necessities of society, to one of the essential elements of life, requires special men exclusively devoted to that office.*

2. Every community requires and supposes officers, a government. That government may be composed of only one class of persons, or of many; may be more or less rational, more or less perfect. It matters not, the principle remains : and a society without government, a society having rules, and no one to maintain or represent them, is perhaps more inconceivable than a government without a rule which limits and directs its own action.

II. 1. The office of the ministry can not, in general, be carried to its true perfection except by men who are exclusively devoted to it; and, in general, many things can only be accomplished by such men.

2. In times when religion, cultivated scientifically, has become itself a science-when, having formed a multitude of relations to private and public life, it is charged with a mass of details and applications, it is difficult for the ministry to be well and completely discharged by a man who is not exclusively a minister.

3. There is, in the work of the ministry, a limit at which each one, or the greater number, will stop, if positive duty does not oblige them to proceed; each one will take only what is convenient to him, and many even will think that they have done too much in going so far.

When a single person has to decide a thing, he will bring all his conscience to it; when forty persons, each one will bring the fortieth part of his conscience. When one does not consider his responsibility as entire, it is to be feared he will do little, if any thing at all. It would then be in a superfi

* The jury is not an exception. It does not exclude the office of judge. It is only the indication of an idea (which religion reproduces in other forms), that a society commits to special men only that which all can not do, and that the commission ceases when those who give it can act for themselves.

cial, irregular, and intermittent manner that the work would be done, if we could not always rely upon certain men.

Zeal for the advancement of the kingdom of God, and faith in a universal priesthood, were certainly not less, than they are now, at the time when the Holy Spirit said, in Antioch, to a college of prophets and teachers, already separated and called by him, "Separate me Barnabas and Saul for the work unto which I have called them.”—Acts, xiii., 2.

It may, perhaps, be said that one can not judge by what is now done as to what would be done if believers would not cast upon ministers the burden of a ministry which belongs to all. We believe that what they would first do would be to make ministers. For if it be said that general zeal would be greater in the absence of these special men, that zeal, even at its greatest height, not meeting precisely all the wants for which the minister is appointed, would lead Christians to do that which, we think, indifference and idleness might make them do; that is to say, to make sure, by the creation of a special office, the satisfaction of those wants for which they themselves would no longer suffice. The more the zeal, the less would they be disposed to leave great interests to suffer, for the want of special men to take care of them.

Hüffell regards ministers of the Gospel as depositaries and guardians of the principle of life deposited in the Gospel. Christianity is essentially a life which transmits itself; but if chosen men do not transmit it, if that transmission of life is abandoned to the life itself, it will soon cease. Without the

* HÜFFELL: Wesen und Beruf des Evangelisch-christlichen Geistlichen, t. i., p. 28, third edition.

+ Vitai lampada.-These words, which we throw into a note, and which, in M. Vinet's manuscript, are in the text, between parentheses, are probably transferred from this verse of Lucretius :

Et, quasi cursores, vitaï lampada tradunt.

-De Rerum Natura, lib. ii., v. 78.—Ed.

ministry, according to Hüffell, Christianity would not last two centuries.

This is, perhaps, too positive and too absolute; but it can not be said that it would, in general, be doubting the truth and power of a work to make its duration depend on certain means. Nothing is done without means; and when it is the institution itself which creates its own means, when it draws them from itself, and chooses them conformably to its nature, we can not say that it must be precarious because it employs means. We should rather think it precarious if it did not employ them. If it employed in the ministry its own best elements, the best part of its substance, to propagate itself, would it not grow?

No one doubts but that the life of the Church supposes and requires a perpetual testimony, an uninterrupted tradition; and it is necessary that this testimony, this tradition, should be sure. A Church would be wanting to itself if it did not make sure not only the perpetuity, but the just perfection of this testimony, this tradition.-Rom., x., 14, 15.

Herder defends the institution, but thinks it may not be always necessary. We shall not pursue this inquiry; let us keep it as long as it shall be necessary, and not abandon it until it shall be no longer needed. We are convinced that this time will never come.

§ 3. Institution of the Evangelical Ministry.

Besides the necessity resulting from the nature of things, is there not a necessity of another kind, a positive duty; in other words, is not the ministry a divine, or a canonical institution?

Did Jesus Christ himself, or the apostles in his name, or dain that the Church should, in all ages, have special men

* HERDER: Provincialblætter, iii., tome x., des Œuvres Théologiques, p. 334-341.

charged with the administration of worship and the conduct

of souls? Strictly speaking, no. little; he inspired much more.

Jesus Christ instituted but

It is his cross, and not his

institutions, which separates the Old World from the New. What remained he left to the Holy Spirit, who was to come after him. He abolished virtually, rather than formally. He preferred the insensible but infallible action of the Spirit to the less sure and less delicate action of the letter. His reign

is a spiritual reign. His disciples understood this, and were in no haste to abolish or to overthrow. And it was not al ways given them to see at once what in the old economy was consistent with the new. God did not impart to them at once all they were to know, but gave them a light which was gradually to chase away the darkness. The entire development of Christianity has been thus made, and we have yet to hope for a new world of discoveries. This progressive march, however, relates only to secondary points in the Gospel; for, as to doctrine, the apostles, from the beginning, were of the same mind, and they have told us every thing. It is not the same with institutions; these have been provided, little by little, as the want of them has been felt.

Jesus Christ called around him a few men from among his followers, and intrusted them with a message, and with functions resembling his own, and said to them (to them, and not to others), "As my Father hath sent me, even so send I you." -John, xx., 21.

St. Paul says that Jesus Christ gave some apostles, and some prophets, and some evangelists and teachers.*-Eph., iv., 11. Here Jesus Christ appears as the guide of the Church, of its first messengers; the organization and government of the Church are ascribed to Him; and it was evident, according to St. Paul, that it was his will that the Church

Bridges remarks how the form of these words shows grandeur in the institution (The Christian Ministry, p. 5). See CALVIN, commentary on this place, t. vi., p. 129, Berlin edition, 1834.

should have ministers. The apostles, as they had been sent, sent in their turn; the ministry continues of itself, without having been formally instituted-once for all.

But as Jesus Christ said to his apostles, "Go and preach the Gospel to every creature" (Mark, xvi., 15); and since those to whom he directly spoke could only begin the execution of a command, for the entire fulfillment of which centuries were necessary, he addressed himself also, in their person, to their successors: He has thus implicitly instituted the ministry, unless it may be said that the continuation of the work did not require special men, such as had been needed at the beginning.

This leads us to our second reflection, which is, that, unless the circumstances in which Jesus Christ conferred the apostolate have essentially changed, his order stands for all ages, and is equivalent to an institution. For not to renew, in similar circumstances, that which he himself founded, would be, in some sort, to condemn the first foundation, which never would have been made if it had not been intended to be continued forever.

It has been objected that ministers should be interpreters of the Holy Spirit, that consequently the Spirit, which has been given to all the faithful, would set apart for each want the ministers that would be required, and move them to speak at the given moment. This is the opinion of the Society of Friends. From a true principle they have drawn a false consequence. For a special ministry does not bind the Spirit, does not prevent the Heavenly wind from blowing where it listeth.

We must, by all human means, endeavor to have ministers through whom the Spirit speaks. If, notwithstanding this, unworthy men are found among them, while we deplore the evil, we must confess that the same thing might happen in those churches where all have a right to speak, and all wait for the Spirit to inspire them. Might they not deceive them