because there is no atrocity which it is not capable of sanctioning. Under the teaching of Calvin, in the city of Geneva, a girl was beheaded because in a fit of passion she had struck her mother. The warrant for her execution was Exod. xxi. 15, He that smiteth his father or his mother shall surely be put to death."

The Presbyterian Church in the days of Charles, in imitation of the Jews in the days of Asa, believing that they had the power to bind all succeeding generations, made a covenant that they should all and always be Presbyterians. That was simply a mistake on the lines of the temple theory, because the Scottish nation is not a Church and the Scotch are not Jews. These godly men forgot what a Church really is; a Church is a society of godly men who voluntarily come out from the world and separate themselves from all who will not come out with them. To say, therefore, that those who come out can bind the consciences of those who stay in, is to say that the duties and obligations that are binding on the Church, can be imposed by the Church on the world.

It was a pious and patriotic imagination, but it was a mistake notwithstanding, and arose from the supposition that the Jewish nation was intended to be a guide and a pattern for Gentile nations. Thank God, although we as a nation have been guilty of many sins, we are not guilty of any breach of covenant, as some godly men even in the present day imagine; neither are we guilty of disloyalty to Christ because we have not extirpated Popery and Prelacy from the three kingdoms.

The Covenanters of Scotland will be had in everlasting remembrance as the greatest heroes of the age in which they lived, and the world owes them a debt of gratitude for having resisted to the death, the attempt to compel them to violate their conscience, because it was in a great

measure through them that the battle of religious liberty was won. The stern resistance that these men offered to the ruffian tyranny of Charles and his dragoons is beyond all praise, even though they acted on their own mistaken principles.

THE

CHAPTER XI.

PASTORS TURNED INTO EVANGELISTS.

HE next great evil which resulted from the adoption of the temple theory was the confounding of the office of the evangelist with that of the pastor.

In Eph. iv. 11, Paul gives the following list of the various offices then existing in the Christian Church: "And He gave some apostles, and some prophets, and some pastors and teachers, for the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ."

In this list there is the most perfect symmetry; not one office being awanting, and not one superfluous. There were first the apostles and the prophets, who differed from all the others in being inspired men. They were most necessary, not only to write the Books of the New Testament, for without them we should have none, but also to teach and guide the Church at a time when the New Testament was not yet in their hands. They are now represented by the New Testament Scriptures, and are therefore said to be the foundation upon which the Church is built (Eph. ii. 20; Matt. xvi. 18). But as that foundation does not need to be laid a second time, the apostles and prophets have ceased to be permanent officers in the Church.

The evangelists are spoken of next; and, as their name

implies, their work was to preach the Gospel. This also was a most necessary office, because, as is said in Rom. x. 14, "How shall they believe in Him of whom they have not heard, and how shall they hear without a preacher? And how shall they preach except they be sent ?"

After the evangelist comes the pastor and teacher, corresponding with the Jewish elder and scribe.

These are the two great permanent offices in the Christian Church; the one exercising his functions without, and the other exercising his functions within.

Previous to the day of Pentecost, the Church had no evangelists and no evangelistic power; but when the commission was given to preach the Gospel, and to baptise the nations, it was given not to the apostles only, but to the whole Church; and for that purpose the whole Church received the baptism. They all spake with tongues, and they all declared the wonderful works of God; and from that time forth, the one purpose of the Church on earth, in all its members, has been to advance the kingdom of God and His righteousness, by bringing all the families of the earth to the feet of Jesus.

What, then, is the difference between the evangelists, and the other members of the Church in regard to the preaching of the Gospel? If all are to preach the Gospel, why was it necessary to set apart men for the purpose? We might answer the question generally by saying that Home Missions are the work of all the members of the Church, and that Foreign Missions are the work of the evangelist. But that does not express all the difference.

Although both deacons and deaconesses are mentioned in Scripture, they belong to a different category. As the name implies, they were servants, invested with no authority; and, however useful they might be, they could not be ranked with apostles and prophets, or with evangelists and pastors, as God-given men.

The work of the evangelist is to plant and organise Churches where there are none; whereas the work of the members of the Church is to spread Christianity all round, after the Church has been formed. The evangelist was not intended to remain in any place after the district was thoroughly evangelised; for that would have left the Church nothing to do. On the contrary, his work is done as soon as the Church is formed and elders ordained, unless it be to come back some time afterwards, to confirm the brethren and see how they do (Acts xv. 36, 41). Having this peculiar gift, he must go and plant Churches elsewhere.

It must be kept in mind that the greater number of our Church members are engaged in business, and cannot leave their homes. And yet, sometimes Christians have to go abroad; others again, it may be, are scattered abroad by persecution, as was the case with many at the death of Stephen. Or it may be that some are called away by the necessities of business, as was the case with Aquila and Priscilla, both in Ephesus and Rome. Wherever he goes, the Christian is bound to evangelise.

Much may be done in this way, and much has been done; but that is not enough. There are hundreds of places, and indeed whole continents that could never be evangelised by such means; and therefore unless some special effort be made, the Gospel would never be preached to them. It is for such work that evangelists are needed. Although, therefore, the work of the evangelist is very much the same in kind as that which is the work of all Christians, there is this difference; while the private Christian gives a considerable portion of his time to his secular employment, the evangelist devotes himself entirely to the work of evangelism, in order to organise as well as to preach. Both are necessary, because neither of them.