and protests: "There was no explicit agreement among the churches, nor any general usage, from which I could infer that my ordination would give such power to the church. Nor can it be pretended that I gave that power in form. My promised subjection, with Platform and practice in my favor, implied no such thing." With this plea in his mouth what church could drag its pastor before an ex parte council? Only admit then that the church has not in itself the deposing power, and the pastor's responsibility vanishes till some new standing tribunal is erected. If my logic fails I appeal to facts. What do facts declare? Let the total want of discipline over the pastors of our churches send home the answer to every heart. A standing tribunal would bring with it the additional benefit of preventing the jars and strifes of mutual councils. In these bodies, instead of acting as unbiassed judges, men generally take sides, especially in a question of heresy, and often assemble not so much to inquire, as to support opinions formed at home, and to substitute for candid deliberation a scuffle for victory. The chief thing that the world can know after the result, in most cases is, who was fortunate enough to get the odd man. The council chamber is turned into a field of battle where the civil wars of a parish are decided. And has the solemn discipline of the church, the discipline of ministers,—which was appointed to be administered in the name and by the authority of the Lord Jesus Christ,-bas it sunk to this! 3. To render this tribunal competent to exercise jurisdic tion, ministers must voluntarily submit to its authority. All religion is voluntary. No authority on earth has a right, further than the peace of society is concerned, to impose the restraints of religion. While I would fasten the same obligations on ministers as lie upon common Christians, I would secure to them the same liberty. How stands the account with private Christians. They are under moral obligation to subject themselves to the watch and discipline of some church, but they are not accountable to any church till they have voluntarily submitted to its authority. This done, they cannot escape from its jurisdiction till they are dismissed and join another church. That dismission they are entitled to claim if they demand it before a process of discipline is commenced against them. Now put ministers into the same condition, only in lieu of the church place a tribunal competent to depose and excom'municate them. The matter will then stand thus: they are under moral obligation to submit to this tribunal, but cannot be compelled by man: when they have once submitted they cannot elude its authority till they are regularly dismissed and join some other body: that dismission they have a right to claim if they demand it before their standing is called in question. This places them in point of responsibility exactly on a level with their pri vate brethren. And why should they not be on a level with their brethren? Is this repugnant to any reasonable ideas of liberty? Wherein is such authority in a Standing Council, or a Standing Board of Arbitrators, any more inconsistent with liberty than the subjection of common Christians to the church? Is the cry of domination to be raised against this principle? From what quarter think you it will come? Not from lay brethren; the plan contemplates the enlargement of their privileges and powers. And does it become ministers who hold their lay brethren so strictly bound, to set up this cry when the tables are only turned against them? It ought to be a solemn inquiry how far the pride of ministers may be concerned in this outcry. What is Christian liberty? What is the liberty of ministers? Does it consist in a total exemption from all responsibility except to the Head of the Church? Has any man the boldness to affirm that this is "the liberty where with Christ hath made us free?" To the descendants of the Puritans there is a charm in the very name of liberty. It is a spell, a talisman, that bewilders and beguiles. This is not strange considering the language we have inherited, accompanied with fragments of institutions founded in a jealousy of domination, and unbounded love of freedom. Our fathers lived in a day when the rights comprehended under the term liberty were but little understood. Christian Liberty had been educated in so much obscurity during the dark ages, and so distorted and deformed by the rack of persecution, that she made an indifferent figure for many years after she was brought forth to light, and nominally enthroned by the Reformation. In the twilight of that opening day so obscurely were the rights of conscience discerned that opinions were encountered by the arm of power. The stronger party were always in the right, and the weaker must atone for the temerity of thinking for themselves by the prison and the stake. Our fathers who had not wholly shaken off this delusion, who had themselves smarted under the rod of oppression, and possessed no adequate idea of the safeguard which later investigations of the rights of conscience would throw around the Church, made it a leading object in their institutions to raise en trenchments against the violence of invaders. But since that day the principles of religious liberty have been so thoroughly developed, and are become so generally understood, that ecclesiastical domination is of all things that which we have least reason to fear in New England. The bent of the age is to the opposite extreme. We are much more in danger of anarchy. It can never be sufficiently impressed on the public mind, that the thing which we have most reason to fear is a dissolution of all ecclesiastical government and discipline, leading the way to an apostasy greater than that of Rome. Has not this apostasy already begun to appear? What do we behold? Let any orthodox man lay his hand on his heart and then say, whether, if suffcient responsibility had been attached to the ministerial character fifty years ago, things would have come to their present pass. But there is another end for which a Standing Council is necessary, I mean the establishment of uniformity among the orthodox in their treatment of heretical ministers and churches. Without uniformity in this matter, instead of frowning error out of countenance, we shall only introduce confusion among the friends of truth. A and B are Christian brethren of the same faith; A withdraws from C as a known heretic; B supports C by still communing with him: will not this disturb the communion between A and B? At least will not B's conduct reproach A's fidelity, and render it still doubtful to the rising generation how they ought to regard C and his opinions? Would you give stable and extensive dominion to truth, let the orthodox express firmly and meekly, with one voice, their disapprobation of men who subvert the Gospel. And how can this be done but by establishing some body with authority to decide in behalf of the ministers and churches which it includes, from whom to withhold communion? That decision would be regarded also by others, as to them a sufficient ground of action, and thus, besides securing uniformity, would save the endless repetition of individual in vestigations. I would then with great deference submit the following project. Let a permanent body be formed in each district, under the name of Standing Council, Consociation, Convention, or any other title that may be preferred, composed of ministers and delegates from the churches, with power to discipline ministers voluntarily submitting to its jurisdiction, and to exercise some care or no care over the churches as shall be agreed upon, and also to determine from whom beyond their bounds to withhold comVOL. V. New Series. munion, and the steps nécessary to be taken with them. Let these bodies be connected with each other by some looser bond, sufficient however to secure a general uniformity of operation; so that the whole orthodox community may practically speak one language, and by combining their influence, render it effectual. Let these bodies be sufficiently guarded against the power of exercising unreasonable domination. The manner of introducing this system is worthy to be the subject of earnest and united prayer. It is not for an individual to dictate. But with great diffidence may I not be allowed to ask, whether a general meeting of ministers and delegates from churches approving the plan may not be held, (as soon as the public mind is prepared,) to draw up a solemn form of agreement for themselves, and for others who may afterwards accede to the union? Before I close I cannot help hinting at some other advantages to be gained by this union of the churches. It would greatly tend to promote brotherly love, by narrowing the distance which has long kept us strangers to each other. It would bring an incalculable addition of strength to support all the great interests of the church at home and abroad. How little can the churches do for Christ in their insulated state! How weak are millions without a a union of strength! How impotent would the American States have been without the federal compact! But in all other kingdoms, in support of all other interests,men will unite. What contracted prin 8 ciple, what unmanly jealousy, then, shall prevent the amazing, the everlasting consequences of a systematic and vigorous cooperation of the churches? Let any man who doubts the necessity of some such arrangement, only open his eyes upon the state of our churches under that rope-of-sand system which has been for many years creeping in, and compare this with the reverse of the picture in happier portions of the Church. One would think that every good man after this comparison would first sit down to weep, and then rise up to decisive action. By whom, I ask, is a minister to be deposed for heresy in these churches? The very question moves a smile. Are we then to be compelled to commune with all sorts of men claiming to have been ordained, to the end of the world, under penalty of being reproached if not cast out of communion, by our orthodox brethren? With professions of respect for the rights of conscience ringing in our ears; are we to be forced to violate our conscience? We claim no right to lord it over others, to injure them in their persons, name or estate; but we do and must claim the right of extending or withholding our fellowship according to our own ideas of duty. We assail no man, we excommunicate no man, we hurl no anathemas, we do no positive act; we only sit stili and refuse to do what our conscience forbids. We exert no domination, but only refuse to submit to it; we exercise no intolerance, we only repel it; we interfere with no man's liberty of conscience, but only preserve our own; we allow all men to live free, and only ask the privilege of living free ourselves. It is said that heretical ministers are to be reached through their churches by the third way of communion pointed out in the Platform? But what if those churches and ministers disown the Platform, and deny any agreement of the churches to commune together except what is implied in usage growing every day more indefinite and confused? That this is the case, their practical disregard of the Platform which is notorious, and the opposition lately made in Convention to a new edition of that instrument are public and ONESIMUS. ON PASTORAL VISITS. Mr. Editor, In If you think the following remarks calculated to do good, you are at liberty to insert them in your Mag azine. For the Panoplist. Ir is now a little more than five years since I was settled as a Minister of the Gospel, in a country parish, which contains about an hundred and seventy, or eighty, families. Believing it to be a minister's duty, to become as speedily and as extensively acquainted with the spiritual state of his flock, as he can, I embraced the first opportunity, after my ordination, of communicating my views of this, as well as other pastoral duties. minded the people of my charge, that they had a right to expect from me occasional pastoral visits, and that I should feel myself bound to make such visits, as often as my health and other circumstances would permit. Nor I re was it long before I entered upon this laborious and difficult undertaking. I spent much of my time for some months, in visiting from house to house; but without any previous appointments. Every where I was received with kindness, and, in some families, found it easy to introduce and keep up religious conversation. In others, however, it was nearly impracticable: not because the attempt was directly opposed, for the people were too well bred, to be guilty of such rude ness. But so many kind inqui ries were to be made about my personal interests, and so much time must be taken up in miscellaneous conversation, that the main object of my visit was too frequently pushed into a very narrow compass, if not quite excluded from the family circle. In such cases, I could not but go away dissatisfied, both with myself and my friendly parishioners. In the way I was proceeding I met with other difficulties, which ought to have been anticipated. As families hardly ever knew when to expect me, they were often scattered by their necessary avocations, or, if together, were not prepared to receive me as they wished. From these causes, whole afternoons were frequently spent to little purpose. I however proceeded much in the same course, for more than four years, growing all the while more and more dissatisfied with it; but hardly knowing how I could do better. At length, about eight months ago, I publicly, on the Sabbath, proposed a plan, which I had had, for some time, under con |