V. ORGANIZATION OF THE TRUE CHRISTIAN CHURCH.

I. There should be some prescribed, definite, and clearly understood conditions of membership.

2. There should be wisely prepared consitutional formularies of organic association, to be intelligently adopted and scrupulously observed.

3. There should be some recognized, cordially approved, and duly authenticated order of Christian. ministry.

4. There should be some recognized and duly appointed official servants to judiciously care for and execute the various departments of church activity.

5. There should be some clearly defined and easily understood rules of wholesome discipline.

6. There should be provision for the revising and amending of the constitution and established rules of the church, in order to adapt them to the changing conditions of ecclesiastical life and to the ever-advancing progress of the race.

VI. METHODS OF ADMINISTRATION IN THE
TRUE CHURCH.

I. Members of the true church of Christ should hold frequent, regular, and well ordered gatherings or convocations for mutual edification, religious services, and other purposes conducive of the nurture and growth of the divine life in their own souls and of the moral and spiritual improvement of society at large.

2. The ministry of the true church should commend itself to the laity and to the world by its intellectual competency, its high spirituality and consecration to its work, its exemplary conduct and character, and its efficiency in prosecuting its holy mission.

3. There should be hearty and constant cooperation of ministers, subordinate officers, and members generally in the endeavor to promote the prosperity of the church, the betterment of humanity, and the extension of the domain of truth and righteousness in the earth.

4. Wholesome discipline and good order in all departments of church life should be sedulously maintained.

5. There should be uncompromising fidelity to acknowledged essentials on the part of all church members, while the largest liberty is allowed in all other respects.

6. Due regard should be paid to gradation of discipleship and to the successive steps of Christian progress, from the youngest child and the least advanced convert to the loftiest and most noble saint; but great care should be taken never to lower the standard of pure, practical Christianity.

REMARKS.

Having thus formulated and synthetized what I deem the absolute essentials of the true Christian church according to my clearest understanding and

best judgment, it may be asked to what use such a result of my thought and effort can be put. How can I make what I have done in this matter serve the great ends of life, enhance the interests of organized religion, and promote the and kingdom of our Lord? I reply that I confidently expect and prophesy the rise at a not very distant day of a new and regenerate form of the Christian church; one occupying a much higher plane and conforming much more closely to the primitive ideal than that which now exists as represented by any one of the multiform denominations composing it. Such a church will need and will have a distinctive declaratory platform or statement of essential divine principles. I have herein presented, suggestively, at least, the outline and substance of such a platform or statement, and I commend it prospectively to the consideration of those whom God shall honor with the privilege of inaugurating so holy and glorious a movement as I have indicated, for revision and adoption; modifying and recasting it without changing its vital character to meet the then existing circumstances and needs of the church itself and of the world.

Meantime, I am aware that the great mass of professing Christians, whatever the creed or name, now parading or perhaps masquerading under the banner of the Nazarene, will for various reasons set my scheme at naught as in their opinion fatally objectionable. On the one hand so-called Liberal Christians will condenm it outright as a creed;

which, whether true or false, good or bad, is per se abhorent to their religious education, their convictions and their tastes. Besides, most of them would dissent widely if not altogether from some of my specified principles and rules of duty, however they might give their personal assent to a majority of them in a general, non-committal way. On the other hand I must expect as a matter of course, that the devotees of the long-established statements of faith in all the great denominational churches of Christendom - the self-styled Evangelicals will quietly ignore, or, if they speak, will denounce my manifesto as not simply uncalled for and utterly inadequate but as dangerously heretical, both in what it contains and in what it omits in its category of essential items of belief. Such will very naturally reaffirm the excellency and allsufficiency of their own formularies and treat mine with emphatic though perhaps sincere reprobation or contempt.

What then? What am I to do about all this? What ought I to do? Shall I give way to it and keep silent? Ought I to retire ignominiously from the field of conflict for the truth of God as it has been revealed to me? Heaven forbid! I have a testimony to bear for that truth and for the righteousness which is built upon it as upon everlasting foundations. I have studied long and intensely the parties of the religious world referred to; their positions, their arguments, their spirit, their labors, and their fruits. And I know beyond all peradventure that they are entrenched in great and

indefensible errors which must sooner or later be abandoned. They cannot be more confident that they are right and I wrong than I am that the reverse is true. I therefore join issue with them, not in wrath or scorn, but yet boldly and uncompromisingly. I shall therefore assail their positions which they assume to be impregnable, and defend my own without fear, favor, or supension of hostilities, till death paralyzes my powers, using only the weapons of spiritual warfare wielded in candor and love but with unwavering assurance of the justice and final triumph of my cause.

Before entering upon the conflict, either with my anti-creed Liberal Christian brethren or with my brethren of the various false-creed schools, which I propose to open in my next discourse and continue in several subsequent ones, I will devote a little time and effort as I bring the present one to a close with a careful statement of what I deem the legitimate requisites, characteristics, and limitations of a sound Christian creed or platform of faith and practice. This will prepare the way for what is to follow and render what will then be said more clear and comprehensible.

I. It should be an honest statement of what appears from a human standpoint to be fundamental truths believed to be divine in their essence and therefore obligatory upon the intellects, hearts, and consciences of men, without assuming that the statement itself is perfect, infallible, and unimprovable.