The Office Of Presbyters Is A Permanent

All Moral Obligation Resolves Itself Into The Obligation Of Conformity To The Will Of God.

There Can, Therefore, Be No Doubt That Presbyterians Do Carry Out The Principle That Church Power Vests In The Church Itself, And That The People Have A Right To A Substantive Part In Its Discipline And Government.

Christ Has Not Only Ordained That There Shall Be Such Officers In His Church - He Has Not Only Specified Their Duties And Prerogatives - But He Gives The Requisite Qualifications, And Calls Those Thus Qualified, And By That Call Gives Them Their Official Authority.

It Is A Thoroughly Anti-christian Doctrine That The Spirit Of God, And Therefore The Life And Governing Power Of The Church, Resides In The Ministry, To The Exclusion Of The People.

The Reformers, Therefore, As Instruments In The Hands Of God, In Delivering The Church From Bondage To Prelates, Did Not Make It A Tumultuous Multitude, In Which Every Man Was A Law To Himself, Free To Believe, And Free To Do What He Pleased.