have been preposterous. The ministers of a church have a particular interest in its legislation—are to be presumed to have an especial knowledge of the best way in which that should be conducted. But they are not to be presumed to have an exclusive interest in ecclesiastical legislation—an exclusive knowledge of what is best for the church.
