Dr. Jacob's Ecclesiastical Polity of the New Testament [pp. 301-306]

1872.] OP THE NEW TESTAMENT. 305
or any command from the apostles as to the use or non-use
of such forms, this is an open question to be decided by every
church for itself; each church having a full right to act according to its discretion and deliberate judgment, but no
right at all to condemn or disparage the opposite practice
which another Christian community may prefer. Nor in the
decision of such questions can any church, with propriety or
safety, disregard the consideration of times, circumstances
and men s manners, the feelings and requirements of any
given age."
Having occasion to refer to the fact that in early centurie~
every Christian community was at liberty, improving upon
antecedent models and prescriptions, to frame for itself forms
of divine service agreeable to its own circumstances and condition, he adds: "Are we more wise in this our day, when we
have allowed more than two hundred years to pass-years of
immense changes in everything connected with the life of
man; changes ecclesiastical, political, social, intellectual and
moral-with scarcely an infinitesimal change in ~ur church
liturgy and laws? And when, notwithstanding the fact that
the last revision of our Prayer-book was effected under circumstances the most hostile to a sound and sober appreciation of truth and wisdom, good men are now possessed with
so superstitious a veneration, or so unreasonable a timidity~
that they cry out against the bare proposal of a liturgical re
vision and the most temperate ecclesiastical reform?"
This last topic might lead us into matters with which
we have no practical concern. The book before us derives
its chief value from its purpose to take an appeal from all
human inventions pertaining to the polity, ministry and wor
ship of the Church, to the Word of God. In doing this the
author has exhibited scholarship, candor and true catholicity.
So long as I~piscopacy rests its claims on a free preferenceon expediency~on liberty of judgment, however we might
differ from it, we would not only allow but honor its rights
and freedom. But so far as any Church-be it called Papal
or Protestant, Roman or Anglican-insists that it is the only
true Church, that its ministry is the only valid ministry, be