Year: 1873

ltestant Churches have been throw
ing their bombshells, while they
themselves were fastening the sys-
tenn of "Little-hornism'' in their
own bosoms. The custom of the
people who are unwilling to take
Jesus, and only Jesus, as their
High Priest, and his law as all the
constitution they need, but are run
ming after their high hierarchical
lfunctionaries, are only apeing, and
that in an effectual degree what
Romanism has perfected. Until
the Protestant Churches have set
tied down, or rather, risen up to the
standard of the Apostles and
Christ alone, and become satifed
with the plain and humble customs
Of equality among all who preach
Jesus Tor so pretend we cannot
expect other ends than the domin-
eering and arrogant popery that
has nothing but slavery for the
masses in Zion. A minister is not
a lord nor a master, but servant
of servants and while he should
be, respected, loved and needed.
"for the works sake" there should
mot exist the indicative pomposity
and gaudy superiority of hierarchy,
as seen to-day from almost every
ecclesiastical quarter This I'M
scriptural lordship, proscriptive and
intolerant in the abstract, is con-
tinually Keeping thousands of
heaven ordained men from the work
of the ministry and the harvest of
the world, for no other reason than
show of authority and fear of rsu-
lperiority. The (sacred) tribunes
must guard the Lords vineyard,
and "open and shut as they please,
no difference how loud the Master
may call to the humble plebian or
weary, hard-fisted yeoman. The
rules of hierarchy must suffer no in
fringement; they must direct the
men who would work for God and
mankind. Men may perish, but
the system of man-made power
must not be innoyated; hence, see
the hosts whom Jesus has called
from almost every walk, kept down
and back, deprived of their freedom
or their right until some conference
or synod OF. board Of education says
they may go. If the strictest care
is not taken and all who apply for
the Office of the ministry, bad
precedent may be established, and
a rule trampled under footand HE.
rarchy be desecrated. We have
reached a time when the keeping Of
no mans conscience and convic-
tions should be entrusted to the adj
Ijudication of men who "lord it over
Gods heritage;" but when all men,
feeling the voice within calling them
to the special work of winning
souls to Christ, should go and not
wait, only so that they have the
commentator of good moral char
acter vouched for by the Church to
which they belong. gt aaW
The Christian Union have as
cended to the New Testament and
divinely ordained rule. We have
no hierarchy. There are no high
functionaries to say who shall and
who shall not preach, and through
whose official hands Gods chosen
ministers must pass, as through the
clutches of Pope, Potentate or
Bishop. The only tribunal to which
men, feeling a call to the ministry,
must go aside from God, is the To-
cal church, Of which they are mem
bers, and from which they obtain
such endorsement as will give them
influence among strangers, and
meet the demands Of the law Of the
land. The people-the members
of the churches-say who Of their
members shall be recognized as
suitable persons to fill the Office of
servant in the Church of God. The
ministry belongs to God and
the Church, and not the Church
land as it were God, too,) be-
long to set of hierarchs and lords
who rule to gain, or ruin to graf
ify their pride and power. Every
local church can send as many Of
their number as they think proper
out into the field to gather sheaves
in the Lords name. The churches
are the electoral college of the
ministry. We care not how many
go forth crying, "behold the Lambw
Would to God that every member
of the church felt that he OF she
must win souls to Christ, and al
though all might not fill the Office
Of minister in the legal sense, all
could be ministers in the spiritual
sense. While the Christian Union
does not have any hierarchy, yet
it is strict as the Bible in it's
endorsement of men, and no man
can be a minister among us unless
he is a member of some one of the
churches of Christ associated in
this Union, which church guards
his morals and directs his ordina-
tion with much prayer and serious
deliberation. Nor can any Council
ordain a person or recog nize a per-
son as members thereof, unless such
person has the endorsement of a
local church. Here the people rule
--.vor popali suprema--subject only
to the law Of God and his Spirit.
Here the ministry stand on one
common level officially, and are Of
I the people, only greater Oh greatest
as they excel in good works and In
winning souls to Christ. Who dare
ldanu tho con for1,ait.t Of thin onda.