338 LECTURES AND ESSAYS [1874- 



right performance of its functions. He becomes a leader 

 only to those weaker than himself, and the best office 

 bearers, who should be his greatest helpers, either wholly 

 overshadow him or become objects of jealousy and centres 

 of party feeling. There is no such source of congregational 

 divisions as an ignorant ministry. 



It is hardly necessary to remark that the theology 

 which our argument contemplates as the proper prepara 

 tion for congregational work does not mean such a 

 congeries of private speculations as some men pride 

 themselves upon. A theology useful for practical work 

 consists mainly (i) of Biblical knowledge, and (2) of a 

 grasp, both dogmatical and historical, of that system 

 based on the Bible which is embodied not only in the 

 constitution, but in the consciousness of the Church. 

 The man who is not prepared to discharge his functions 

 in the sense of the Church has no right to stand in the 

 ministry ; the pretension to subordinate the worship of a 

 congregation to personal conclusions of speculative 

 theology is in spirit sectarian, and must always be re 

 sisted by Church-government. An appreciative mastery 

 of the Church s present theology, with a recognition of its 

 positive value for practical work, is the true basis of 

 ministerial usefulness, and in congregational matters will 

 seldom fail to supply adequate guidance even to a man 

 destitute of theological originality. But the future of 

 our Church depends on the solution of problems not 

 purely congregational. 



Every attentive student of the past history of Scottish 

 Presbyterianism, and especially of the last few years, must 

 admit that the larger problems that lie before a Church 

 which aims at visible catholicity, are not yet even 

 theoretically solved that they remain problems partly 

 because our higher Church courts are not sufficiently 

 skilled in the practical application of our present theo 

 logical ideas, but partly also because these ideas themselves 

 are on many points too unclear and defective to serve 



