teacher, was set over the church as leader or ruler. We are told of the elder that "ruled " well. In some sense the bishop was made head of the church in which he ruled. Now if a woman were put in the place of the bishop, she would be head, leader, ruler of her own husband, a violation of the law, (I. Cor. xiv. 34; Gen. iii. 16), a violation of the order and intent of creation. I. Tim. ii, 13, 14. For this seems to be the one grand reason of the prohibition, that it makes woman the head of the man. It is this that makes it a shame for them to speak. But suppose the woman have no husband? She has a father, it may be, or some one who is head. And then, the prohibition gets force, too, not alone from the marital relation, but from the order of creation. Adam was first formed, then Eve. Man is ever to be first. The bishopric, that highest place of honor on earth, belongs to him alone.

IV. Does the office of bishop in the text have any similarity with the office bearing the same name in modern church building? None whatever. One bishop in modern episcopacy implies several churches. One New Testament church implies several bishops. The modern bishop implies a union of local churches under one name and government. The New Testament bishop belonged to his own local church, and the union of the churches of a state or country in one is unknown in Apostolic times. We have not the "church of Galatia," "the church of Judea," but the

66 churches." Each one was separate, independent, having no bond of union in itself or beyond itself except the possession of a common experience in the membership of the redemptive power of Jesus, faith in whom was expressed and confessed by baptism. The churches existed for a time without officers. And now, when these come to be bestowed, bishops and deacons alone are given. The same authority which it took to introduce the elder would have been required to promote an officer over him. And if that authority was ever exercised, we have no record of it. Again, from the qualifications left us for church officers, we gather that there were but two orders, bishops and deacons. Where in the New Testament do we find the qualifications for a dean, or a presiding elder, for an arch-bishop or for a pope; where for a class-leader, or a circuit-rider? There are rules for just two officers, and to take those in Timothy referring to the bishop, and to apply them to any one else than the local preacher, ruling a single local body, is a palpable misuse of them. The New Testament knows but two officers for the church of which the bishop is head, but head of the local church only. And here he is over men, too, his equals in Christ. They do not call him master.

We find qualifications for but two officers. Inci dentally those of an Apostle are mentioned, but in such a way as to show that the office was limited to

the cotemporaries of Jesus. Acts i. 21, 22. In the case of Paul, there was a miraculous manifestation of the risen Lord, nothing short of which could give another Apostle. Prophets and evangelists are mentioned, but are nowhere given any official connection with the church. They were only church members, having these special gifts, the prophets in more than one case being women, to whom the official relations of the eldership were denied.

It is trifling to attempt to break the force of this argument from the qualifications by saying that none are prescribed for church clerk, church treasurer or sexton. These are not church officers, or only so much so as the servants of the family,-necessary to it, numbered with it, but not having a vital relation.

But the Scriptures speak of both elders and bishops. They never contrast these words, never conjoin them. But they do distinctly identify them. The bishop is an elder, as Titus i 5, compared with 7, or Acts xx. 17, compared with 28, distincly shows.

Finally, the Apostolic salutation, in the epistle to the Philippians, is instructive, both as to the organization of the church, and the relative dignity of the church and its officers. The address is as follows: "Paul * * to all the saints

at Philippi

with the bishops and deacons." He mentions first the saints, or church, secondly the bishops, and thirdly the deacons. The epistle was not among the earlier

ones, as that to the Thessalonians, but written when the church in Philippi was fully organized. On this passage Dean Alford, himself a Churchman, comments: "The simple juxtaposition of the officers with the members of the church, and indeed their being placed after these members, shows, as it still seems to me, against Ellicott, in loc., the absence of hierarchical views such as those in the epistles of the Apostolic fathers." When, then, Paul wrote the text, he had one of the two officers of Christ's church in mind, an officer of the local body only, and possessed only of so much authority as gave him the front rank of his own brethren in Christ,—a simple, beautiful relation, like that of a father in his own family. And one of the marvellous features of the perversity of the human heart is, that while the spirit of Christ is simplifying human governments, lifting up the masses and limiting the rulers; while the Lord's prayer, "Our Father which art in heaven," is fostering and bringing on a universal brotherhood; in the church in some quarters the opposite tendency is at work, and all the machinery of tyranny exists. How strange that there is in the world a strong tendency toward that simple form of government which God loves, while in some religious realms the tendency is the contrary way!--the children of this world wiser than the children of light.

THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN A BAPTIST CHURCH AND ALL OTHER CHURCHES.

BY THOMAS HENDERSON PRITCHARD, D.D., PRESIDENT OF WAKE FOREST COLLEGE, N. C.

"It was needful for me to write unto you, and exhort you that ye should earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints."-Jude i. 3.

To

"No religious denomination has a moral right to a separate existence unless it differs essentially from others. Ecclesiastical differences ought always to spring from profound doctrinal differences. divide Christians, except for reasons of great import, is criminal schism. Sects are justifiable only for matters of conscience, growing out of clear Scriptural precept or inevitable logical inference. Human speculation, tradition, authority of pope, or council, or synod, or conference, or legislature, is no proper basis for an organization of Christians. Nothing short of the truth of revelation, the authoritative force of God's word, rising above mere prejudice, or passion, or caprice, can justify a distinct church organization."

We accept this luminous statement of an important truth, made by Dr. J. L. M. Curry in a recent premium

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