nion is cut off at once. He may select him a companion in the society if he choose; but as this is nearly impracticable, owing to the partition walls which are strenuously kept up and defended between the sexes, the more common practice among the brotherhood is to submit their choice to the church. The selection having been made, they submit it to the lot-or, to use a phrase meaning substantially the same thing, and much better understood in common parlance, draw cuts-which finally decides the case. If, however, the selection of the church is opposed by the lot, another is made, and submitted, and so on, till the church and lot harmonize, which constitutes a valid contract. All this is done with the greatest solemnity, and in an humble and prayerful dependence on God, every way worthy of this noblespirited and deeply devoted people.

The government of the Lutheran Church is somewhat singular. In Denmark and Sweden it is strictly episcopal, maintaining in high repute diocesan episcopacy. In Hamburg, Frankfort, and the United States, the ministers together form a body for the purpose of governing the church, and examining and ordaining ministers. In the United States the ministers are under the inspection of ecclesiastical overseers, called seniors or presidents, whose business it is to admonish, to examine applicants for the ministry, and grant licences ad interim to them, and make reports to the synods. They are regarded as primus in paribus, first among their equals; or, as it is with the bishops in the Methodist Episcopal Church, equal in ministerial order, but first in office. Their judicatories in America are three-the vestry of the congregations, the special conference, and the general synod. The decision of the last named is final. This is composed of ministers, and an equal number of laymen, chosen by the vestries of their respective congregations, and it directs the external affairs of the church.

The conference meets once a year, and is composed only of ministers. It regulates the spiritual concerns of the church, such as judg ing of doctrinal controversies, examining, licensing, and ordaining ministers.

Though this church has no bishops by name, it is nevertheless justly called episcopal. Names cannot alter the nature of things. Its seniors or presidents, though not authorized to perform all the offices usually assigned to bishops, give it too high an episcopal tincture to allow of its receiving any other classification.

The Protestant Episcopal Church comes next in order.

The orders of ministers recognized by this sect are three-bishops, priests, and deacons. According to their constitution they hold a triennial convention, in which each state or diocese is represented by lay and clerical delegates, chosen by the state conventions, (every state or diocese having a convention to regulate its local concerns,} each order having one vote, and the concurrence of both being necessary to an act of the convention. The bishops of the church form a separate house, with a right to originate measures for the concurrence of the house of delegates; and when any proposed act passes the house of delegates, it is transmitted to the house of bishops, who have a negative on the same, so that the consent of both houses is requisite to the passage of any act. The church is governed by canons, formed

by this assembly, and which regulate the election of bishops, declare the qualifications necessary for obtaining the orders of deacon and priest, the studies to be previously pursued, the examinations which are to be made, and the age which it is necessary for candidates to attain before they can be admitted to the several grades of the ministry. Thus the triennial convention is the highest legislative and judi. cial tribunal in the church. In its legislative capacity it enacts laws for the government of the whole connection; in its judicial, it decides finally all cases of appeal.

The annual diocesan conventions are composed of all the ministers in the diocese where they are held, and an equal number of lay delegates from the different churches. Their authority is restricted by the geographical limits of the diocese and the canons of the church.

The government of the Methodist Episcopal Church is somewhat similar to the Protestant Episcopal. It, however, rècognizes but two orders of ministers-elders and deacons. Its chief executors, the bishops, exercise episcopal authority, not by virtue of any superiority of ministerial order, but of ecclesiastical office.

The officers of this church are bishops, presiding elders, elders, deacons, preachers, exhorters, stewards, and leaders. The duties of the bishops are entirely executive. They are to preside at the conferences, fix the appointments of the preachers, within certain limits, change, receive, and suspend preachers in the intervals of the conferences as necessity may require, oversee the spiritual and temporal concerns of the church, and ordain such bishops, elders, and deacons as may be presented to them by the conferences for that purpose.

Presiding elders receive their appointments from the bishops, and may be considered their deputies. Their official duties in particular districts are nearly the same as those of the bishops in respect to the whole work, ordination excepted; and for their due performance they are responsible to the annual conferences to which they belong.

The duties of the other officers perfectly correspond with the names by which they are designated, and may be read in our book of Discipline by all who are curious to know what they are, with much less trouble than I can here detail them.

The principal judicatory of this church is a General Conference, which meets once in four years. It is composed of delegates from the annual conferences; and is authorized to make laws, under certain restrictions, for the government of the whole connection, receive and try appeals,* and elect, admonish, and expel bishops, as the case may require.

An annual conference embraces all the traveling elders and deaconsf

* Of traveling preachers who have been expelled or censured by an annual conference. Appeals of members are to the quarterly meeting conferences, constituted principally of laymen; and those of local preachers, expelled or censured by a quarterly meeting conference, are to an annual conference.

† An annual conference is constituted of "all the traveling preachers who are in full connection," within its bounds. And as it sometimes occurs that elders and deacons travel for a time on trial before they are admitted into full connection, and, in some instances, individuals are admitted into full connection, but not immediately ordained, the definition here given of an annual conference is not perfectly correct, though it may serve for all the purposes the author had in view.

within a specified district, and is subject to the General Conference. A quarterly conference embraces all the traveling and local preachers, with all the exhorters, stewards, and class leaders, belonging to a parish, and is subject to the annual conference. Besides these, there is a leaders' meeting in each parish, embracing the stationed preacher, and all the stewards and leaders of his pastoral charge.

I shall next consider that form of government called Presbyterian. The officers of the Presbyterian Church are pastors, ruling elders, and deacons. The pastors preach the word, administer the ordinances, and have the general oversight of the church.

The ruling elders are the representatives of the people, and exercise government and discipline in conjunction with the pastors.

The deacons take care of the poor, and distribute among them the collections which are raised for their benefit. They also manage the other temporal affairs of the church.

The church is governed by congregational, presbyterial, and synodical assemblies. The authority of these bodies is wholly spiritual, and the greatest punishment they can inflict is expulsion. The congregational assembly, otherwise called church session, is composed of the minister or ministers, and elders of a particular congregation. It is the duty of this body to try, admonish, suspend, and exclude offenders from the church, as in their judgment the case may require, and appoint delegates to the higher judicatories of the church.

The presbyterial assembly consists of all the ministers and one ruling elder from each congregation within a certain district. This body exercises a general supervision over the particular churches within its bounds. It has power to receive and issue appeals from the sessions, brought before them in an orderly manner of examining and licensing candidates for the ministry-of ordaining, settling, removing, or judging ministers-of resolving questions of doctrine or discipline of uniting or dividing congregations, at the request of the people and of ordering whatever pertains to the spiritual concerns of the churches under their care.

The synodical assembly consists of all the ministers and one ruling elder from each congregation, within the bounds of several presby. teries. The synod have power to admit and judge of appeals from the presbyteries, to review the presbytery books, to redress whatever has been done by presbyteries contrary to order, and make such regulations for the benefit of their whole body, and of the presbyteries under their care, as shall be agreeable to the word of God.

There is still another judicatory in this church, called the General Assembly. It consists of an equal delegation of ministers and elders from each presbytery; or, in other words, of one minister and one elder to every six ministers. To this body belongs the power of consulting, reasoning, and judging in controversies respecting doctrine and discipline, of putting a stop to schismatical contentions and disputations, and of establishing new synods where they judge it necessary. Its decisions are final.

It now remains to consider the government of the Independents. These derive their name from maintaining that every particular congregation of Christians has, according to Scripture, a full power of ecclesiastical jurisdiction over its members, independent of the autho

rity of bishops, synods, presbyteries, or any other ecclesiastical assemblies.

This general division of the church, as I stated at the commencement, embraces Congregationalists, Baptists, Unitarians, &c. Not that all these adhere to every principle of the original Independents, for this is not the case; but that they inculcate and practice substantially those very principles which distinguish them from other branches of the church, and give them their name.

Congregationalists denominate themselves a class of Protestants, who hold that each congregation of Christians, meeting in one place, and united by a solemn covenant, is a complete church, with Christ for its only Head, and deriving from him the right of choosing its own officers, to observe the sacraments, to have public worship, and to discipline its own members. Yet they disclaim the name of Independents, because, on the ground of the doctrinal and Christian relationship existing among their churches, they are pleased to associate together in conferences, assemblies, and associations, for mutual counsel, and an interchange of Christian sentiments and feelings. But this, it will be perceived, does not alter their government. Independents received their name by virtue of the independency of their government, and not because they were destitute of Christian fellowship toward their equally Christian neighbors, or disdained to give or receive advice. The name, therefore, whenever applied, respects government, and nothing else; and in this sense it is as applicable to Congregationalists as to John Robinson himself, since all their delegated assemblies, by whatever name called, entirely disclaim having any legislative, judicial, or executive authority over the individual churches.

The governments of the Independent Churches in America, as we should naturally suspect, are in their leading principles somewhat similar. In the number and names of their officers, and in several other minor points, they differ considerably. The Congregational Churches of New-Hampshire, Massachusetts, and Connecticut have state and general associations; Vermont, a general convention, composed of delegates from the district associations. In this state some of the inferior associations are not connected with the general association. In the state of Maine, and the western part of this state, conferences of churches exist. In Maine these unite in a general conference, similar in its designs to the general associations of New-Hampshire, Massachusetts, and Connecticut, and the general convention of Vermont.

Synods in New-England are larger bodies of delegates, which assemble for making platforms, or other matters of general interest. Councils are smaller bodies, and act on matters of less interest. Consociations are standing councils. These are composed of ministers and delegates from such churches as see fit to unite for the objects proposed. In cases of special importance, several of these unite, and act together. Most of the Congregational Churches in Connecticut and Rhode Island, and some in Vermont and New-York, are consociated.

Associations are composed of ministers only, who meet for their own benefit, and to consult for the good of the churches. They exa

mine and license candidates for the ministry; and in some cases they try and acquit, admonish or expel from their body, such ministers as are charged with some offense. Whether, however, the right of trying ministers belongs to them, or to the churches of which they have the charge, is a question among themselves. Some say they have; but others, that it belongs to the individual churches to try their own ministers.

The officers of the churches, according to the Cambridge Platform, were pastors, teachers, ruling elders, and deacons. They are now generally reduced to pastors and deacons.

The governments of several kinds of Baptists, the Unitarians, Universalists, Swedenborgians, and some other smaller sects are similar. The associated Baptists in this country meet annually in associations and state conventions to promote missions, and attend to such other business as they can agree upon. Every three years they have a general convention for the explicit purpose of promoting foreign missions. These meetings are composed of delegates from the different churches; but have no authority to interfere with the government of individual churches, by legislation, judicial decision, or any other

way.

The Universalists have general and state conventions, and sectional associations. These are clerical assemblies for deliberation.

The government of the Swedenborgians, though independent, is not very definitely settled. They have a general convention at Baltimore, composed of their handful of ministers and licentiates.

As to the governments of the particular churches of these denominations, and all others belonging to this general division, little is known beyond their own limits. They doubtless vary according to the principles and character of their members. I shall leave them, therefore, to their own independency without prying into what they claim to be their own business, and close with a few remarks.

Which of these forms of government is best established by Scripture, and most expedient in the present state of the church, every man must judge for himself. Believing, however, with Archbishops Cranmer, Grindal, Whitgift, and Tillotson, Bishops Leighton, Jewel, Bur. nett, Stillingfleet, White, and many others, that the Scriptures do not lay down any specific form of church government for universal adoption, it may not be far from the truth to say, that that government is best which is best administered.

That the episcopal form in some of its modifications has equal claims to divine authority to any other, it would not be difficult to show; and that its operations in the hands of pious and faithful administrators are equally successful for the interests of pure religion, there is no room to doubt. But as the discussion of these subjects does not come within the objects of this essay, I shall not enter upon it in this place.

May the great Head of the church so enlighten and sanctify his people, that, however they may differ in judgment, they may agree in spirit; and concentrating their efforts in their own way to the great object of Christian benevolence, yet rejoice together in the salvation of the world.