The pure gold of the Spirit is most conveniently and effectually circulated when mixed with the alloy of rites, ceremonies, creeds, officers, and organisations. Though no essential part of the pure Gospel, yet these forms and observances, these bishops and clergy, these covenants and confessions, are as practically useful for the maintenance and spread of the Christian Spirit as courts and constitutions, governors and judges, are for the orderly conduct of the state. Their authority is founded on their practical utility. When their utility ceases, when they come to obscure rather than reveal the Spirit they are intended to express, then schism and reformation serve the same beneficent purpose in the church that declarations of independence and revolution have so often achieved in the state. That form of church government is best which in any given age and society works best; and this may well be concentrated personal authority in one set of circumstances, and democratic representative administration in another. Each has its advantages and its disadvantages.
Modes of worship rest on the same practical basis. Spontaneous prayer or elaborate ritual, much or little participation by the people, long or short sermons, prayer-meetings or no prayer-meetings,--all are to be determined by the test of practical experience. It is absurd to profess to draw hard and fast rules about these matters from the precept or practice of Jesus and His Apostles, or the early church fathers, working as they did under conditions so widely different from our own. Probably centralised authority and elaborate ritual are most effective when bishops and priests can be found who will not abuse their power for their own aggrandisement. Until then, more democratic forms of worship and of government are doubtless more expedient. The friendly competition of the two systems side by side helps to keep sacerdotalism modest and make independency effective.