our Scriptural discipline, can be no guide to us in this matter. Under the control of the state, they are obliged to allow all manner of latitudinarian opinions, and have ceased to put forth any ecclesiastical testimony on great questions. We have what they want, and are bound to call the spiritual independence and Scriptural discipline, which are our distinctive privilege, into active exercise or the side of the divine authority of Scripture. Unfaithfulness or weak concession at this juncture would allow two classes of professors, students, and preachers antagonistic to each other, and end in the long run, as all such false alliances must end, in an ultimate separation between the rationalistic and evangelical elements, as incapable of existing together. Any man of long views, or who has looked into the history of the church, must see this; and, therefore, in the exercise of that inherent authority which we possess, the church must at once nip these opinions in the bud, and do so effectually. On one point I have not the shadow of a doubt. An attack on the genuineness and authority of Scripture, whether dignified by the title of the higher criticism or prompted by the lower scepticism, ought never to be permitted within the church on the part of any office-bearer. We can keep criticism within its proper limits, and this occasion may have been permitted to occur that we may show to other churches how we can act in the exercise of our independent jurisdiction.”