churchmen, teaching the people to think, and speak what they thought, without much regard to traditionary authority. It was resolved, therefore, by these degenerate successors of John Knox to forbid, and with the aid of the civil magistrate to suppress them. Accordingly, in 1647, after a succession of stormy debates, the General Assembly passed an Act prohibiting not only the fellowship meetings, but religious meetings of any kind, on the ground that they were "to the prejudice of the public ministry.' So important was that Act regarded in the interests of the clergy, that it was ordered to be bound up with the standards of the Church, and there it remains to the present day.

That Act of the Church was suicidal, because these fellowship meetings were really the reproductive organs of the Church, as they had been of the Jewish synagogue, and the Apostolic Church. They were as it were the buds from which sprang forth the branches, the flowers and the fruit of a living Christianity, which the mere attendance at public worship could never be. When these were cut off the Church's reproductive power was gone, and it was thereafter dependent for its life and continuance on the civil magistrate, an external political agency over which it had no control. If the Apostolic Church had been so mutilated, its first century would have been its last. And so it fared with the Established Church of Scotland, the fellowship meetings having been cast out from its constitution, its spirituality began to decline.

But they had been too deeply rooted in the affections of the godly people of Scotland to be abandoned, and so they were still kept up, though in smaller numbers throughout the country. Had it not been for this praying remnant, there can be no doubt that Popery would have been re-established in the land, and the religious liberties of

Scotland would have been gone. It was the Covenanters that stood in the breach, and it was their "praying societies" that were the banner under which they fought. Even on the scaffold they gave their testimony. "Be careful," said Renwick, the last of the martyrs, "Be careful to keep up your societies."

But besides the praying societies of the Covenanters in the south and west of Scotland, which were the survivals of the Lollards, there were still in many of the parishes of Scotland, fellowship meetings which were the survivals of John Knox's weekly exercise. In some parishes there were more than one, in Portmoak, a very thinly populated district, there were five during the latter part of Mr. Erskine's ministry there, and in other parishes there were many more. Indeed, wherever there was a godly minister, they flourished, and he made a point of joining in their exercises. When he was a Moderate, they held their meetings during the hours of public worship, independent of the minister. It is well known that a number of the Secession congregations that separated themselves from the Established Church in the eighteenth century owed their origin to these praying societies.

It must be observed, however, that in all these revivals of the apostolic ordinance, they are never supposed to take the place of public worship on the Lord's day, and for that reason, they were always, with the exceptions which we have stated, held during the week, to show that they were not canonical, and that they might not appear to compete with what were called the "services of the sanctuary." The places, in which these meetings were held, were never called "the courts of God's house," or "the gates of Zion," or "the house of God;" all of which being synonyms of the temple in Jerusalem, were understood to be applicable only to the parish church, where

worship was performed canonically by the parish priest or clergyman. The temple theory had been engrained into men's minds by the customs and habits of sixteen centuries; and having come down through the Reformers, who were thought to be next to infallible, it has never been questioned, but has held its ground quite independent of Scripture.

We are in the habit of supposing that it is only Roman Catholics that regard tradition as of higher authority than Scripture, and that the Bible is the religion of Protestants, but here is an instance in which Protestants persistently adhere to tradition, and set aside the Scripture, in a matter of the highest importance to the welfare of the Church and the spread of the Gospel.

CHAPTER XIV.

HOW THE FELLOWSHIP MEETINGS OF THE CHURCH

MAY BE REVIVED.

ALTHOUGH our modern ordinance of public worship

bears no resemblance to anything that was known or practised in the Apostolic Church, it must be kept in mind that the elements of which it is composed are all of them of Divine appointment. The reason why it has done irreparable damage to the cause of Christ and retarded the conversion of the world, is because it has put the right things in the wrong place.

The two permanent offices of the Church are the pastor and the evangelist, which are not only very different in kind, but belong to two very different spheres. The sphere of the pastor is the Church, the sphere of the evangelist is the world. The pastor's labours are confined to the flock over which the Holy Ghost has made him overseer to feed them and make them shine as lights in the world. He does not preach the Gospel to his flock, because they have already accepted it; but he builds them up in their most holy faith, keeping as his model our Lord's Sermon on the Mount which was already addressed only to His disciples. The evangelist, on the other hand, does not labour in the Church at all, he goes out to the world, and preaches the Gospel to the unconverted on the model of Christ's address to Nicodemus, the unconverted ruler.

But the parochial system, when it dissolved the Church in the parish, abolished both offices, and instituted another called the clergyman or minister, which is a compound in nearly equal proportions of evangelist, pastor, and priest, the evangelist preponderating. Seeing that it is a mixed multitude that is committed to his care, and seeing that by far the greater number of his parishioners are unconverted, the parish minister feels it to be his duty to leave the one that needs no repentance in the wilderness, and go after the ninety and nine that are lost. minister, therefore, is universally regarded as a preacher of the Gospel. It is to preach the Gospel that he is licensed and ordained, which is equivalent to being ordained as an evangelist.

The

But although the clergyman is generally regarded as a preacher of the Gospel, when we keep in mind the distinction which the Scripture makes between preaching and teaching, there can be no doubt that he is a teacher rather than a preacher. The Gospel is a message of peace, not good news as is generally supposed. Good news is the meaning of the Saxon word good-spel, but the New Testament was not written in Saxon but in Greek, and the Greek word for Gospel is ev-angel-ion. Angel is a messenger, angelia is a message, and ev-angel is a message of peace. If the Gospel were only good news, it would be quite impersonal. It would be from nobody, to nobody, through nobody, and there would be no responsibility connected with it. Moreover, after the first announcement, it would be no news at all. A message is a very different thing. The Gospel is a message from God to the sinner, and the evangelist is God's messenger beseeching the sinner to be reconciled, and it is a message that demands an answer. Every time that that message is delivered it acquires a double emphasis, and imposes a