SECTION I

THE CLERGY, THE FOUNDATION OF UNITY IN THE FREE CHURCH.
While setting aside the state, rejecting all alliance with it, and while refusing at the same time to take the position of the Christians who had previously separated from nationalism, the founders of the Free Church wished, in constituting themselves as a body, to preserve some bond which these did not possess and which the state did not furnish. This bond is the clergy, the clerical body.
Plainly, the churches whose association composes the Free Church have no other according to its constitution. The unity subsists in the body of the clergy and there solely. This principle, the importance of which cannot be overestimated, was that of the Church as fallen in the first ages, that which ended in popery in contrast with the Church of God.
In the Protestant or Reformed Churches, the state serves as a link, as a principle of unity; they are, consequently, national churches. The Romish system has another center of unity, which I need not stop to notice here. The dissenters, whatever may be additionally the unity of ideas and of habit of association with which analogous principles furnish them, are in general independents or congregationalists; that is to say, their churches, as churches, acknowledge no bond of unity among themselves.
There remains then to the Free Church but one principle which can and does really make of it a body; it is the clerical principle. Little matters it whether the clergy is composed of pastors or elders. It is they, a body of officials, distinct from the mass of believers, who alone give a character of unity to this bundle of churches. The details of the Constitution show it. General Church assemblies, church councils do not produce a shadow of unity! This unity resides in the synod; the synod is the principle of it. Everything which concerns the clergy is carefully kept in the hands of the clergy. The veto without a statement of motives is alone permitted to a flock to which a pastor is proposed. As to their internal matters, the assemblies may be consulted and may express their wishes when the church council calls them together; but all action whatever is reserved to the clergy.
The true unity of the Church of God, that is to say, the unity of the body of Christ on the earth, is completely excluded from the Free Church. There are " constituted bodies," but the idea of the body is lost.
The confusion of these two things is striking in the Sixth Article of the Constitution. " The Free Church is governed by constituted bodies who are to employ themselves, each according to the function assigned to it, in procuring the spiritual good of the Church and its members, so that the whole well proportioned and well joined together in all its parts should derive its increase from Christ, according to the power He distributes to each member," Eph. 4:16. Now, it is perfectly certain that this passage of the epistle to the Ephesians applies solely to the body of Christ, one upon earth, to the functions of its members, and to that body looked at on earth, insisting particularly on its unity flowing from its being the habitation of one Spirit (chap. 4: 4)-an idea impossible here, because the Free Church of the Canton de Vaud has no pretensions to be the body of Christ, and its four constituted bodies are not members of the body of Christ.
It is sad, to say nothing more, to use the word of God, and that in its most precious and profound teachings, to apply it to that which is a creation of man, and to that which has no right to pretend to be what the passage cited speaks of. It is sad to seek to clothe a purely human system with the luster of the blessing which is connected with the work of God. The Free Church of the Canton de Vaud is not, and still less are its constituted bodies, the body of Christ, nor the bride of Christ, however it may clothe itself with these beautiful names by debasing their meaning and force. " She is resolved," say the authors of her Constitution, " to yield obedience (to Jesus Christ) as a faithful wife to her husband." Wife! She is not a wife. There exists neither a Vaudois bride, nor a French bride, nor an English bride. By attaching such a name to bodies constituted by men, the idea of the unity of the body of Christ is falsified and lost, an idea of which the importance cannot be exaggerated.
The grand principles of the Free Church are then:
The establishment of a body of clergy, the only agent and bond of unity;
And the denial of the unity of the body of Christ, of that truth of which true Christians feel very particularly the need and importance.
In fact, it cannot be otherwise in a church of the multitude. How seek, how find, in an unconverted mass a principle of spiritual union? There is needed for this mass, a body in which, in theory, because of its public character, piety should be reputed to reside; a body which may act on it and give it a center by maintaining religion in the midst of it. Let the action of the flocks, set aside by the " Constitution," be introduced into the general assemblies, and the Free Church will present the spectacle of the miseries of dissent, without having like it either separation from the world, or the safeguard of the conversion of its members.
Several details of the " Constitution of the Free Church " afford us a striking proof of the preoccupation of its authors, as to the maintenance of the clerical principle.
First, the nature of the quotations which are made from the word of God. Except the faulty application of a passage of Ephesians referred to above, the word of God, cited very carefully in order to support the authority of the clergy, is only quoted four times on other subjects, and these four quotations, have no reference to the principles of the Free Church, but solely to general principles of piety, and they might have been equally met with in the first religious book that might be taken up. If it is a question, on the other hand, of exhibiting all the passages which appear suited to exalt the authority and importance of the clergy, the New Testament is rummaged through and through.
Here are further proofs of this preoccupation.
The laity may elect deputies to the synod. They have, besides, the power of refusing a minister, without having in addition the permission to express the motives of this refusal. To this is limited all the action which is granted them.
All discipline belongs exclusively to the clerical bodies.
All ministry has its source and direction in the synod. No one can act in the ministry of the word unless he be sent by the synod. People can neither receive nor open the door to a minister whom the synod has not sent or sanctioned. " The synod occupies itself with evangelization and with all work that has for its object the advancement of the kingdom of God."
In sum, it all comes to this: the clergy govern without being themselves under the authority of a government.
SECTION 2
ABSENCE OF THE HOLY SPIRIT FROM THE ORGANIZATION OF THE FREE CHURCH.
There is another thing which is more serious. In the whole of the organization of the Free Church the Holy Spirit is not even named; and, with the exception of the profession of faith contained in the second article of the " Constitution," it mentions it nowhere. It could not do so. The Spirit of God is the power of the unity of the body of Christ. " There is one body and one Spirit," Eph. 4:4. Now the Free Church of the Canton de Vaud has an altogether different unity, a bond of quite another nature. For it, such as it has constituted itself, there is one body, and it is that one body: " The churches which have been formed since the year of grace 1845, in the Canton de Vaud, are, by the present act, united into one body." There is the unity of the Free Church. It is not that of the body of Christ, it is such as leaves this on one side. The Spirit of God is not, consequently, nor can He be, recognized nor sought as the One whose presence forms, characterizes, and establishes unity, and gives it as a banner the name of Jesus alone. One Spirit and one body is what does not enter into the framework of the unity of the Free Church. Its unity denies the other. " One body " excludes everything which is not itself.
The consequence of this is, that, uniting the defects of the corrupt church of the middle ages and of present nationalism, the synod or the clergy which is substituted for the presence of the Holy Spirit, sets aside equally the action of the Holy Ghost in ministry. " The synod occupies itself with all work that has for its object the advancement of the kingdom of God." That does not at all suppose the free action of the Holy Spirit nor does it permit the individual activity which is its fruit. There may be, if you will, instruments sent by the synod; but liberty of action, independently of a mission received from it, there is not.
As to what concerns the unity of the Church the body of Christ, as well as the free development of the work of the Spirit of God in the ministry of the word, the constitution of the Free Church is in complete antagonism with the most precious instructions of the word, with those which, for the days in which we live, are the most important that God has given us. Instead of maintaining, as it says, the rights of Jesus, it wars against the rights of the Holy Spirit. It gives itself liberty as regards the government, to take it entirely away from the Holy Spirit and the faithful led by Him.
One could not, in fact, deceive oneself to the extent of treating a church of the multitude, as a body dwelt in, animated and directed by the Holy Spirit. Neither its unity nor its action could be those of the Spirit. The Spirit is therefore set aside in order to substitute the clergy. Alas! the constitution of the Free Church equally sets aside the word of God.
What injustice! I shall be told. " It proclaims the divine inspiration, the authority and entire sufficiency of the Holy Scriptures, of the Old and New Testament." Entire sufficiency for what? Tell me a single article of the " Constitution " which professes to be drawn from it. If the scriptures are sufficient for the ordering of the Church, what must be thought of a constitution drawn from sources entirely outside it-a constitution which has not even expressed the intention or the desire to take the word of God as a foundation? It is, at least, a kind of sincerity, for there is not a single article of the " Constitution " which has emanated from it. This " Constitution " establishes a purely human organization, which has no relation whatever to the principles of the word of God. Those who have taken part in it have owned that the word of God has served them neither as a starting point, nor as the foundation of their work. Where, indeed, should we find, in the word of God, that it is a question of church members of the age of twenty-one years, or of electoral rights, or of votes counted by number of heads, of elders elected for six years, and other similar things? An ingenious, and no doubt pious mind has conceived an ecclesiastical system according to its own will; this system, modified by the difficulties or by the light of others, has found its formula in the " Constitution " of the Free Church.
The Spirit and the word have, then, been left out no less than the unity of the body of Christ.
SECTION 3
THE DOCTRINE OF THE FREE CHURCH.
The doctrine of the Free Church is found, alas! as defective as all the rest of it.
Nothing in it, perhaps, seriously wounds orthodoxy. One even sees in it the desire for piety. Nevertheless, its profession of faith, the doctrines of which the " Constitution " presents as being the " center and foundation of christian truth," is a meager and even false confession, and its orthodoxy is of a very pale hue. The work of redemption is put in it in the last line, and would disappear almost entirely save for the enumeration of the facts on which it is founded.
What is, according to the " Constitution," the only means of salvation? The gift of Christ? The death of Christ?
The eternal redemption which Christ has obtained for us? No: it is something in man, it is " living faith." And why " living "? True faith is no doubt living. Why then draw attention to this word? Because the tendency of this expression is to connect salvation with the qualification of a grace in us, instead of making it depend solely on the perfect work of Christ, on the righteousness of God, in which one partakes and to which one submits oneself by faith. I repeat it, the work of Christ, the redemption He has accomplished, are completely hidden behind the state of the soul which has embraced it. It is faith, and not the object of faith, which is put forward.
Here is something which is really nonsense: " Christ communicates to the faithful and to the Church all the graces necessary for regeneration." How can they be called " faithful " and " the Church " if they are not yet regenerated? What does that mean: " the graces necessary to regeneration "? The Holy Spirit then does not regenerate! He communicates to unconverted man certain graces necessary for regeneration, graces which man makes use of to regenerate himself. Is that the obligatory doctrine, to which a formal assent must be given in order to become a member of the Free Church?
It is added: " It is by the Holy Spirit whom He sends on the part of His Father." This is not according to the truth. Jesus has sent this Comforter who shall abide forever with the Church, as also it may be said that the Father has sent Him in Christ's name. As to what concerns the Holy Spirit, one finds thus, at the bottom of all the system of the Free Church, an unbelief and ignorance, involuntary no doubt, but not the less real.
Again: " He will return to put his own in possession of eternal life." One may, it is true, speak of eternal life to designate the power of the glory; but, met with thus by itself here, this expression only adds a little more vagueness to all the rest. The word of God teaches us and repeats to us that he who believes in the Son HAS eternal life.
The work of redemption and the work of life are, alas! carefully lessened in this confession of faith. It is defective enough to be false, for a defective faith established as a rule is false. It is besides positively false in many of its assertions.
The Free Church admits discipline in principle and in fact.
The manner in which it orders the exercise of it, the formula of its doctrines on this subject, betrays in a somewhat curious way the conflict between the need of pious souls and the difficulty which a church of the multitude puts in the way of it. The 31st Article of the " Constitution " lays down in principle that all discipline shall be in the hands of the pastor assisted by the church council. Next, if all gentle means fail, what will the council do? What rule will it follow? After having consulted the word of God, " it will follow the course which shall seem marked out thereby." There would have been in any case this faculty or this latitude without an article of Constitution. This is but a declaration of incompetence, by which the assemblies will escape the organization intended by the " Constitution ": for, suppose the church council saw in the word of God that the conscience of all the body ought to be concerned in discipline, the Free Church would see its constitution violated in its fundamental principle, and an independent authority established. Evidently, a church which should exercise this discipline in a regular manner, could not receive every member of a church not disciplined, even were he an elder, although he might belong to the Free Church; and, in fact, a church exercising this discipline would cease to form an integral part of the body, and would become a dissenting church. How, too, exercise this discipline by means of the conscience of the whole body, if the body is a church of the multitude? The presence of the Holy Spirit in the Church becomes here an essential question.
It will be on this point, and on the question of the nomination of pastors, that as a system the Free Church will be broken. Its " Constitution " will remain as a memorial of the powerlessness of man to constitute by human means that which is only of God. That which proceeds from faith on the part of the individuals who have taken part in it, whatever there is of conscience (and there is this), will remain as a precious proof of the goodness and patience of God.
I should not have deemed it necessary to pass this work in review, if I had only had in view the Free Church of the Canton de Vaud. The work of God in that country will bear its fruit, according to the measure of the power which acts in it. If there is found there a testimony superior to that of the Free Church, accompanied by a power which God can put honor upon, this testimony will attract those who are truly spiritual.
If there be not, the Free Church will pursue its course and will take the form which will result not from its " Constitution," but from the elements of life, of good or of evil existing in the midst of the assemblies that compose it. The " Constitution " is neither the expression nor the form of the efficacious principle which has brought this work into existence. It is the form which the clergy have wished to give it, and that will not last. I speak of it because elsewhere people are deluding themselves with the hope that a similar clerical movement will bring in a deliverance that they are waiting for.
This is not faith. Let those who have faith take it as a warning and cling afresh to the truth. They will please God so far as faith acts in them and they act by faith, according to the conscience which they have as to things, according to the light that God has set in their consciences His word understood by faith. One has only to follow the word of God. Is one alone in following it? That is so much the more honorable, as demanding all the more faith. Seen from outside, the path of faith appears very painful; it is, for every one who walks in it, full of sweetness and peace. The mountains, on which God communed with Abraham and Abraham with God, were the object of terror to Lot. He thought he should perish there; Gen. 19:19.