A Christian pastor can either rule, or he can have the reputation of ruling; but he can not do both. Real ruling involves a sinking of self, a working through others, a doing of nothing that some one else can be got to do. The reputation of ruling leads sooner or later to the loss of real influence, and to the decline of the activities of the church itself. See Coleman, Manual of Prelacy and Ritualism, 87‐125; and on the advantages of Congregationalism over every other form of church‐polity, see Dexter, Congregationalism, 236‐296. Dexter, 290, note, quotes from Belcher’s Religious Denominations of the U. S., 184, as follows: “Jefferson said that he considered Baptist church government the only form of pure democracy which then existed in the world, and had concluded that it would be the best plan of government for the American Colonies. This was eight or ten years before the American Revolution.” On Baptist democracy, see Thomas Armitage, in N. Amer. Rev., March, 1887:232‐243. John Fiske, Beginnings of New England: “In a church based upon such a theology [that of Calvin], there was no room for prelacy. Each single church tended to become an independent congregation of worshipers, constituting one of the most effective schools that has ever existed for training men in local self‐government.” Schurman, Agnosticism, 160—“The Baptists, who are nominally Calvinists, are now, as they were at the beginning of the century, second in numerical rank [in America]; but their fundamental principle—the Bible, the Bible only—taken in connection with their polity, has enabled them silently to drop the old theology and unconsciously to adjust themselves to the new spiritual environment.” We prefer to say that Baptists have not dropped the old theology, but have given it new interpretation and application; see A. H. Strong, Our Denominational Outlook, Sermon in Cleveland, 1904. B. Erroneous views as to church government refuted by the foregoing passages. (_a_) The world‐church theory, or the Romanist view.—This holds that all local churches are subject to the supreme authority of the bishop of Rome, as the successor of Peter and the infallible vicegerent of Christ, and, as thus united, constitute the one and only church of Christ on earth. We reply: First,—Christ gave no such supreme authority to Peter. Mat. 16:18, 19, simply refers to the personal position of Peter as first confessor of Christ and preacher of his name to Jews and Gentiles. Hence other apostles also constituted the foundation (Eph. 2:20; Rev. 21:14). On one occasion, the counsel of James was regarded as of equal weight with that of Peter (Acts 15:7‐30), while on another occasion Peter was rebuked by Paul (Gal. 2:11), and Peter calls himself only a fellow‐elder (1 Pet. 5:1).