The Benevolent Work of the Church, and the Report of the Committee of Twenty-One [pp. 246-272]

246 THE BENEVOLENT WORK OF THE CHURCH. [April,
be called upon, judicially, to decide as to the right of a congregation thus to elect, and to sustain or censure a Presbytery and a Synod for approviug it. And, let it be r0mem~
bered, that the province of the Assembly in the matter is not
to make constitutional law, but to interpret that which our
fathers handed down to us.
ART. III. -THE BENEVOLENT WORK OF THE CHURCH;
AND THE REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE
OF "TWENTY-ONE~"
By Re~. J. TRUMBULL BAcKUS, D.D., Selieneetacly, N. Y.
The benevolent work of the Church must be to Presbyterians a subject of deep interest; especially at the present critical period, when the hope is so general that our reunite~
body will become very effective in the evangelizing work, at
home and abroad.
Dr. Chalmers, in his sermon on opening the Free Church
of Scotland, said: "The outward business of the house of
God is of chief necessity and importance at tbe commencement of a church, or at ~rnc ~ thosc gr~at chan~es and enlarq&
nients, which it is often made to undergo. At the outset of
the Jewish Church, besides the regulations for the maintenance of the priesthood, and distribntion of the various offices,
we read much of the time and labor expended in the strncture of the tabernacle. The same thing might be observed
on occasions of great enlargements, oi revivals, or deliverances, as at the rearing, and successive great repairs, of the
temple in Jerusalem; and, more notably still, in the days of
Ezra and Nehemiah, on their return from the captivity, and
the ree~stablishment both of the national and sacred polity.
At the commencement of the Christian Church, he who was
the most gifted of the apostles, though pree~minenily a man
of faith and prayer, busied himself, most of all, with matters
of mere external regulation. May we not take a lesson from
these great master spirits of a former age."