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Presbyterian College, 
 
 MONTREAL 
 
 Li tS Fe Arey. 
 
 Presented by 
 
 
 
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TO 
 
 THE PATRIARCHS, ARCHBISHOPS, BISHOPS, 
 
 AND OTHERS IN PLACES OF CHIEF RULE OVER THE CHURCH OF CHRIST 
 
 THROUGHOUT THE EARTH, 
 THE EMPERORS, KINGS, SOVEREIGN PRINCES, 
 
 AND CHIEF GOVERNORS OVER THE NATIONS OF THE BAPTIZED. 
 
 {2 the Nawe of the Father, and of the Son, 
 any of the Boly Ghost, One Gos. Awe. 
 
 The Church of Christ is the company of all who are baptized in the name of the 
 
 
 
 Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, without distinction of age or coun- 
 try, and separated by their baptism from all other men. One body ;' the pillar and 
 oround of the truth ;* the dwelling place of God; the temple of the Holy Ghost ;’ 
 the declarer unto all men of God’s will; the teacher unto all men of God’s ways; 
 the depository of God’s word and ordinances ;—wherein is offered up all the true 
 worship which God receives from His creatures of mankind ;—through whom 
 have been conveyed all those blessings, in civil and domestic life, which have 
 distinguished Christendom ;—wherein are contained the only hope for man and the 
 only means of accomplishing that purpose, for which God waits, and which all crea- 
 tion earnestly expects.’ 
 
 . Le eae oe SDL ee es sss 4g 
 ' Ephes. tv. 21 Tim. in. 15. 2 Cor. vi. 16. Rom. viu. 19. 
 
 
 

 
 As the Church is the aggregate of the baptized, so Christendom is the 
 community of those nations which, as national bodies, profess the faith of Christ’s 
 Church ;—whose heads and rulers not only recognise that all their power is derived 
 from God, but, being consecrated over their people in God’s Church, have 
 
 acknowledged themselves to be occupiers of their thrones for Christ, until He come 
 
 
 
 and take the kingdom ;—have, by receiving anointing from the hands of God’s 
 priests, also acknowledged that their ability to rule is by the grace of His Spirit 
 
 ministered unto them by His Church ;- 
 
 
 
 and, in that same holy act, have submitted, 
 or professed to submit, themselves and their people to be instructed in God’s ways 
 from the lips of those, from whose hands they have received their anointing. 
 Christendom is one corporate body ;—separated from all other nations of the earth, 
 in that they recognise the doctrines of Jesus Christ as the basis of their international 
 law, and of their dealings one with another ;—distinguishable from all other nations, 
 in that, by their legitimate organs, they have been brought as nations into covenant 
 with God; thus, entitled to all the blessings, responsible for all the duties, and 
 
 and 
 
 
 
 exposed to all the judgments attendant on, and involved in, such covenant ; 
 yet, as nations, distinguishable one from another; each governed by their legitimate 
 rulers, whose authority is neither diminished nor increased, but sanctified, by their 
 protession of the true faith, and by the anointing which they have received at the 
 
 hands of the ministers of God. 
 
 It is to this Church we address ourselves through her Bishops, on whom, with 
 their clergy under them, has devolved the nmunistry of that priestly office which was 
 constituted on the day of Pentecost ; and to whom, as trustees thereof, in their 
 several places and parochial jurisdictions and dioceses, the souls of the baptized are 
 
 committed by our Lord Jesus Christ, the Great Shepherd of the sheep. 
 
 To this Christendom also, the nations in covenant with God, through their 
 anointed heads, their Kings and all their chief governors, whose acknowledged duty 
 is to rule by God’s laws and to hear His word from His Church, we address 
 ourselves. And we beseech your patient audience, Holy Fathers of the Church, and 
 
 Royal Potentates and Dignities, imploring you, for Christ’s sake and in His name, 
 
 Sietieemeaeene a 
 
 ay * 
 
 a 
 
 —— 
 
 
 
that you will not cast aside our word unheard, or rashly and before consideration 
 
 account it our presumption. 
 
 The ever-living and unchangeable God, who, at the first, out of darkness com- 
 manded the light to shine, hath in all His dealings with mankind shown Himself the 
 same God, merciful and gracious and ready to forgive. And ever, when men 
 through their iniquities have brought themselves into misery, hath He been present 
 in their darkest hour, not only to deliver them from the existing evil, but to carry 
 them forward in His purpose of mercy and grace. When man had sinned, and all 
 creation seemed thereby involved in ruin irretrievable, He was swift to give promise 
 of salvation, through the seed even of her who was first in the transgression. After- 
 wards, when the sons of God had corrupted themselves, and the world of the ungodly 
 was ready to be destroyed, He warned Noah to prepare arrark for the saving of his 
 house. And after the flood, when men had forsaken the worship of the true God, 
 He called Abraham and his seed to be the faithful ones in the midst of surrounding 
 idolatry. He delivered them from the idols and the bondage of Egypt by the hand 
 of Moses and Aaron. He committed unto them His lively oracles: He consti- 
 tuted them the depository of the hope of the World. He brought them in peace 
 into the land of their possession. And many times in their own land He heard their 
 cry, and raised up judges to deliver them from the oppression of their enemies, into 
 whose hands He was compelled to give them up.?, When, because of their sins, they 
 were carried away into Babylon, thither He followed them, and brought them back 
 to build again the city of their fathers and the temple of their God. And at length 
 when, under the form of godliness, the surest covert for apostasy’s most fatal work, 
 with an hypocritical zeal for that law which by their traditions they made void,’ 
 they had filled up the measure of their iniquities ;—when because of these things 
 He had suffered His kingdom of priests, His peculiar people, to be degraded to the 
 lowest condition in which they could subsist as a polity ;—when His temple had 
 
 been profaned, and His holy city, the city of the Great King, trampled under foot ; 
 
 ' Acts, vii. 38. Rom. iii. 2. * Judges, ii. 16. * Matt. xxiii. 32. 
 
 
 

 
 y 
 ao eee od ES hes a 
 
 
 
 when the voice of the prophet had long been silent, and all the signs of God’s 
 presence and protection had disappeared ;'—-when His promise seemed to fail, and 
 His mercy to be clean gone for ever ;’—then were His promise and His mercy nighest 
 to accomplishment. The fulness of time had arrived,’ and God sent forth His only 
 begotten Son, by the Holy Ghost to become flesh, and to be born of the Blessed 
 Virgin, “ A light to lighten the Gentiles, and the glory of His people Israel.’’’ 
 And when the Lord of Glory, the Light of Life, had been crucified, slain, and 
 buried, He raised Him from the dead, the first fruits of them that slept, and, by 
 the giving of the Holy Ghost, constituted His Church—His Temple, making His 
 dwelling among men. And although, at times, His Church hath been brought to 
 extremest straits, hath been threatened with utter destruction from external violence, 
 hath seemed to be immerged in internal corruptions wherein life was all but extinct, 
 
 yet hath God still preserved His people ;—the Lord Jesus Christ hath still proved 
 
 
 
 the Rock of Salvation to His Church ;—and now at this day, and at this late hour 
 of the history of the world and of the history of the Church, God hath still his 
 anointed priests, to whom he can again make known His will for the obedience of 
 
 faith. 
 
 And is not this the time that God should come forth to visit His people ? 
 that He should lift up His voice unto all, who yet abide faithful in the midst of 
 the overflowings of the ungodly ? When on every side we hear the roaring of the 
 sea and the waves;° when those, who think in their heart that the time hath come 
 to cast down all thrones and to overthrow God’s altars, are rising up against all 
 faith and reverence, and taking counsel against God’s anointed ; when men’s hearts 
 are failing them for fear, and for looking for those things which are coming on the 
 earth ; shall not God, who is ever the same God, who never forsaketh His Church, 
 arise and rebuke the madness of the people, assure the hearts of His children who 
 are looking up to Him for help, reprove iniquity, and separate between the clean 
 and the unclean? Above all, shall He not appear to the help of the anointed priests 
 of His altar, and the anointed kings of Christendom, renewing to them the assur- 
 
 ' Psalm Lxxiv. 9, * Psalm Ixxvii. 8. * Gal: iv. 4. * Luke, u. 32. ” Luke, xxi. 25. 
 
 —_ 
 
ance, that His power is theirs for the fulfilment of all their duties, and that, while 
 the gates of hell seem to be prevailing against the Church of the living God, it was 
 no vain word with which Jesus Christ our Lord bade farewell to His apostles :— 
 “ All power is given unto me in Heaven and in earth.”” “Lo! I am with you 
 
 always, even to the end of the world.’’’ 
 
 None can doubt the tearful dangers which surround you on every side, or the 
 need of every support and counsel which God can give, whether we look to the 
 removing of all ancient landmarks, the breaking up of all ordinances of life, the 
 decay of reverence in all those set over them in the Lord, in children for their 
 parents, in servants for their masters, in subjects for those in authority over them ; 
 or whether we regard the contempt for the priestly office, and the denial of the 
 holiest truths of God as irrational; or lastly, that open and unblushing avowal 
 by the infidel and revolutionist of their fixed determination to complete the 
 work which the revolution of the last century left unfinished, by the disorganisation 
 of all ancient principles, moral, religious, or political, and by the destruction of 
 all established institutions in Church and State; and to establish a new era of 
 atheistic anarchy, under the name of liberalism, on the ruins of the Christian Faith 
 
 and of the governments at present existing. 
 
 None can be ignorant how many hate the Christian Faith on its own 
 account ; how many more unite in the assault upon it, because it is the stronghold of 
 government and good order ; and in what unhallowed union many, even professedly 
 religious, but led away by false maxims of an unreal and pretended liberality, are 
 
 banded with infidels to effect the destruction of the Christian constitution of the 
 
 
 
 nations of Kurope—the alliance between Church and State—not only in those 
 corrupted modes of alliance, wherein the Church has been degraded to be the 
 
 bondmaid of the state, or the state subjected to the priesthood and its power 
 
 
 
 usurped by them,—but in those the most legitimate—in every form wherein religion 
 can have any influence or interposition in the affairs of human government. And 
 of those who are not arrayed in the ranks of the assailants, how few understand 
 
 ' Matt. xxvii. 18. 20. 
 
 ee $e ————————$————— a a a — = oo EE 
 
 
 

 
 6 
 
 the nature of the Christian calling, the authority of the Christian priest, or the 
 standing of the Christian king! To rule “by the grace of God,” the ancient title 
 of a Christian king, is still retained as a form in most monarchies of Europe; but 
 in how few is it more than an obsolete memorial, a last-surviving spark of the sense 
 of obligations formerly felt to be existing, on the part of the ruler to God and His 
 Church, and on the part of the subject to the vicegerent of Christ! And the peril 
 of the present times consists not merely in the progress already made in the work 
 of destruction and demoralisation, but in the universal forgetfulness of what is the 
 
 a national covenant with 
 
 
 
 Christian Church, or of what is a Christian monarchy 
 
 God. 
 
 It is because men have forgotten these things, that the body of the baptized 
 are seen this day torn and rent into a thousand sects; separated in outward forms 
 both of administration and of worship, in doctrines, and in their whole spirit from 
 one another—biting, and devouring, and ready to consume one another; and 
 either on the one hand contented that it should be so, discerning neither the Body 
 of the Lord, that it is One, nor the guilt of schism; or else anathematising all 
 others but themselves, and leaving them to perish as reprobates,—forgetting the 
 Brotherly Covenant, the Holy Name which is affixed in common on all the 
 baptized. Among the priests themselves, there is every variety and shade of opinion 
 on matters of doctrine and discipline. The unity even of the Roman Catholic 
 Church is but an empty name. Without the pale in which she has fenced herself 
 by her anathemas, the Greek and Protestant Churches comprise as many in number 
 as herself. Within, her unity extends only to symbols of faith and external rites of 
 worship, (and even in these, she allows diversity, as for instance, im many of the 
 “ Greek united”’ bodies, ) while in the heart of her clergy there is as much divergence 
 and separateness as elsewhere; and not the less that it is concealed under an 
 
 outward cloak, a profession of agreement. 
 
 Because of this ignorance, also, it is, that the universal cry is echoing round 
 the world, that power is from the people, and they the legitimate source thereof ;— 
 
 striking at the very root of all ancient obedience ; constituting every man the judge 
 
 ER es 
 
on 
 
 of whom he will obey; making governors the servants of the governed, and 
 responsible immediately to man for the fulfilment of the duties of offices entrusted to 
 them by God. And thus it results that monarchy is assailed as tyranny ;—all rule 
 or constraint over the passions of men is resented as a thing contrary to man’s natural 
 rights ;—every attempt to control the press, even when employed in the corruption 
 of morals, or the propagation of open sedition, is reprobated ;—and the great body of 
 the people in every land, ignorant of true principles, and corrupted with infidel 
 maxims, are prepared to be the ready instruments in the hands of those who are, or 
 aspire to be, their leaders. In some countries in Europe the danger may be less 
 instant, and the people, for the present, may be repressed by military force; but the 
 same desolating principles are at work in all. Nor are they confined to the lowest 
 class. Every rank in life, from the peasant to the noble, is pervaded by them. In 
 the provinces the evil may be less manifest, because less called into-action. But in 
 towns its concentrated energy is developed: here are the strongholds of Satan; here 
 all wicked passions and tendencies take root and grow; in these are fostered the 
 maxims of atheism and licentiousness unrestrained, hatred of authority, envy of 
 wealth, and of rank, and of goodness; here crimes of every description are contrived 
 and practised; here are conceived the schemes of sedition, and rebellion, and 
 infidelity, of destruction and robbery: and from town to town the people are banded 
 
 together for the work of ruin. 
 
 And those in offices of rule both in the Church and in the State themselves 
 need to guard against the tendency to the self-same error. If the Clergy will limit 
 their notions of the Church to those of their own sect; if they will forget that the 
 whole of the baptized are their flock, their children, whether prodigal or dutiful, 
 whether wanderers from the fold, or faithful to their Shepherd’s voice; if they 
 will cut off and cast away from them all who are wayward or disobedient, and will 
 not hold them fast with the cords of love, wherewith God Himself hath bound their 
 people to them ;—then do they manifest to the people how low is their own 
 estimate of the holy covenant of God, the family tie of His household; and 
 induce them by example to think lightly of their Father’s house, and as lightly 
 
 to depart therefrom. Alas! the Church of Christ has experienced full often in 
 
 
 

 
 her history, that forwardness to excommunicate is the readiest way to render 
 
 communion cheap. 
 
 And if the Kings and Rulers will not remember that government is God’s 
 ordinance for the benefit of the governed, and not of those who govern; if they 
 
 will exercise their authority to gratify the lust of power or of vengeance, and forget 
 
 
 
 that they are, not the tyrants, but, the fathers of their people,—and the fathers of all, 
 not of a party; if they will not manifest God, who is the benefactor and sustainer 
 of all His creatures, but exhibit*man, oppressing his fellow-man ;—this is to rule, 
 not by “God’s grace,”’ but by the will of man, or rather by brute force; and thus do 
 they furnish their subjects with a ready argument, that rule and authority are of 
 
 man, and, being so, should be exercised by the many rather than by the few. 
 
 But if the anointed King, or the anointed Minister of God, do wilfully 
 consent to the wickedness of these last days of civil and religious licentiousness; if 
 out of a false principle of deference to popular opinion, or for present ease, or for 
 worldly interest or honours, they consent to abdicate their standing as the ordinance 
 of God, to recognise the people as the source of their authority, or to exercise that 
 authority in obedience to its ever-changing voice; if the Priests of God do consent 
 to stand as the ministers, not of the One Church, but of one of the many sects 
 admitted into the temple, and whose idol is inscribed among the objects, of the 
 pantheistic worship of the age; if the rulers in the state will veil the authority 
 which God hath committed to them before the usurped majesty of the people, and 
 will govern, not according to God’s Laws which are eternal, but according to a 
 supposed expediency, ever varying, because dependent on the fitful movements of 
 
 the people;—if any have fallen into this fatal snare, and will not repent of their 
 
 
 
 wickedness, and will not, so far as they legitimately can and are free to do it, correct 
 the error of their way, and will not look to God to deliver them in as far as they 
 
 have involved themselves in bondage to those over whom they should bear rule;— 
 
 
 
 then indeed hath the disease reached the very centre of life—God is not merely 
 rejected but betrayed, and He hath no further dealing in store, but the out-pouring 
 
 of the vials of consuming judgment. 
 
 
 
 Se 
 
  Uyvies — 7 
 
 ee 
 
o 
 
 Nor are these principles affected by diversities in the forms of government, 
 whether the supreme power is distributed among many, or vested in the person of 
 one. It matters not who are the organs for exercising that supreme power. Our 
 words are as applicable to the chief magistrate in a republic, and to the spirit 
 wherein he is bound to exercise an authority defined by the law of the common- 
 wealth, as to the most arbitrary monarch. Power must be exercised on a principle 
 of strict duty and responsibility to God, and not in compliance with the wayward 
 
 passions of the subject:—for the source of it is God, and not the people. 
 
 But whatever the past conduct, or whatever the present dispositions, 
 of those who bear rule in Church and State, the fearful crisis to which the 
 affairs of both are hastening is apparent to all men. Some may flatter themselves 
 that they have the means and the ability to stem the current; some may conceive 
 the hope that they can rule in the whirlwind, and give direction to its violence; 
 but the wise and the prudent, even of the children of this world, think not so, 
 These desery the approaching storm of revolution darkening the world’s horizon, 
 the dawn of a day of wrath and of portentous gloom,’ wherein are shrouded 
 events and issues which they anxiously endeavour to anticipate, but which baffle 
 calculation. The most skilful await, with perplexed minds, the certain evils 
 which they know not how to avert:—those who are still faithful to God so 
 
 far as they have knowledge of His ways—ot the subjection due to the powers 
 
 
 
 ordained by Him,—and of the dignity of the Church, the espoused bride of Jesus 
 Christ—do mourn over despised authority and the degradation of all that once was 
 esteemed holy, and honourable, and venerable: and if yet they hold fast their hope 
 and trust in God, they know not from what quarter to expect deliverance, nor by 
 what means it shall be vouchsafed. Meanwhile the tumult of those who rise 
 up against God increaseth continually, and the transgressors are coming to 
 the full.” The principles, which in the last century were for the most part 
 confined to France, and which prepared the way for the former revolution 
 there, are now at work in every country of Europe, displayed ostentatiously 
 
 in all the popular literature, and forming the basis of every popular harangue. 
 
 ' Zeph. i. 14, 15, 16. * Dan. viii. 23. 
 
 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 10 
 
 And the means for arresting the catastrophe are fearfully lessened, and 
 diminishing every day. Already the hand of sacrilegious spoliation hath been 
 stretched on the property of the Church in most countries of Europe. The 
 first act thereof hath established the principle and precedent. The first morsel 
 of the prey hath whetted the appetite for more. And that spirit of 
 lingering concession, which proclaims the unwillingness of those in power to 
 concede, and yet their inability to refuse, serves only to accumulate elements 
 of greater mischief; sapping deeper and more surely: enlarging the capacity 
 and inflaming the desire for ill;—until the flood of iniquity, no longer to be 
 restrained, shall burst through every feeble barrier, and subvert and carry 
 away with it every sentiment.of loyalty, and all remaining piety and fear of God, 
 
 from among the people at large. 
 
 There are those who admit the reality and the fearful character of the 
 approaching dangers; but who dream that this 1s a passing tempest, which, however 
 destructive in its progress, shall effect the removal of the infectious principles which 
 have disorganised society. Vain illusion! “ Mernz, Menr, Texer, Upnarsin,” 
 
 931 
 
 «God hath numbered thy kingdom and finished it,’’' the time of the end is 
 
 33 
 
 come; “thou art weighed in the balances and art found wanting; “ thy kingdom 
 is divided and given to others ;’’ is written upon every earthly institution, whether 
 civil or ecclesiastical, as surely as it was written of old on the palace wall of the 
 king of Babylon. And if deliverance is to be obtained, God must reveal the causes 
 of the evils and the way of escape. For these things are the judgments of God 
 upon those who have forgotten Him, and His ways and works of old; they 
 are the vengeance of the Lord for a broken covenant,—“ the curse’? which 
 approacheth, to devour the earth, “because the earth is defiled under the inhabitants 
 “thereof, because they have transgressed the laws, changed the ordinances, broken 
 “the everlasting covenant.’’® _O be not deceived, Church of the living God, Nations 
 of the baptized! This is no passing cloud, no transitory evil, no fortuitous or 
 temporary event, from which ye shall again emerge, remaining as ye were. The 
 occurrence of past trials from which ye have emerged, and all experience of former 
 
 ' Dan. v. 25. 28. * Isaiah, xxiv. 5, 6. 
 
 A 
 fe 
 
 
 
1] 
 
 history, fail you here. They occurred in ages, wherein the ignorance of the mass of 
 mankind was at once the nursery of the danger, and the unconscious means of 
 preserving better principles. But now all is exposed: every region of the intellect 
 of man is explored, every faculty perverted into a stronghold of Satan; and men are 
 found his ready instruments, addressing themselves sternly, intelligently, and 
 advisedly to advance his work. This is no time of ignorance; “knowledge is 
 
 I 
 
 “increased,’’' every branch of it, save the knowledge of God and His ways; while 
 
 His fear, which is “the beginning of all wisdom,’’’ is departing from the earth. 
 And yet there is a refuge, a sure hiding-place, an inner sanctuary, a place of 
 defence; and that refuge and that sanctuary is in His Church: but it shall be 
 attained only by a return to the ancient paths from which we have long strayed ;° 
 by a renunciation of the long-cherished sins, which have grieved God, and caused 
 Him to depart from us; and by the restitution to a people seeking the Lord their 
 God with repentant tears,’ of the bulwarks of Zion, those defences of the Vineyard 
 of the Lord,’ the Ordinances, the Eternal Ordinances of Jesus Christ, by which the 
 believers were at the first constituted His Church, and which He gave, that God the 
 Lord might dwell among us.° Where He dwells, there is the Tabernacle, for a 
 shadow in the day-time from the heat, for a place of refuge, when the blast of the 
 
 terrible ones is as a storm against the wall.’ 
 
 Wherefore, with the respectful entreaty due to your sacred offices, we beseech 
 
 you, Most Reverend Fathers, who are charged with the souls of all God’s children 
 
 
 
 and you, Sovereign Princes, whose authority from God is supreme over all your 
 subjects, ecclesiastical or lay, and whose thrones we approach with the homage due 
 to God’s anointed—that ye will listen to the message which we bring to your ears, 
 if haply ye may find that God has indeed visited His people, as in the days of old. 
 And though we must open the secret springs and sources of the evils wherein 
 Christendom is involved, and of the far more fearful evils which are impending, 
 by tracing the sins of Kings and Priests during many generations, and the failure 
 and apostasy of the baptized; yet shall ye find, that God hath not forsaken, nor 
 
 1 Dan. xu. 4. 2 Prov. ix. 10. > Jer. vi. 16. * Jer. 1. 4.5. 
 
 * Isaiah, v. 2. 5. © Psalm lxviii. 18. ’ Isaiah, xxv. 4. 
 
 
 

 
 
 
 12 
 
 our God forgotten us.—And may His grace be with you, that ye may hear and 
 
 understand. 
 
 Tu Kk EVERLIVING GOD, who by His Word created the heavens and the 
 earth and all things that are therein, made man in His own image, and gave unto 
 him commission to subdue the earth, and have dominion over every living thing 
 that moveth thereon. God made him and all things very good, and gave him this 
 one command, that, while of every tree of the garden wherein He placed him he 
 might freely eat, of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil he should not eat; 
 
 for in the day that he should eat thereof, he should surely die. 
 
 And man did eat, and with him this creation fell; by him sin entered into the 
 world, and death by sin.’ The image of God was marred, His creatures were 
 
 involved in misery, and His handywork became a ruin. 
 
 But God who is rich in merey, for His great love wherewith He loved us, 
 had devised the means whereby He might deliver and restore His creation, and 
 fulfil all His purpose in man. Forth from His bosom He sent the Son of His love, 
 who, for our salvation, and for love of us, laid aside the eternal glory, and though 
 begotten defore all worlds, being God of God, very God of very God, was born in 
 the world, being conceived of the Holy Ghost, and born of the Virgin Mary. He 
 became flesh and dwelt among us. He assumed that predestinated form, after 
 which man was at the first created. He took hold of the seed of Adam, even 
 of the seed of Abraham,’ and bound it for ever in Himself, in indissoluble union 
 with Godhead ;—God and man in one person for ever united, God and man 
 through one person for ever reconciled, without possibility of disruption; the 
 fallen creature redeemed unto God, beyond possibility of future fall; life brought 
 out of death by resurrection—regenerate life—life which shall never die; and to 
 those, who are made partakers of this life and overcome, He shall give to sit down 
 
 with Him on His throne, even as He also overcame, and is set down with His 
 
 ' Rom. v. 12. 2 Heb. ii. 16. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
13 
 
 Father on His throne:‘ and thus, in the eternal stability of that kingdom, God’s 
 purpose in creation shall be accomplished; for the world to come shall be subjected 
 
 to man, and he shall have dominion over all the works of God’s hands.” 
 
 And God hath herein declared His righteousness, that He might be just, 
 and the Justifier of him who believeth in Jesus: for by His holy life the God-man 
 did approve Himself a Lamb without spot or blemish,’ and by His death offered up 
 an all-atoning sacrifice for us. He suffered for sins, the just for the unjust,* 
 and He is the propitiation for our sins, and the sins of the whole world,” and hath 
 redeemed us unto God, not with silver or gold, but with His own most precious 
 blood. Therefore also the Father hath highly exalted Him, and hath given 
 assurance to all men that His offering and sacrifice are accepted for us, in that 
 He raised Him from the dead and set Him at His own right hand. And, being 
 ascended thither, He hath received of the Father the promise of the Holy Ghost,* 
 whom He bestoweth upon those who believe, that they should be builded together 
 for an habitation of God through the Spirit;’ that as lively stones they should be 
 built up a spiritual house, an holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices 
 acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. Know ye not, O ye baptized, that your 
 body is the temple of the Holy Ghost, which is in you, which ye have of God; 
 and ye are not your own? for ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in 
 
 your body, and in your spirit, which are God’s.° 
 
 Thus God declared in a mystery, by the creation of Adam in His own 
 image, the future glory of man, and the future stability of the universe under his 
 rule: and by the succeeding history of Adam, He hath, also in a mystery, revealed 
 the future glory of the Church as the bride of the Lamb, the partner of His throne. 
 For it is written,” “The Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and 
 he slept, and He took one of his ribs and closed up the flesh instead thereof: and 
 the rib which the Lord God had taken from man, made He a woman, and brought 
 her unto the man: and Adam said, This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my 
 
 * Rev. iii. 21. * Heb. ii. 7, 8. * 1 Peter, i. 19. * 1 Peter, ii. 18. ° 1 John, ii. 2. 
 
 ® Acts, ii. 33. ‘ Ephes. ii. 22. ° 1 Peter, ii. 5. * 1 Cor. vi. 19. Gen. ii. 21. 24. 
 
 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 14 
 
 flesh ;—therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto 
 his wife: and they shall be one flesh.”” And the Apostle St. Paul gives a 
 commentary hereon in his Epistle to the Ephesians;' for he saith, “ Christ also loved 
 the Church, and gave Himself for it; that He might sanctify and cleanse it with 
 the washing of water by the word, that He might present it to Himself, a glorious 
 Church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy 
 and without blemish.’’ “ He that loveth his wife, loveth himself; for no man ever 
 yet hated his own flesh; but nourisheth and cherisheth it, even as the Lord the 
 Church: for we are members of His body, of His flesh, and of His bones.” And 
 then, repeating the words of Adam, “for this cause shall a man leave his father and 
 mother, and shall be joined unto his wife, and they two shall be one flesh. This 
 is a great mystery: but I speak concerning Christ and the Church.”’ O! glorious 
 mystery of the Church’s calling, to be of His flesh and of His bones; although dis- 
 tinct and separate from Him—ever infinitely inferior in respect of the dignity of His 
 divine Person,—yet for ever raised to His throne, and partner of His glory! Oh! 
 infinite condescension of the adorable Son of God, through His own sacrifice and 
 sufferings to present us unto Himself, a glorious Church, without spot or wrinkle! 
 It shall be accomplished in His gathered people, and the voice of many thunderings 
 shall proclaim “ Halleluia, for the Lord God omnipotent reigneth: let us be 
 glad and rejoice, and give honour to Him, for the marriage of the Lamb is come, 
 and His wife hath made herself ready.’’* And the time must arrive when this word 
 shall be fulfilled, for it is written in the Scriptures of truth concerning the future 
 glory of the Church: and it is her highest duty to hold fast the hope of this glory; 
 to seek to be prepared to meet her Lord, her Spouse; to long for His appearing, 
 when He who is now at the right hand of the Father, having gone before to 
 prepare a place for His disciples, shall come again and receive them to Himself, 
 that where He is, there they may be,’ beholding His glory, invested with His 
 glory;‘ for they shall be like Him, they shall see Him as He is.” Oh! as the 
 trayailing woman (such is the figure which the Lord himself prophetically 
 
 depicteth for His disciples, while He should be away) as the woman when she 
 
 . 
 
 _ 
 
 ' Ephes. v. 25. 3 * Rev. xis > John, xiv. 2, 3. 
 
 * John. xvii. 22. 24. > 1 John, m. 2. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
15 
 
 is In travail hath sorrow, because her hour is come, so should they have sorrow 
 until He see them again: and then their heart shall rejoice, and their joy no man 
 
 shall take from them.' 
 
 Such is the eternal purpose of God in His Church: and the means for 
 effectuating this purpose—the means by which man, born in iniquity and conceived 
 in sin, is made partaker of this salvation—may be comprised under two heads: the 
 sacraments of life, and the ministries ordained of God for fulfilling the functions of 
 that life. These two heads correspond to that twofold purpose of God just pointed 
 out; His purpose, namely, in man considered abstractedly; and, in the Church 
 ‘considered as the body of Christ, the bride to be prepared for His coming: and 
 correspond in like manner to the twofold work of Jesus Christ on earth; His life in 
 flesh, wherein He was our example, holy, harmless, separate from sinners; and the 
 witness which He bore to God as the Revealer of the Father, the Doer of the 
 Father’s works, the Bearer of His message, the Introducer of the Dispensation of 
 
 the Gospel unto men. 
 
 The sacraments ordained of Jesus Christ, and having more direct and im- 
 mediate reference to that life which God hath given to us in His Son, are, the 
 sacrament of baptism, ordained for communicating the same by regeneration from 
 the Lord Jesus Christ, who is the second Adam, the quickening Spirit; and the 
 sacrament of the Lord’s supper, whereby the same life is sustained, reinvigorated, 
 
 and renewed, and its. manifested activity is effectually insured. 
 
 In the sacrament of Baptism, God doth use the element of water, for the 
 washing away of sins, and for saving us (in the answer of a good conscience towards 
 God) by the resurrection of Jesus Christ. It is the washing of regeneration, 
 whereby God of His great mercy saveth us;* for we, who were dead in trespasses 
 and sins,‘ are therein born again of the Holy Ghost:° the sons of God, born not 
 of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God;* and by 
 
 * John, xvi. 21, 22. * 1 Peter, iii. 21. * Titus, ii. 5. 
 
 * Ephes. ii. 1. 5. ° John, i. 5. © John, i. 12, 13. 
 
 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 16 
 
 the communication of that life we become verily and indeed members of the risen 
 Lord Jesus Christ,’ over whom death hath no more dominion; living branches 
 of the true vine:? and so St. Paul reminds us, in his Epistle to the Romans, that we 
 are buried with Christ by baptism into death, that, like as Christ was raised up 
 from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness 
 of life; and that, knowing that our old man is crucified with Him, that the body 
 of sin might be destroyed, we are to reckon ourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, 
 
 but alive unto God, through our Lord Jesus Christ.” 
 
 In the sacrament of the Holy Communion, the life which hath been thus 
 bestowed is continually nourished, by eating of the flesh and drinking of the blood | 
 of Jesus Christ. The bread which is broken in the Church of Christ is verily 
 and indeed the communion of His body,’ from which the life was poured out 
 upon the cross, but in which, now raised from the dead, the risen and glorified body, 
 resides the eternal life. The cup which is blessed in the Church of Christ is 
 verily and indeed the communion of His blood, and therein the faithful are made 
 to drink into that one Spirit;° it is the wine of the kingdom,° the wine of joy 
 and gladness, the cup of salvation. And this is the true and proper and ordained 
 efficacy of this holy sacrament, that, by the mighty operation of God, the living 
 members of the body of Christ are brought into such nearness of communion, 
 such oneness with Him, such mutual indwelling, He in them and they in Him, 
 such fellowship of His power and grace,—that the virtues of His glorified humanity 
 should as naturally and spontaneously be put forth through them, as grapes by 
 the living branches of a vine; they are pledged to show forth the very lite of 
 Christ in mortal flesh, as it is written,—“ He which saith, he abideth in Him, 
 “ought himself also to walk even as He walked;’’’ and again, “ whoso eateth 
 “my flesh, and drinketh my blood, hath eternal life, and I will raise him up 
 “at the last day.”” “He that eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood dwelleth in 
 “me, and I in him.’’ “ As the living Father hath sent me, and I live by the 
 
 “ Father, so he that eateth me, even he shall live by me.’’* 
 
 ' Ephes. v. 30. ? John, xv. 5. > Rom. vi. 4. 11. * 1 Cor. x. 16. 
 
 °1 Cor. xi 18. © Mark, xiv. 25. “1 John, ii. 6. ° John, vi. 54. 56. 
 
 
 
17 
 
 Baptism alone marks off the Church from the world; every distinction, 
 by which the people of God are represented as only a part of the baptized, 
 is an invention of men, making covenants of their own with God, and 
 usurping his judgment. By the flesh and blood of Jesus Christ alone 
 do His people live; and any other means of support, which supersedes this, is 
 also a mere expedient of men, feeding upon husks, and feeding themselves 
 without fear! For the Church of God is not a fleeting, fluctuating, intangible 
 abstraction, dependent upon the separations, the confederacies, the opinions, or 
 the actions of men; but a certain and stable constitution of God, brought into 
 being by His act, and standing by virtue of visible and tangible symbols ordained 
 by Him; and those visible and tangible symbols, in themselves and to the senses of 
 men so utterly inadequate to effect any spiritual work, are the test and trial, and, 
 duly received, are the very triumph of faith; a constant memorial and effectual 
 demonstration that the existence, form, and continuance of the Church proceed 
 from God alone, and in no way from the men who compose it. And they are not 
 empty signs of unreal things; neither are they merely the most suitable forms 
 devised by God or adopted by convention of men for the expression of spiritual 
 truths; nor yet are they merely commemorative of blessings otherwise or collaterally 
 obtained, or invisibly enjoyed; but they are present actings of Christ in the midst 
 of His people, and do operate that which they express; they are sacraments, sure 
 pledges of His love and faithfulness in bestowing the blessings by them, the which 
 He ordained them to convey. They seal by their very administration the covenant 
 of God, the blessings contained in that covenant, and the responsibilities involved 
 therein; so that every baptized man shall be judged by the covenant as one who 
 hath received the life of God, and every one who has partaken of the bread and 
 of the wine shall be judged as a partaker of the body and blood of the Lord, and 
 can find no retreat, but only a progress onward, either to perfect salvation, or to 
 
 utter and eternal apostasy. 
 
 But these holy rites can only be administered, according to the law of 
 God’s Church, by those who have received authority thereto; and this authority 
 
 ‘ Jude, 12. 
 
 
 
 
 

 
 18 
 
 can proceed only from the Lord Jesus Christ, the Head of His Church, either 
 directly, or through those whom He useth for conferring it. We come therefore to 
 the second class of those means, by which God’s purpose in the Church is 
 effected; namely, the ministries ordained of God, by which the Lord Jesus Christ 
 ministers in His Church, for the perfecting of the saints, and for bearing witness to 
 
 the world. 
 
 But we first observe that the Lord Jesus Christ, the Head of His body 
 the Church, is distinct from all other beings, and none other is like Him. He 
 hath fulfilled that specific work which He wrought for man’s salvation, and no 
 other work, nor that work in any other way, because such specifically was the 
 Father’s will: it was so, because exactly adapted to the end to be attained; 
 and therefore in no other way could that end have been attained according to 
 God’s purpose. So also is it with the Church, the body of Christ: none other can 
 be the body of Christ, and therefore none other can be like it. It is what it is, 
 by God’s ordination and constitution, for the accomplishment of a specific end 
 and purpose, and is adapted in all the completeness of its parts to that end. If 
 therefore God’s purpose is to be accomplished, the Church cannot be different 
 from, or other than, that which He constituted it; and if at any time it have 
 deviated from its original constitution, if the instrumentality ordained of God 
 be in any of its parts deficient, that deviation must be overruled and corrected, 
 and that which has become defective must be restored. The time must arrive 
 when this purpose shall be accomplished, and in the way, and by the means 
 which God hath indicated; for his Church shall never fail—it is the body 
 of His Son; therefore, when that time arrives, the Church shall be found 
 comprising the total instrumentality with which God furnished it, and manifested 
 in the full proportion of all those parts, in which He constituted it at the 
 
 beginning. 
 
 Again, the witness which God giveth of Himself to the world is not by 
 
 a confused and heterogeneous mass; but by one harmoniously organised, visible 
 
 body. God is unchangeable; and the character of the Church can no more 
 
 
 
 
 
19 
 
 be changed, than the character of Him who ordained it in all its parts. Its 
 character is such as He himself describes in His word; and no assembly, 
 confederacy, association, or body, of any kind whatsoever, or what name soever it 
 may take, is the Church of God as it is in His contemplation and purpose, unless 
 
 it answer the description He has given of it. 
 
 Now the apostle Paul, as in many passages of his epistles casually and 
 unconnectedly, so most fully and distinctly in his first epistle to the Corinthians 
 and in his epistle to the Ephesians, declares what is the constitution of the 
 Church as framed of God, what are its principal memberships and parts, and 
 what is the end and purpose to be accomplished in the Church by the co-operations 
 and mutual ministrations of those several parts; from whence we extract the 
 following passages:—In his first epistle to the Corinthians, the twelfth chapter, 
 after setting forth the diversities of gifts in divers men, in the body of Christ, 
 (the which he illustrates under the figure of the human body, and that body 
 he declares “is not one member, but many members, yet but one body,’’? whereof 
 
 each hath need of all the others,) he saith, “ Now ye are the body of Christ, and 
 
 
 
 “members in particular—and God hath set some in the Church; first, apostles; 
 “secondarily, prophets; thirdly, teachers; after that, miracles; then gifts of 
 “healings, helps, governments, diversities of tongues.’’' And in his epistle to the 
 Ephesians, the fourth chapter, he saith, “ There is one body, and one spirit, even 
 “as ye are called in one hope of your calling; one Lord, one faith, one baptism; 
 “one God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all. 
 “ But unto every one of us is given grace according to the measure of the gift of 
 “ Christ. Wherefore He saith, when He ascended up on high, He led captivity 
 
 3 
 
 “captive, and gave gifts unto men.’ “ And He gave some, apostles; and some, 
 “prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers; for the 
 “perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the 
 “body of Christ: till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge 
 “of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the 
 “fulness of Christ: that we henceforth be no more children, tossed to and fro, 
 
 ‘1 Cor. xi. 27. 31. 
 
 
 

 
 
 
 20 
 
 “and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning 
 “ craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive; but, speaking the truth in 
 “love, may grow up into Him in all things, which is the head, even Christ ; 
 “from whom the whole body, fitly joined together, and compacted by that which 
 “every joint supplieth, according to the effectual working in the measure of every 
 
 71 
 
 “part, maketh increase of the body unto the edifying of itself in love.’ 
 
 Of the four classes or orders of men, under which, in the last passage 
 quoted, the apostle sums up the ministries of the Christian Church, including those 
 expressly mentioned in the former passage quoted, each one is, as we know, for 
 a special and specific work, which work cannot be efficiently fulfilled by any of 
 the others, forasmuch as each is the specific and éeternally ordained instrument and 
 ordinance, by which God would fulfil its appropriate work; and each has its distinct 
 and respective relation to man, each has its several work to effect in every man, and 
 each has its respective correspondence to the varying characters of men. One man 
 is more open to the influence of authority and wisdom, which is the specialty of the 
 apostle ; the conscience of another is more readily convicted by prophetic 
 utterance ;* a third is more easily persuaded by the hearing of the glad tidings, 
 preached by the evangelist; while others are fitter subjects for the care of the 
 pastor and readier disciples of the teacher, at whose feet they find themselves 
 sitting in the first moments of spiritual consciousness. And this is as true of the 
 operation of these ministries within the border of the Church, as to the world 
 without: the saints must be perfected, not only by the indirect, but by the 
 direct ministration of each of these ministries, and so the work of the ministry, 
 internally, as well as externally, be fulfilled. It is not through the instru- 
 mentality of any one or two, but by receiving the blessing of all, that the child 
 shall grow up into the perfect man; forasmuch as it is God’s law and ordinance 
 in His Church, that by these four means, and neither by more nor by fewer, that 
 growth shall be attained. For these are each and altogether necessary to the 
 revealing of God and the shewing forth of His glory; they are the gifts, in the 
 giving and receiving whereof God the Lord vouchsafes to dwell among men;°* 
 
 , Ephes. iv. 4. 16. 21 Cor. xiv. 25. ® Psalm Ixviii. 18. 
 
 
 
 
 
te © fe ee ee ee ee 
 
 21 
 
 and to this very end they were given. In other words, they are the ordinances, 
 whereby the essential goodness and blessings which are in God are manifested 
 to the world, and poured into the bosom of the Church. They were ordained 
 of God, because exactly adapted to those very ends, or rather they are the necessary 
 and so the eternally ordained channels, whereby that Divine Goodness and those 
 blessings find their spontaneous means of manifestation and conveyance to man: 
 and so far forth as they are withdrawn, and are not all and each existing in full 
 exercise, His goodness is obscured, His blessings intercepted in their passage to the 
 Church, and the Church fails to be the dwelling-place of God, the abode of His 
 glory, and the declarer of His manifold wisdom to the principalities and powers in 
 
 Heavenly places.' 
 
 Therefore was it that the Lord Jesus Christ, the revealer of the Father (for 
 every one who saw Him had seen the Father*), did bear in Himself all these offices 
 when upon earth. He was the Apostle of our profession,’ the Sent of God,! 
 filled with wisdom of God, in words of wisdom and holy doctrine, in wisdom of 
 conduct and rule; He was the Prophet mighty in word and in deed,’ the revealer 
 of the mysteries of God, the interpreter of His word; He was the Evangelist, 
 the preacher of the Gospel to the poor, the anointed healer of the sick.’ the 
 wounded, and the maimed; He was the good Shepherd who laid down His life 
 
 for the sheep, the teacher sent from God.’ 
 
 In like manner God is still to be revealed by Christ Jesus, in His body 
 the Church. Christ Himself is at the right hand of God; He alone is the 
 container of all the fulness of God, and concentres in Himself all the rays 
 of the Divine Glory: “ for it pleased the Father that in Him should all fulness 
 dwell.””* And all we receive only out of His fulness, and grace answering to 
 grace,’ and each one of us only according to our measure; (for, saith the apostle, 
 
 “as we have many members in one body, and all members have not the same 
 
 * Ephes. iii. 10. * John, xiv. 9, 10. > Heb. iii. 1. 
 * John, iil. 34. ° Acts, iii. 22. ° Isaiah, Ixi. 1; Matt. xi. 3. 5. 
 
 ’ John, x. 11. * Col. 1 19. * John, i. 16, 17. 
 
 
 

 
 
 
 22 
 
 “ office, so we, being many, are one body in Christ, and every one members one 
 “ of another,’’ and our gifts do “ differ according to the grace that is given to us.’’') 
 Whence it follows that all the four offices, whereby God should be known and com- 
 municated, and which were centred in Jesus Christ, must still be exercised in 
 His Church, and each by separate members; and as at the first by these in His 
 own person He witnessed to the world, He gathered His children, He blessed 
 and comforted those He had gathered: so also by these in His Church, until the 
 consummation of the age, He shall continue to witness, to gather, and to bless; yet 
 not through the agency of any one man, for that would be to make that man the 
 container of the incommunicable fulness, which the Lord Jesus Christ Himself 
 alone can be; but by distributing unto the several members, and exercising through 
 them, those several offices, each fulfilling his own functions, and no one usurping 
 the functions of another; otherwise the proprieties of the several parts of the body 
 would be violated, and one member would be enabled to say to another, “I have 
 
 ~» 
 
 “no need of thee.’’” 
 
 For the Church is not a phantom of the imagination, nor is it merely a figure of 
 
 speech to call it the “body of Christ,’’ or its several parts members of that body ; 
 
 
 
 the Church is a reality, visible, tangible, definite—a community of men disposed in 
 various relations one to the other, and to Himself, their head, in so true and real an 
 union, that the human body can only imperfectly represent, nay is but an outward 
 type and shadow of the Church, which is the great original and archetype in the mind 
 and purpose of God. Nor are these gifts which He received for men, and gave to 
 men, impersonal influences, nor abstractions; but they are themselves living men, 
 by whom the fulness which is in Himself is, by the operation of the Holy Ghost, 
 dispensed unto the Church; therefore saith the apostle, “ When He ascended up on 
 “high, He gave gifts (éouar«) unto men, and He gave some men (ous ev, not ra) (men, 
 “not gifis), apostles; and some men, prophets; and some men, evangelists; and 
 
 “some men, pastors and teachers.’’ ’ 
 
 And again, they are not given for a time which hath already expired— 
 
 1 Rom. xu. 4. 6. * 1 Cor a1. 21. ° Ephes. iv. 11. 
 
 
 
 
 
' 
 
 23 
 
 the object to be attained by them hath not yet been accomplished, and by them 
 alone can it be accomplished ; for the saints are not yet perfected; the work of the 
 ministry hath not yet found its termination; the body of Christ is not yet edified ; 
 the whole people of God have not yet arrived in unity of faith unto the perfect man, 
 the measure of the stature of Christ’s fulness; the Church hath not as yet been 
 prepared as a spotless virgin, for the marriage of the Lamb.'. And until these ends 
 be accomplished, and that which is perfect be come,’ the instruments of God’s 
 appointment for effecting them cannot be dispensed with, and ought not to be 
 suspended in their operations. This will appear more evident from a consideration 
 
 of the distinct offices of these several ministries. 
 
 Scripture discloses to us that the distinct and definite objects for which 
 apostles were bestowed are—to be the heads under Christ, and supreme rulers 
 of the Catholic Church; to be the fountains and the teachers of the doctrine of 
 the Church ; and lastly, to bestow the Holy Ghost by the laying on of their hands, 
 whether for sealing all who believe, or for ordaining the Ministers of the House 
 of God. And in the third and last of these functions the two former are virtually 
 involved; for the ordinance through which the Holy Ghost is ministered unto 
 the Church, in anointing the priests of God, in sealing and confirming the saints, 
 and imparting the gifts of the Holy Ghost as the Spirit willeth to divide them 
 to every man severally, must needs be that through which those ministers 
 and all the outward matters of administration shall be ordered, and the mind 
 of the Church shall be directed and informed. These functions none other 
 can fulfil, so far as is revealed in Scripture, save apostles, and those only who are 
 immediately and personally delegated by them. To apostles these duties were 
 entrusted by the Lord Himself. Hence on them was conferred the power of the 
 keys, of loosing and binding® on earth; the emblem and the pledge of that 
 supreme rule which Jesus administered, yea and shall ever administer, by them. 
 Hence He retained them near unto Himself, that He might instruct them, not 
 in public only, but in private. He cleansed them by His word,‘ before His 
 Passion, and abode with them after His Resurrection until the day in which He 
 
 ' Rev. xix. 7 * 1 Cor. xiii. 10. * Matt. xvi. 19; xviii. 17, 18. ‘ John, xv. 3. 
 
 
 

 
 24 
 
 was taken up,' committing His commandments unto them, speaking of the things 
 pertaining unto the kingdom of God, opening their understandings that they might 
 understand the Scriptures,’ and giving to them, and directly and immediately to 
 them alone, and to none other except through them, “ to go and make disciples of all 
 “nations, baptizing them, and teaching them to observe all things, whatsoever He 
 “had commanded them.’’* And hence in the last hours which He spent with them 
 on the eve of His passion, He gave to them the promise of the Comforter, the Holy 
 Ghost;* for which promise, at His ascension, He bade them again to wait. Apostles, 
 and apostles alone, are in Scripture declared to be the centre of authority, of 
 doctrine, of unity in all things, to the visible Church of Christ on earth, until His 
 second and glorious appearing “to those that look for Him without sin unto 
 “salvation.”’ And accordingly, in the history of the Church in the Acts of the 
 Apostles, it is declared that the converts at the first continued stedfastly in the 
 apostles’ doctrine and fellowship:° thus was it that the possessors of lands and 
 houses, when they sold them, brought the prices and laid them at the apostles’ feet:" 
 thus it was that when the office of deacons should be brought out, it was “ the 
 Twelve,’ who called the multitude together ;’ and thus when the Church was 
 scattered by persecution, the apostles abode alone at Jerusalem.” Apostles are the 
 foundations of the Church;’ not of this Church, or of the other, but of the One, 
 Holy, Catholic Church, hence Apostolic:—they are the base whereon the lively 
 stones should be builded, and the perpetual means of sustaining and upholding the 
 fabric of the Living Temple, the Church, in unity of spirit and life, of doctrine, and 
 
 ot government. 
 
 Such is the office of apostle, as plainly laid down in Scripture, and therein 
 declared to be exercised. And the office of prophet is as distinct and as well defined. 
 The prophet is the channel whereby the secret mind of God is brought into the 
 Church by revelation; not in the form of doctrine—the doctrine of the Church 
 
 is “the apostles’ doctrine ;’’—not in the way of commandment,—* Be mindful,”’ 
 
 mets, 1. BO. AM. ? Luke, xxiv. 45. 5 Matt. xxviii. 18. 20; John, xx. 21. 23. 
 * John, xiv. Xv. XV1. ° Acts, u. 42. ° Acts, iv. 34. 
 
 " Acts, vi. 2. ° Acts, vii. 1. ° Ephes. ii. 20; Rev. xxi. 14. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
25 
 
 saith St. Peter, “of the words which were forespoken by the holy prophets, and 
 “of the commandment of us the apostles of the Lord and Saviour ;’’'—but, for 
 conveying the light of God, whereby apostles may know how they should direct 
 their course in exercising rule in the Church of Christ; for opening the hidden 
 mysteries contained in the law and in the prophets of the Old Testament, in 
 order that apostles may minister them forth in holy doctrine to the Church ;— 
 and in those respects fulfilling the same office, and acting personally and directly 
 to apostles in the same relation, which the prophets of old fulfilled, and which 
 the dispensation of the law sustained, to the Apostolical Church, the Church 
 of the baptized; for saith St. Peter, “unto the prophets it was revealed, that 
 “not unto themselves, but unto us, they did minister the things, which are 
 “now reported unto you by them which have preached the Gospel unto you, 
 “with the Holy Ghost sent down from Heaven ;’’?—and lastly, for declaring 
 the mind of God concerning His servants whom He would use in the ministry, 
 which predicted mind the apostles may effectuate by ordination; wherefore 
 St. Paul saith in his Epistle to Timothy, “ This charge I commit unto thee, son 
 “ Timothy, according to the prophecies which went before on thee, that by them 
 “thou mightest war a good warfare;’’? and again he saith, “I put thee in 
 “remembrance that thou stir up the gift of God which is in thee by the laying on 
 “ of my hands ;’’* and again, “ Neglect not the gift that was given thee by prophecy, 
 “with the laying on of the hands of the presbytery.’”’® And in all these particulars 
 prophets are, as it were, the complements to apostles as the foundations whereon 
 the Church is builded; the channels to convey the mysteries, of which apostles 
 are the stewards; the light shining in a dark place, by which they may guide 
 
 their footsteps.° 
 
 The evangelist is a third gift, defined by as distinct and separate limits 
 as the two former; the preacher of the Gospel, ordained thereto by apostles, 
 and receiving his mission from them’—sustained and nourished, fitted and 
 furnished, in the bosom of the Apostolic Church, and thence carrying forth 
 
 1 2 Peter, iii. 2. 2 1 Peter, i. 12. $1 Tim. i. 18. ‘2 Tim. i. 6. 
 
 ° 1 Tim. iv. 14. " 2 Pet, 1.19, "Rom. x. 15. 
 
 
 

 
 26 
 
 both the light of the truth and the power of the life—bearing the tidings of the 
 
 coming kingdom, and so of the coming judgment, and the news of the ordained 
 
 
 
 refuge, the Church of Christ, wherein alone is salvation—and as he goes “ healing 
 
 
 
 “the sick, casting out devils, raising the dead’”’—and when, by preaching of the 
 word, confirmed by the signs and miracles which God should work by him, he has 
 drawn the hearts of the hearers to be joined to the Church, receiving them by 
 baptism into the Church: having accomplished this, his office is fulfilled; and 
 straightway he proceeds on his mission of preaching the Gospel in other places, as 
 may be seen in the example of St. Philip the evangelist, recorded in the eighth 
 
 chapter of the Acts. 
 
 While such are the duties pertaining to the three ministries already mentioned 
 —the evangelist, to gather out of the world those who should believe his word, 
 and by baptism to impart unto them the spiritual life, which is God’s sure gift 
 and covenanted promise to those who believe;' the apostle and prophet, to be 
 the foundation, and the former to be the master-builder upon the only true 
 foundation, Jesus Christ—the children of God, thus born into the Church, are 
 committed to the supervision and care of the pastors and teachers ordained to 
 this ministry by the hands of apostles.’ These are they who, under apostles, 
 are the ordinances for spiritual rule over the baptized, the guardians of their 
 souls, as it is. written, “Obey them that have the rule over you, and submit 
 “-vourselves; for they watch for your souls, as they that must give account.’’® 
 And again, “ Know them which labour among you, and are over you in the 
 “Lord, and admonish you.’’* By them also is the flock of God nourished with 
 wholesome words of doctrine received from apostles, and the sheep and lambs 
 of Jesus Christ are fed: as saith St. Paul to the elders of Ephesus, “ Take heed 
 “unto yourselves, and to all the flock, over the which the Holy Ghost hath 
 “made you overseers, to feed the Church of God which He hath purchased 
 995 
 
 “ with His own blood. And again St. Peter, to whom the Lord had specially 
 
 given the same blessed charge, “ The elders which are among you I exhort, 
 
 John, i. 12. * Acts, xiv. 23. * Heb. xiii. 17. 
 * 1 Thess. v. 12. ° Acts, xx. 28. 
 
 es 
 
 
 
 
 
“who am also an elder,’’—* Feed (or tend as a shepherd) the flock of God 
 “which is among you, taking the oversight thereof ;’—“ And when the Chief 
 “Shepherd shall appear, ye shall receive a crown of glory that fadeth 
 
 “not away.’ 
 
 And while the apostles bear the rule, and dispense the food of 
 instruction, and minister the Spirit, in the universal Church (and they were 
 in the beginning the constituted priesthood, the pastors and teachers); these 
 are the channels for the conveyance of the like blessings within the limit of 
 their office, and subordinately to apostles; not ministering where they list, but 
 
 to “the flock which are among them,’ and “ among whom they are.’’” 
 
 In the earliest days of the Church at Jerusalem, the only two offices 
 distinctly brought into operation were apostleship, the head of rule; and 
 deaconship,’ the head of obedience;—the sgarax, and the daxowe. But the 
 increase of the numbers of the faithful, even at Jerusalem,‘ and the diffusion 
 of the Gospel, and the gathering of distinct communities in other places,” 
 demanded the services of others in the priesthood. And hence as a necessary 
 consequence, and as a natural law of each distinct community, resulted the 
 Hierarchy of the Christian Church, complete in every several community, and 
 with all the necessary relative subordinations, and proper duties of each several 
 rank of ministry. But then all these are the fulfilment of the office of pastor 
 and teacher to particular bodies of the baptized, and the means of bringing it down 
 to every one individually: for though the priesthood, episcopate, and pastorship 
 of the Christian Church are one, the essential characteristic of this fourth order 
 of ministry is, that while the apostles are shepherds and overseers with universal 
 jurisdiction, and with supreme authority, this is invested with authority de- 
 rived from apostles, and bestowed for the purpose of being exercised in a limited 
 province, and therefore is necessarily subject to the apostles. An apostle who 
 should become a bishop, so far as he restricted his pastoral duties to a local 
 district or limited number of persons, would (as a pastor) appear no longer in the 
 character of apostle, but in that of d¢shop. And a bishop, who should claim 
 
 1 1 Peter, v. 1. 4. * 1 Peter, v. 1, 2. * Acts, vi. 
 
 * Acts, xv. 2. ° Acts, xiv. 23 
 
 
 
28 
 
 universal jurisdiction, ceases from the distinctive character of a bishop, and assumes 
 to be an apostle. Thus it is that, by the constitution of the Church of God, 
 
 the one priesthood finds its universal developement in the apostleship, its limited 
 
 
 
 and particular exercise in the ministers of churches particular—the apostles, the 
 one priesthood and universal episcopate; the pastors and teachers in their several 
 grades, associated with them in that one priesthood for fulfilling the priestly 
 office in all the churches of the saints. And as no one bishop, so not all 
 bishops together, can fulfil the precise and definite office and continuous duties 
 
 of apostle. Not only is it impracticable in the very nature of things, but God 
 
 
 
 hath assigned to them their own place and duty—and apostles, not bishops, are 
 God’s ordinance for apostolic work. There would still be wanting that universal 
 ministry which shall sum up, and express, and be the outward function of the 
 whole, just as all the members of the body together do not constitute a man, 
 but must be summed up in his head, which is different and distinct from all 
 his other members. Thus Jesus in the heavens ministers, through apostles, 
 
 the function of supreme rule and dispensation of the Spirit of Life, unto all in 
 
 the universal Church. 
 
 For besides the difference in respect of jurisdiction, there is this further 
 distinction between the office of apostle, and the offices of subordinate pastors, 
 and the other ministries; that, while every ministry is a ministry of Life, the 
 Apostolic Ministry is the ministration of the Spirit of Life zmmediately from 
 the Lord Jesus Christ, and thus becomes the source and strength of every other 
 ministry. It is the ordinance for bestowing the Holy Ghost, whose gifts are 
 to be exercised by all ministers, yea by all the baptized. It is the office 
 wherein the Lord Jesus Christ is made known as the Baptizer with the Holy 
 Ghost... He alone has the Holy Ghost to bestow; and by apostles alone, 
 according to the original constitution of the Church, did He bestow Him. 
 And therefore when Philip had preached the Gospel with great miracles and 
 signs at Samaria, and multitudes believed and were baptized by him, it was 
 
 yet necessary that Peter and John should go down from Jerusalem, that, with 
 
 1 Matt. ii, 11. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
29 
 
 imposition of hands and prayer, the disciples might receive the Holy Ghost.’ 
 Lastly, this distinction must also be noticed, that inasmuch as apostles were 
 the containers of all other ministers, the basis on which all others rest in the 
 Lord; inasmuch as through them the gift of the Holy Ghost, the Spirit of 
 Unity, was dispensed, and from them the One Faith proceeded, and by them 
 the unity of that Faith and of discipline was preserved ;—therefore, while the 
 number of those standing in the other offices in the Church is from the very 
 nature of those offices unlimited, there was an equal necessity in the nature 
 of this office, that the number of the apostles should be limited; for universal 
 rule cannot stand in an undefined or unlimited number. Not that the number 
 of those who should successively stand in the office was limited; for all Scripture 
 and the undisputed traditions of the Church do plainly show, that more than twelve 
 men in the first ages laboured as apostles: but the very name whereby they were 
 
 named, “ The Twelve ;” the future office of the Apostles of the Circumcision in 
 
 judging the Twelve Tribes of Israel;’ the election of St. Matthias to make up the 
 
 complete number;® and many other considerations to be gathered from Holy 
 Seripture and the traditions of the Church, do all lead to this conclusion, that the 
 
 Apostleship was T'welvefold. 
 
 These then are the principal ministries of the Body of Christ, but these 
 are not the body. They are the active members inserted in the body, and 
 deriving through the body all their vigour, activity, and life. That body is the 
 great company of the baptized, who are not merely the subjects of these ministries 
 (although they be so, when viewed as the flock of God, committed to the care 
 of pastors): for the Catholic Church being seen in its totality, the ministers of 
 God are servants of the baptized for Christ’s sake;* and as these are filled with 
 the life and Spirit of God, with holiness and goodness and truth, so the ministers 
 do fulfil their several duties. It is the Church, not any twelve men, which is 
 Apostolic. It is the Church wherein the Holy Ghost doth dwell, who is thus 
 conferred through Apostles, ministered by all the ordinances, and manifested in 
 all the sealed members of Christ. And the question is not whether one man 
 
 1 Acts, vill. 14. 17. > Matt. xix. 28. > Acts, i. 15—26. “2 Cor. iv. 5. 
 
 
 

 
 
 
 50 
 
 shall take one office of dignity, and another the other, for selfish ends of 
 aggrandizement or pleasure; but whether the Church (not to say the uncon- 
 verted world) hath not a right to Apostles, Prophets, Evangelists, Pastors and 
 Teachers. The baptized have God’s word and covenant that they shall receive 
 the Holy Ghost; and therefore, that Apostles through whom He is ministered 
 shall be a standing ordinance, a perpetual ministry. The baptized who have 
 
 received the life of God—who are the family of God 
 
 
 
 have a right to all 
 the means of grace which He provided in His House, as He constituted it at 
 the beginning; “for the gifts and calling of God are without repentance.’”’ 
 These constitute the Body, and by the mutual action of every part thereof, 
 each having need of all the other, and drawing forth the virtue of the Lord 
 through all the other (the virtue through each, which each is the appropriate 
 ordinance to convey), the communion of joy and life should have been maintained, 
 and the whole body have grown together, making increase of itself. Thus it 
 had begun to be even in the very birth and first days of the Church, as it is 
 recorded. . All that were baptized “ continued stedfastly in the Apostles’ doctrine 
 “and fellowship, and in breaking of bread and in prayers. And fear came 
 “upon every soul; and many wonders and signs were done by the Apostles. And 
 “all that believed were together, and had all things common; and sold their 
 “possessions and goods, and parted them to all men, as every man had need.’’ 
 “ And they, continuing with one accord in the temple, and breaking bread 
 “from house to house, did eat their meat with gladness and singleness of heart, 
 “praising God, and having favour with all the people. And the Lord added 
 “to the church daily such as should be saved.”? “ And the multitude of them 
 “that believed were of one heart and of one soul: neither said any of them 
 “that ought of the things which he possessed was his own; but they had 
 “all things common.—And with great power gave the Apostles witness of the 
 “resurrection of the Lord Jesus: and great grace was upon them all.’’? And 
 again at a later period writes the apostle Paul, “ Though absent in the flesh, yet 
 “am I with you in the Spirit, joying and beholding your order, and the 
 “stedfastness of your faith in Christ.”4 The unity, the love, the faith, the 
 
 "Rom. xi. 29. * Acts, ii. 42—47. * Acts, iv. 32, 33. * Gol, 3/5: 
 
 
 
 
 
power, and the growth were made manifest to all men; man was blessed, and God 
 
 was glorifi ed. 
 
 Such a Church is the witness of God, and to such God _ beareth 
 witness. The testimony of two is true. As under the law no man could be 
 put to death except under two or three witnesses,’ so it is His eternal purpose 
 in the Church by a twofold witness to condemn the world of the ungodly, 
 ‘which is reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition of 
 ungodly men.” Our Lord Jesus Christ in the days of His flesh spake that 
 which He knew, which He had seen and heard, and obeyed the will of His 
 Father; and so He bore witness of God.—But His Father also which had sent 
 Him bore witness of Him, by the mighty works which He gave Him to do.’’” 
 And in like manner when the baptized bear witness of Jesus, speaking in 
 faith and obeying Him in holiness, God also beareth witness of them as the 
 people of Christ, by the Holy Ghost, who personally dwells in the Church, working 
 and speaking by whom He will—confirming as a second witness the testimony 
 contained in every work of Faith. So it is written, “ When the Comforter is 
 “come, whom I will send unto you from the Father, even the Spirit of Truth, 
 “which proceedeth from the Father, He shall testify of Me: and ye also shall 
 “bear witness, because ye have been with Me from the beginning.”’® And 
 again, “ We are His witnesses of these things; and so is also the Holy Ghost, 
 “whom God hath given to them that obey Him.’’* And again, “ How shall 
 “we escape, if we neglect so great salvation; which at the first began to be 
 “spoken by the Lord, and was confirmed unto us by them that heard Him; God 
 “also bearing them witness, both with signs and wonders, and with divers miracles, 
 “ and gifts (distributions ) of the Holy Ghost, according to His own will?’’? Without 
 this twofold testimony, the Church does not complete her declaration of God 
 manifest in flesh; the ministry of Grace is not fulfilled; and the world is not 
 left without excuse. But when God gives power unto His people thus to 
 witness, there is no more to be done by Him for men, because He saveth by 
 
 ** . o~ ‘ = eee _ . ‘ > 3 i — > ee 
 ’ Deut. xvii. 6; xix. 15. ? John, v. 37; vi. 17, 18; x. 38. John, xv. 26. 
 
 * Acts, v. 32. ° Hebrews, ii. 3- 
 
 
 

 
 52 
 
 His Church; and He hath no more witness to take against man, because He 
 witnesseth by His Church. And then the world shall fill up its cup—judgment 
 
 shall linger no more—and the faithful, with Jesus the Faithful One,: shall adjudge 
 
 
 
 the faithless to the second and eternal death. 
 
 This is that Church in its original constitution and essential form, founded 
 upon a rock, against which the gates of Hell shall not prevail,—to which alone the 
 promises of God were made, and to which, in the persons of men bearing the office 
 of apostle, the words of Jesus Christ were addressed, “Lo I am with you always, 
 even to the end of the world.”* This is the One, Hoty, Carnotic, and Aposroric 
 Cuurcu; wherein God’s laws should be obeyed, His will should be done, 
 His praises celebrated, His name glorified, His worship offered in Spirit and in 
 Truth; and the prayers of all saints, the supplications, intercessions, and 
 giving of thanks for all men, should ascend as incense before the throne of 
 
 God.° 
 
 It is Ons—United in every member by one life, proceeding from one 
 source, and nourished by one and the same holy food. United under one 
 administration, in ordinances given at the beginning, and never to be exchanged 
 without sin against God, and loss to itself. United by one Spirit of glory in 
 the midst of it, even as the glory in the midst of the camp of Israel, in the 
 Sanctuary of the Tabernacle. One inwardly and one outwardly ; one in mind, 
 one in heart, one in spirit, one in word, one in ordinances, one in faith, one in 
 worship, one in administrations ;—one as a vine is one tree, and not another ;— 
 one as a temple is one, and not another ;—one as an human body is one, 
 and not another ;—one as the only individual of its kind; yea one, as no 
 other body in existence is one; even one as God the Father and the Lord 
 Jesus Christ are one—as it is written, “That they all may be one; as Thou, 
 Father, art in Me, and I in Thee, that they also may be one in Us: that the 
 world may believe that Thou hast sent Me. And the glory which Thou gavest 
 
 Me I have given them; that they may be one, even as We are one;—I in 
 
 ' Matt. xxviii. 20. * John, iv. 23, 24. *1 Tim. ii. 1; Rev. viii. 3, 4. 
 
 
 
them, and Thou in Me, that they may be made perfect in one; and that the world 
 
 may know that Thou hast sent Me, and hast loved them, as Thou hast loved Me.’”! 
 
 It is Horny 
 
 
 
 as becometh the bride of Him who is the Holy One of God ;— 
 Holy, as the living sacrifice, Holy and acceptable, presented continually unto God 
 the Father by the true High Priest who is at His right hand ;—Aoly, as the 
 dwelling-place of the High and Holy One, who dwelleth in the Church, as it is 
 written: “I will dwell in them, and walk in them; and I will be their God, and 
 they shall be My people.” Holy, because of the Holy Ghost,—the Spirit of life 
 from the Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ, who createth men anew in the 
 image of God—the Spirit of Holiness, whose Temple is the Church. Holy, by 
 bearing the fruits of the Holy Spirit, which are, “love, joy, peace, long-suffering, 
 gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance.”*® Holy, by manifesting the 
 gifts of the Holy Spirit, which are, “the word of wisdom, the word of knowledge, 
 faith, the gifts of healing, the working of miracles, prophecy, discerning of spirits, 
 
 kinds of tongues, interpretation of tongues.’’* 
 
 And not only One and Holy, but also Carnoxic,—diffusive of its blessings, 
 seeking to embrace all nations, and pour forth rivers of living water throughout the 
 wilderness of this world; teeming with life, and liberal to disperse it abroad ;—full 
 of the Spirit of God, and longing to pour forth the same upon all men; sending 
 her evangelists and pastors, her prophets and apostles, into all nations to preach 
 the Gospel to every creature, to teach the ordinances which Christ hath given, to 
 establish righteousness and peace upon the whole earth;—going forth to claim all 
 men for her Lord, and make all men partakers of His salvation;—saying to all the 
 children of men, “ What we have seen and heard we testify unto you, that ye also 
 
 may have fellowship with us: and truly our fellowship is with the Father and with 
 His Son Jesus Christ.’’® 
 
 And, lastly, it is Apostoric. The One, Holy, Catholic Church, the Sent of 
 
 John, xvii. 21—23. *2 Cor. vi. 16. “Gal. v. 22, 23. 
 
 *1 Cor. xii. 8—10. § 1 John, i. 3. 
 F 
 
 
 
o4 
 
 God, freighted with all the good things for the world, which are included under 
 
 preserving the 
 
 
 
 the names, one, holy, and catholic. Apostolic, in form and office ; 
 
 ordinances as they were given in the beginning, apostles, prophets, evangelists, 
 
 
 
 pastors and teachers ;—having apostles sent forth, “not of men, neither by man, 
 but by Jesus Christ, and God the Father;’’—and, by the laying on of the hands of 
 those apostles, having all other ministers ordained and all the people filled with the 
 Holy Ghost. Avpostolic, in its whole being and spirit and actings;—sent by the Son 
 of God, as He was sent by the Father ;—coming out from God with fulness of 
 blessings for the sons of men, and ever returning unto God to be replenished with 
 
 new supplies. Coming forth from God, his apostle indeed, with His law in her 
 
 heart, His wisdom in her mind, His truth upon her tongue, His power for mercy 
 
 and judgment in her hands, His peace and love in all her ways—shewing to all 
 men what God is—unfolding His eternal purpose,—interpreting His deep counsels— 
 holding up the mirror of truth to persons, families, and kingdoms—shewing princes 
 how to rule, teaching senators wisdom—instructing parents and children, husbands 
 and wives, masters and servants, kings and subjects, in the dignity of human nature, 
 as ordained of God to set forth in its manifold relations the mystery of His being— 
 shining as the light of the world, setting in order the whole frame-work of society— 
 and, as the salt of the earth,’ purifying the whole economy of life, and preserving 
 
 it from dissolution. 
 
 One, Holy, Catholic, Apostolic: not in name only, but in reality ; not in form 
 only, but in essence; not in its collective, apart from its individual character: but 
 each man being the member of a Body, which is pervaded in all its parts with the 
 
 same characteristics of oneness, holiness, catholicity, and apostolicity. 
 
 Thus abiding in the counsel of God, walking with Him as children of the light, 
 gathering to the body all who shall be saved, the Church should have been prepared 
 as the Holy Bride, the first fruits unto God and the Lamb, “ looking for that blessed 
 hope, and the glorious appearing of the Lord Jesus Christ,’’? when, as Enoch “was 
 translated that he should not see death, and he was not found, because God had 
 
 1 Matt. v. 13. ; fil Be ae BY 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 | 
 
 Ae i 
 
 i 
 
 } 
 
 
 
translated him,’’' so in the Church the mystery of God shall be finished, “ we shall 
 not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, 
 at the last trump;’’’—“ The Lord himself shall descend from Heaven with a shout, 
 with the voice of the archangel, and the trump of God: then we which are alive 
 and remain, shall be caught up to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever 
 
 be with the Lord.’’® 
 
 We pause from the contemplation of this mighty mystery, revealed unto the 
 holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit, and manifested in the Church to this 
 intent, that unto the principalities and powers in Heavenly places might be known, 
 “by the Church, the manifold wisdom of God:’’ and we look abroad to behold in 
 the baptized the antitype of this vision of beauty and blessedness and glory—a 
 glory which depends not on the gorgeousness of earthly splendour, but which 
 consists in righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Ghost.— We look for an 
 united body, the saints of God, manifesting his holiness—the purity and truth 
 which becomes His children.—We look for that ministration of the Spirit, more 
 glorious than that of the law,* through the various channels ordained in the begin- 
 ning, in the completeness whereof God is revealed ; for by the giits which He hath 
 given He dwells in His Church—We look for an united people, as a body, 
 bearing witness to God in the eyes of all men, that He is their Father, and they 
 His children,—and to whom He giveth witness before all men, by the mighty works 
 of the Holy Ghost.— We look for these things ; but where can we discover them ? 
 —The goodly order, framed by God for an end not yet accomplished, hath been 
 maimed of its noblest parts and disfigured in its fairest proportions ; instead 
 of going on unto perfection, the body of the baptized have retrograded; they 
 have cast aside, or carelessly let slip, the means which God had vouchsated for 
 their perfecting. Had they used the means aright, the end should have been 
 attained,—* Their line should have gone through all the earth, and their words unto 
 the end of the world.”’®> That witness should have been the means of gathering 
 the good seed into the garner, and the chaff unto the unquenchable fire. But 
 
 ‘ Heb. xi. 5. 71 Cor. xv. 51, 52. $1 Thess. iv. 16, 17. 
 
 * 2 Cor. tin8i > Psalm xix. 4. ® Matt. i. 12. 
 
 
 

 
 36 
 
 the very first office in the Church, Apostleship, in men, apostles—that fan in the 
 
 hand of the Lord whereby He purges His floor, that ordinance whereby He 
 
 
 
 baptizes with the Holy Ghost and with fire—hath departed (whatever partial 
 apostolical ministry may have survived), although the end of the gift of apostles 
 remains yet unattained :—the voice of the Lord in Prophecy through men given 
 to that end, having been despised or dreaded, hath long ceased to be uttered, 
 and the people of God have been left to the silence of death: the Spirit, being 
 quenched, hath refrained to manifest Himself as in the days of old; the Comforter 
 hath ceased to remind concerning Jesus, those who in heart imagined that they 
 had need of nothing; and the powers of the world to come, the healing of the 
 sick, the casting out of devils, and every other demonstration that Jesus is Lord, 
 and that the kingdom is at hand, have all but disappeared, for men have sought 
 to make this world their rest, and no longer desired the kingdom of Heaven. Oh 
 for the awakening of the baptized from the long lethargy in which they have 
 been buried! for a ceasing from the petty controversies and divisions, the heart- 
 burnings and oppositions, the Eastern Church against the Western, the Roman 
 Catholics against the Protestants, wherewith Satan hath distracted their attention 
 —that they may look around and survey the fearful ruins of many generations! 
 What section of the baptized beareth in its outward lineaments, or in its inward 
 spirit, the character of the One Holy Catholic Apostolic Church? Who ean look 
 at the glories of the beginning, and measure themselves thereby, without shrink- 
 ing from the comparison? But, though man may deceive himself, God is not 
 mocked. In vain He searcheth the face of Christendom for the marks of the 
 Christian Church. The Churches, called by divers names, furnish them not. 
 Unity, the foundation of all the rest, is utterly destroyed. Without this the others 
 cannot be possessed. The holiness described in Scripture is that of a body 
 united and ‘visible, complete in all its parts, each part in its own measure 
 manifesting holiness, and all in the measure of every part growing up in holiness. 
 Again, without unity and holiness, catholicity cannot exist ;—an united Church, 
 an holy people, can alone preach the Gospel to every creature, or teach all 
 
 nations to observe all things which the Lord hath commanded,—ean alone cause all 
 
 
 
 men to believe and know, that God sent His Son to be the Saviour of the world. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
> le 
 
 oe - 
 Wo 
 ~! 
 
 And lastly, the One, Holy, Catholic Church, can alone be Apostolic; for it is in 
 such a body alone that God hath set, “ first Apostles ;’? and such alone can send 
 forth apostles, or other ministers by apostles ordained, to bear that witness and to 
 communicate that life, for which the Church was constituted. The Christian body, 
 as it is, can send forth only the missionaries of a sect, or of many sects, to the 
 nations of the heathen. It cannot furnish apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors 
 and teachers, to minister from the body the one Faith and the one Spirit. Tried by 
 the line of judgment and the plummet of righteousness, it cannot be justified. As 
 truly as the angels left their first estate, as certainly as the nations before the flood 
 apostatised and quenched the light given unto them from God through Adam, as 
 surely as the Jews who crucified the Lord rejected the counsel of God against 
 themselves, so truly the baptized have fallen from the glorious standing wherein 
 
 God placed the Church at the beginning.’ 
 
 When at the first the Church was manifested in the visible Glory of 
 the Holy Ghost, the Lord gave commission unto His Apostles, who witnessed His 
 ascension, and who were all;of the seed of Abraham, and Apostles to the 
 circumcision, to preach the Gospel to the Jews first: as spake St. Peter on the 
 day of Pentecost, “ Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of 
 Jesus Christ, for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the Gift of the Holy 
 Ghost: for the promise is unto you, and to your children ;”’? and shortly after 
 in the Temple—* Unto you first God, having raised up His Son Jesus, sent 
 Him to bless you.”* The Jews indeed would not receive this grace, and the 
 ordinance of Apostle was for them given in vain: yet that twofold testimony of 
 God, given'in His Church in Jerusalem, was the means whereby His remnant 
 
 at that time according to the election of grace was gathered out, Jerusalem 
 
 
 
 judged, and the Jews scattered until this day ;—« It was necessary,’ said St. Paul 
 and St. Barnabas to the Jews, “that the word of Ged should first have been 
 “spoken to you: but seeing ye put it from you, and judge yourselves unworthy 
 
 ' Jude; 2 Pet. ii. ’ Acts, ii. 38, 39. ° Acts, iii. 26. 
 
 
 

 
 
 
 38 
 
 of everlasting life, lo, we turn unto the Gentiles.”’ To the Gentles then God 
 turned, visiting them to take out a people for His name.’ God wrought, and 
 He still worketh, to obtain a people who shall receive His blessing in all its 
 
 fulness, and in whom His name shall be revealed in all its completeness ;—whom 
 
 
 
 He should first perfect and then at their translation glorify :—and this work was 
 to be wrought by Apostles instrumentally ;—yea for this very end was Paul raised 
 up—for this was he separated from his mother’s womb*—tor this ordained a 
 Preacher and an Apostle, a Teacher of the Gentiles in faith and verity ;"—even 
 as in another place he speaks of “the grace that was given to him of God, 
 that he should be the minister of Jesus Christ to the Gentiles, ministering the 
 Gospel of God, that the offering up of the Gentiles might be acceptable, being 
 sanctified by the Holy Ghost.’’? And so it was that, when they at Jerusalem 
 “saw that the Gospel of the uncireumcision was committed unto Paul, as the 
 Gospel of the Circumcision was unto Peter; (for He that wrought effectually 
 in Peter to the apostleship of the Circumcision, the same was mighty in Paul 
 toward the Gentiles;) and when James, Cephas, and John, who seemed to be 
 pillars, perceived the grace that was given unto him, they gave to him and 
 Barnabas the right hands of fellowship; that they should go unto the Heathen, 
 
 3396 
 
 as they themselves unto the Circumcision. They went: but even while 
 St. Paul continued to labour among the Churches, he was compelled to complain 
 that they had fallen from their first love into coldness, and from their grace 
 and liberty into bondage.” The Corinthian Church, filled with Spiritual Gifts, 
 the earnest of the Kingdom,’ and the preparation for the coming of the Lord 
 (so that as he saith, “ye come behind in no gift, waiting for the coming of our 
 Lord Jesus Christ’’®), is at the same time described, in his Epistles to them, 
 as polluted with scandalous sin,—idolatry of men, and partisanship, envying and 
 strife, disorder and rebellion. And very speedily, after but a few years of active 
 ministry, he was delivered up bound unto the Romans;. and then we find 
 
 him complaining of those even at Rome, “ Who preached Christ of contention, 
 
 ] - ose : " 2 - . ~ » 
 Acts, xii. 46. * Acts, xv. 14. *'Gal. 1. 15, 6. 
 4 a ae ne 4 s rv . 5 ; os Se 
 t Tm a7 3 2 Tam. tt 1 Y- tom. xv. 16. ° Gal. u. 7. 9. 
 
 ’ Gal. iii.—v. ° Ephes. i. 14. ° 1. Cor.aZsk 
 
 
 
39 
 
 supposing to add affliction to his bonds.’’' And as the last scene of martyrdom 
 approached, and the hour of his departure was at hand, in the midst of 
 prophecies and forebodings concerning the evil days which were coming on the 
 Church,’ we find that “all they in Asia had turned away ;’’* “Demas had 
 forsaken him ;’’ “ Alexander did him much mischief ;’’ “ at his first answer no man 
 
 I 4 
 
 stood with him, but all men forsook him.’ While the memory of the Apostles 
 has been loaded by posterity with honours all but divine, they were yet in their 
 life-time many times despised and set at nought, both by Churches and by 
 individuals ;” and God suffered the will of man to prevail, and withdrew (but only 
 for a time) the authority which was resisted, and the holy rule and discipline which 
 
 the unholy could not endure. 
 
 Thus does Scripture indicate the existence of sins, naturally leading to the 
 withdrawal of the Apostolic function, as exercised in men set apart for that purpose: 
 but the fact, that the gift of Apostleship hath been suspended in its actual mani- 
 festation in men, Apostles, God’s ordinance for its manifestation, while God’s gifts 
 are without repentance, and the purpose remains unaccomplished for which that 
 gift was given, is of itself the overwhelming evidence of Apostasy. The suggestion 
 of modes, wherein God hath or might have provided for the continuance in the 
 Church of unity of rule, doctrine, or administration, in the Church, is beside the 
 purpose: these substituted means can never fulfil the work, to which the original 
 instrument ordained in the wisdom of God was adapted. It is as little to the purpose 
 to endeavour to prove, that, by the appointment of the Lord Jesus Christ, one of 
 the Twelve was invested with a primacy over the Church, which he bequeathed 
 to his successors in the Bishopric of Rome: unless indeed it were contended, that 
 that primacy imported an office wherein the Bishop of Rome, to the exclusion 
 of the Apostles, should exercise supreme authority ; but this would be expressly 
 contrary to Holy Scripture, which declares that God hath set in the Church, 
 “First Apostles ;’? and would involve the further consequence, that, after the 
 death of St. Peter, the other surviving Apostles, including St. John the 
 ' Phil. i. 16. * 2 Tim. iv. 3. *.2 Tim. 1. 15: *2 Tim. iv. 10. 14. 16. 
 
 * Rom. xvi. 17; 1 Cor. iv. 18; 2 Cor. xiii. 3; Phil. i. 15, 16; iii. 17, 18; 2 Thess. iii. 2 6 14; 3 John, 9, 10. 
 b ; 3 3 
 
 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 40) 
 
 beloved of the Lord, were not first in the Church, but that Linus, and Cletus, 
 and Clemens, still cotemporary with St. John, were first, and Apostles second. 
 Besides, it is impossible that the See of Rome should be augmented with a 
 supremacy enjoyed by St. Peter, not as a Bishop, but as an Apostle. It is true 
 indeed that, in the history of the Church, a jurisdiction of a lke nature, though 
 of a greater extent, attaching to a person, may in very early periods have survived 
 to the See in which he was Bishop. But that an higher jurisdiction, and higher 
 functions, as we have shewn the Apostolical jurisdiction and functions to be, should 
 in khke manner attach, is as contrary to the law and practice of the Church, as that a 
 Bishop, who may happen to hold an inferior benefice, bequeaths episcopal functions 
 to the Clerk who succeeds him in that benefice. We have shewn that God’s 
 ordinance for unity of spirit, of faith, and of rule, is the Apostle; that the law 
 of the universal Church can flow only from those, who under Christ have a 
 permanent jurisdiction and episcopate over the whole Church throughout the 
 world; and that to Apostles alone hath that authority been committed—nor 
 by any other, Patriarchs, Bishops, or Presbyters, whose power of action is 
 practically confined to their own Province, Diocese, or Parochial District, can 
 universal control be exercised, or catholic reformation be introduced. And there- 
 fore the duty of all Bishops, from the beginning unto this day, yea and of all who 
 long for the peace and welfare of Jerusalem, should have been to cry unto God, 
 day and night, in the first instance to preserve, subsequently to restore, the 
 
 ministry of Apostles to the Church. 
 
 It is true that when and as, in consequence of that unbelief and indifference 
 which hindered the cry from ascending to God for the continuation of His gifts, 
 the apostles ceased from the Church, the Bishops, by a necessary devolution and 
 preference, succeeded to the chief place of authority; but it is equally true that, 
 in that act, and by that necessity, God’s way of unity in His Church was violated ; 
 and the whole experience of the Church since that period, down to the present 
 times, when a new and more monstrous form of wickedness has come in, has been 
 but a perpetual struggle for an unity to be brought about by unlawful means—by 
 
 appeals to the strong arm of power (the first instance whereof was to a Pagan 
 
 
 
4] 
 
 Emperor, Aurelian, and so early as the middle of the third century), or by the 
 usurpation of one bishop over his brethren. Such was the sin, and such has been 
 the punishment of the baptized as a body: the sin—that they were content, and 
 their rulers interestedly content, in the cessation of the Apostleship: the punishment 
 —the cruel tearings and rendings of the body of Christ; the schisms, and distinctions, 
 and divergencies in faith and discipline; the tyranny of the power of the State, or 
 the usurpation of an universal Bishop. And yet it is never to be questioned, that 
 God, the merciful,and gracious One, has always from age to age used and honoured 
 in His Church the best He could find in it, and so His saints and true children 
 have never been altogether destitute, nor hath He ever failed to be faithful to 
 whatever of His name and ordinances still survived under the load of human 
 
 inventions. 
 
 It is not wonderful that from this sin innumerable evils should follow. And 
 decline and degeneracy must inevitably proceed, until authority and office shall 
 be extinct, and all shall be resolved into a mass of confusion, from whence 
 Antichrist shall select Azs materials, and erect, in mockery of the Church of 
 God, his fabric of lies. When the baptized, and their rulers, have universally 
 consented to regard the continuance of apostles (who are the very wells and 
 fountains of doctrine) to be unessential, no wonder that heresies innumerable 
 should have crept in. If bishops take upon themselves te govern the Church 
 without apostles, presbyters will lightly esteem bishops, to be themselves in turn 
 regarded as unnecessary. And finally, the mass of the religious will hasten to 
 fulfil the prophecies of the last times spoken by St. Paul, St. Peter, and St. Jude,’ 
 ‘“ Heaping to themselves teachers, having itching ears;’’ “ Despising dominion ;”’ 
 “ Presumptuous;”’ “ Speaking evil of dignities;’’ “ Perishing in the gainsaying 
 
 “of Core; “Feeding (shepherding roars) themselves without fear ;”’ 
 
 : - . ~ ae 7 —_ ‘ ay 677 ¢ ~ ry s< . 
 ‘Having men’s persons in admiration because of advantage;”’ “ Separating 
 
 “ themselves, sensual, having not the Spirit.”” Verily, except Jesus, the Head of 
 the Church, had contained in Himself all the fulness ready to be put forth 
 through men, whenever the faith of the body would again receive the blessing, 
 
 12 Tim. iv. 3; 2 Peter, ii 10; Jude, 8. 11, 12. 16. 19. 
 G 
 
 
 

 
 42 
 
 and had it not been that the time was ever in the heart of God, when it should 
 again flow through the channels constituted in the beginning, long since would the 
 Church have been swallowed up in the consequences of the wickedness of the 
 baptized; and the promise of the Lord, that the gates of hell should not prevail 
 
 against her, had proved utterly void. 
 
 Without apostles, it is not difficult to understand that prophets should have 
 ceased; for the laying on of apostles’ hands is God’s ordinary way of bestowing 
 the Holy Ghost, whether in gifts, in administrations, or in operations. Apostles 
 are His gift, direct and immediate ; but prophets and other ministries ordinarily 
 are His gifts, mediate and through apostles: and though the voice of prophecy 
 may have been heard in the Church, the Lord from time to time speaking 
 extraordinarily by whom He will, and though we may not limit what God would 
 do through those ordinances which yet remained, yet it was to be expected that 
 prophets, as a standing ministry in the house of God, should cease when apostles 
 
 had ceased. 
 
 The word of God through a prophet, a minister ordained of God to that 
 end, is a declaration of His mind to the universal Church; and yet through 
 apostles alone could it be conveyed as an authoritative tradition and injunction, 
 as St. Peter says, “ Be mindful of the words which were spoken before of the 
 holy prophets, and of the commandment of us the apostles of the Lord and 
 Saviour.’ And those who had now succeeded to the chief rule in the Church, 
 held, in the Church universal, a ministry subordinate to that of prophet: for says 
 the Scripture,’ “ First apostles, secondarily prophets, thirdly teachers, after that 
 “helps, governments, &c.;’’ and, in the parallel passage in the Epistle to 
 the Ephesians,’ apostles are the first enumerated, then prophets, then those who, 
 whether to those without or to those within, fulfil the duty of teacher— evangelists, 
 and pastors and teachers. And thus the prophet’s word (claiming an authority 
 which found its frue exercise while the Church was under the rule of apostles, 
 from whom alone, as we have said, the traditions of authority could proceed ). 
 
 ‘1 Cor. xii. 28. * Ephes. iv. 11. 
 
 
 
 F Wie 
 
 fate 
 be 
 
 iain 
 i 
 
 iz ie] 
 
 
 
43 
 
 would now be found to clash with the unsupported authority of the bishop. And, 
 without indulging imagination where Ecclesiastical History is silent, we yet know 
 that God works by, and not in direct contravention of, the natural course of cause 
 and effect; and nothing but a continual miracle, against the natural course of 
 things, could have perpetuated the office of prophet as it belongs to the Christian 
 Church, after apostles had ceased to exist. We here speak of prophets not as 
 
 under the law, but as in the body of Christ. 
 
 Again we insist that the Church is not an institution of man for men’s 
 purposes, but of God for His purposes. If it do not accomplish these, it must 
 become like salt which has lost its savour. Nor can God’s purposes be 
 accomplished by any means but those which He has chosen—means plainly 
 set down in Scripture, not as indifferent, or to be superseded, or changed for 
 others, or capable of substitution by any invention of men, or to be disregarded 
 with impunity, or to be lost without a grievous mutilation of the body of Christ 
 and a stopping and hindermg of God’s blessing; they are necessary, they 
 are sufficient, they are terminable by nothing short of the accomplishment 
 of the purposes for which they are given. ‘There is no word in Scripture 
 declaring an intention on God’s part to do away with any one of them; 
 and it is a daring defiance of God, and contempt of His wisdom and ways, 
 to suppose, and act on the presumption, that any one of them can be dispensed 
 with: but to set aside the two principal of these offices, the very foundation of the 
 spiritual building, is a sin, the parallel whereof in any human polity would exceed 
 
 all belief. 
 
 Instead of extenuating 
 
 =? 
 
 it enhances the guilt of the baptized, that they should 
 glory in their shame, and should measure the purposes of God by their own 
 wickedness which lost—and their unbelief which perpetuates the loss ;—that, on 
 the one hand, disregarding or denying their sin, the sins of many generations, 
 they should adopt a spiritual optimism, and contend that everything is as God 
 would have it, because it is as it is;—or that, on the other hand, instead of 
 
 returning to the Lord with weeping for having so despised the pleasant land, they 
 
 
 
tf 
 
 should studiously renounce, as belonging to a past and almost fabulous dispensation, 
 every token by which the Church might be known to be the dwelling-place of the 
 
 Living and True God. 
 
 Is it then that the universal Church needed not to be bound together by the 
 hands of apostles,—that it was sufficient to commit the Church to bishops, to insure 
 its unity? It was not God’s way of unity; and therefore, no marvel that in our 
 further progress we should find that unity could not thus be maintained. To assert 
 that the unity of the Church consists in its being under any one bishop other than 
 
 the Lord Jesus Christ, is one form of error, and its fruit is bondage to man—a 
 
 
 
 hiding and eclipsing of God—a setting aside of the head from the body, making the 
 body sufficient to itself. To assert that it stands in an Invisible Head, Jesus in the 
 Heavens, to the exclusion of any visible unity on earth, is another form of error, 
 and its fruit is perpetual and illimitable schism in the body of Christ. To assert 
 the independence of each national church, tends indeed to correct the last error to 
 a certain extent in the parts, but leaves the evil unremedied in the whole, and is 
 
 but independency on the large scale: and it would necessarily be proved to be 
 
 
 
 such, whenever again an universal monarchy shall be established—and none can 
 
 say how soon that may be. 
 
 But this is not a question of Church government alone; we have already 
 shown the connection between the ministers of the Church and the ordinances for 
 spiritual life. It is true these have been still administered, not indeed by men 
 ordained by apostles, and on whom the word of prophecy had gone before, but 
 by men ordained by those who had succeeded to apostles; in whom did vest, and 
 by whom was dispensed, a blessing of grace indeed, but a blessing curtailed in a 
 measure proportioned to the curtailment of the office, and to the contraction 
 of the Church in its principal members, and consequently in the whole economy 
 of its existence. We may not deny that a measure of the Holy Ghost has 
 been given by the laying on of bishops’ hands; or that grace has been bestowed 
 
 in the Sacraments, administered by those whom they ordain; for that would be 
 
 contrary to the verity of the continued existence of the Church, as the Body 
 
 
 
 
 
45 
 
 of Christ, and would imply that the Church had failed altogether :—but it 
 would be equally contrary to God’s truth, and the verity of the Church, to 
 assert, that a bishop is God’s ordinance for bestowing the Holy Ghost, according 
 to His own perfect way revealed in His word; or that it is a matter of 
 indifference whether the medium be a bishop, or an apostle. For as we have 
 said in respect of the pastoral, so we say of this function. An apostle is given 
 of God, to rule over the universal Church, to confer the Holy Ghost by 
 imposition of hands, and to minister the Spirit in all His fulness to bishops 
 and all others. A bishop is a bishop and not an apostle; with his own 
 ministry to fulfil however, and with a limited grace to confer, in the confines 
 
 of a limited jurisdiction. 
 
 It is true that, although apostles and prophets had ceased, the Church 
 was still, and hath ever been, complete in her Head in the Heavens. He was 
 still the Apostle and Prophet to His people, and the Church was still the Body, 
 capable of receiving the ministrations of those offices in men, and of containing 
 those manifested members (although not, as it ought ever to have been, visibly 
 complete in those memberships on the earth). And therefore it hath ever 
 been possible that, as His wisdom might determine, those ministries should again 
 be put forth in men, apostles and prophets. He could provide, and He hath 
 provided, that His Church should never fail. But there hath been no change 
 of plan, no secondary instrumentality for effecting His purpose, the first having 
 failed, and being set aside as useless. The first indeed hath hitherto failed through 
 the sin of His people, and he hath used what instruments He could, until 
 He might again bring forth His first ordained means, among a people who 
 should have faith to receive them. But they have not been withdrawn, nor has 
 their office been supplied, without miserable loss. The full instrumentality, by 
 which the Holy Ghost ministereth grace to the baptized, is not in operation, and 
 therefore the full grace is not ministered: the gifts, by means whereof the 
 Lord God might dwell among men, have not been retained; and the abiding 
 presence of God hath been exchanged for a condition, wherein the glory of 
 
 the God of Israel hath seemed to be obseured—hath, as it were, removed 
 
 
 
 
 

 
 
 
 46 
 
 from off the holy resting-place, and hath been fain to linger on the threshold.' 
 The ordinance expressly provided of God for conveying life unto the Church, 
 and the principal ordinances for circulating it from member to member, have been 
 stayed; and the stream of life hath flowed scantily, and circulated feebly: the 
 growth of the Church hath been hindered, all things have retrograded, and God’s 
 
 purpose in the Church hath rested in abeyance. 
 
 The Sacraments, therefore, being now administered by men who received their 
 commission through inferior means, and unto a people who, as a body, could 
 not be receiving the full ministry of the Holy Ghost,—seeing that the ordained 
 channel for that end was lacking,—having ceased to be the living realities they were 
 intended to be;—the faith, which in its wane* could not retain the principal 
 ministries of the Church, was insufficient to apprehend the full blessing in the 
 sacraments. The disputes and controversies concerning sacraments are the 
 standing evidence of apostasy and unholiness. If the baptized had continued 
 in the enjoyment of the inward grace, there could have been no room for 
 disputation as to the outward means. If the life of Jesus were manifested in 
 their mortal bodies, and the mighty powers of the world to come exercised, 
 —if the Church were revealed as the true abode of the Lord Jesus Christ, by the 
 Holy Ghost,’ and His real presence demonstrated by the changing of the faithful 
 into His image from glory to glory,*—there should be no dispute whether 
 initiatory ordinances were merely outward marks of Christian profession and 
 an admission to outward privileges, or whether they impressed a spiritual and 
 indelible character on the souls of the recipients ; whether grace be conferred 
 in sacraments, or merely faith be assured. But when faith ceases to realize, and 
 to educe in the life and conduct, that the baptized are dead with Christ, and 
 through faith freed from sin—* dead unto sin, but alive unto God, through Jesus 
 Christ our Lord,”’—they cease to bear Witness to God that He is faithful to His 
 ordinances, and their unholiness is the practical denial, that baptism is anything 
 else than a mere passport for admission to the outward privileges of the Church. 
 And when the glorious mystery of the true Sacramental presence of the Lord 
 
 l ui . ren © ; y4 " ** *** ¢ - : — ¢ ¢ ¥ eee 
 Ezekiel, x. 4. Rev. i. 4. ° Matt. xxviii. 20; John, xiv. 23. * 2 Coroui._18. 
 
 
 
47 
 
 Jesus Christ, in the Holy Communion, and of the true partaking of His most 
 holy flesh and blood, has lost its spiritual and genuine demonstration, in a people 
 consciously and manifestly dwelling in the Lord, and He also dwelling in them, 
 through the Holy Ghost—they, conscious of their loss, have sought, by means which 
 must infallibly lead to deeper evils—by pageantry presented to the eye, or by 
 ingenious arguments addressed to the understanding—to set forth a truth, which 
 can only be apprehended in the Spirit. Scholastic subtilty has been tasked to 
 invent sophistries, which, by denying the evidence of all the senses of a man, lead 
 to universal scepticism; and the communion of the faithful has been made to 
 give way to a pompous ceremonial, transacted for the most part by the priest 
 alone. Instead of being eaten at the time, the sacramental elements are 
 elevated and borne about for adoration; and, to put it in the most favourable 
 
 point of view, God is worshipped under the likeness of a creature thing, and 
 
 the company of the baptized bow down thereto. And while there is the 
 semblance of worship herein, and of a more than ordinary pretension to pay 
 homage unto Jesus Christ, His institution is disregarded, and the Cup, whereof 
 He said, “ Drink ye all of this,” is, in open defiance of His word, withdrawn 
 
 from the laity. 
 
 True it is that multitudes of the race of man have been regenerated unto 
 God, through the long ages which have intervened. The long-suffering of God 
 hath been salvation, while He hath seemed to be thus slack in performing his 
 promise.' Many have been the saints of God, the Confessors and Martyrs, the 
 Fathers and Doctors of the Church, who glorified God, and were made blessings 
 to His children: their labours have not failed, for “their works do follow them.’’ 
 But these were the few among the many: the holy body which existed at the 
 beginning, the mass of those who believe, have not gone on to perfection. 
 God hath been confessed in this man and in the other, but in His Church His 
 visible glory hath been obscured. And thus, the conscious imperfection of the 
 
 whole body led to the undue exaltation either of living, or of departed saints. 
 
 | 2 Peter, iii. 9. 15. 
 
 
 

 
 48 
 
 From the same fatal souree—the apostasy, and then the unholiness, of the 
 
 Church 
 
 and: attained their strength in the middle ages. The undue veneration paid to 
 
 have proceeded the other errors, in doctrine and in life, which grew up 
 
 
 
 relics could never have obtained among a people, who knew themselves to be 
 the living members of Christ :—nor would those who knew that they had “come 
 unto Mount Zion, and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, 
 and to an innumerable company of angels, to the general assembly and Church 
 of the first-born, which are written in Heaven, and to God the Judge of all, 
 and to the spirits of just men made perfect, and to Jesus the Mediator of the 
 new Covenant,’’'—who consciously stood in this dignity, and knew themselves 
 “ now to be the sons of God,’’ have sought for the mediation of the dead, themselves 
 the living: neither would the doctrine of purgatory have obtained among those, 
 who knew that even now they were risen with Christ, through faith of the 
 operation of God,’ and the “eyes of whose understandings had been enlightened ; 
 “that they might know what is the exceeding greatness of His power to us-ward 
 “ who believe, according to the working of His mighty power, which He wrought 
 “in Christ, when He raised Him from the dead.’’® And in like manner vows of 
 celibacy, and forbidding the whole class of those in holy orders to marry, are but 
 
 a demonstration that to the baptized, being impure, all things had become 
 
 
 
 impure,—and an effort to escape from that conscious impurity (an unnatural 
 effort which cannot be blessed), which places holiness not in the use of lawful 
 and natural things, but in the abstinence from them, which casts blame on God 
 and His works and ways, and dishonour on His own holy ordinance, whereof 
 
 394 
 
 Scripture saith, “ Marriage is honourable in all, and the bed undefiled. 
 
 As the life of God decayed in the body of the baptized, purity of doctrine 
 became more than ever of importance. While the apostles lived, their sentence 
 was the standard of doctrine; and though even at that time heretics arose, yet 
 were they speedily separated, and their opinions condemned, by the authority of 
 the Church expressed through apostles. The doctrine delivered by apostles was 
 
 the doctrine of the Church: but when they had departed, no single bishop 
 
 1 Heb. xii. 22. 24. "OL aL, Ae * Ephes. i. 18—20. * Heb. xiii. 4. 
 
 
 
49 
 
 could express the judgment of the Church against any novel doctrines introduced 
 by heretics, save as that judgment derived its source, or obtained its sanction, 
 from the Church universal. Many a time in the history of the Church, bishops have 
 introduced the heresy ; and although every bishop is a bishop of the one Church 
 universal, yet the exercise of his office is limited to his own diocese, and all his 
 brethren are his co-ordinates and equals in the Church universal, while each in his 
 own diocese is the ruler in the one doctrine and order of the Church to the exclusion 
 of any other. To convene the bishops in provincial synods is also insufficient ; the 
 bishops of whole provinces have been found involved in heresy. The only 
 medium, whereby the Universal Church since the times of the apostles could hope 
 to pronounce judgment on disputed points, was a General Council: but the 
 inadequacy of this, the last resource remaining to her, more strongly than any thing 
 else, might have instructed the Church in some apprehension of her loss. In the 
 reigns of infidel Emperors it has been found in ages past impracticable, in the nature 
 of things, to gather all or a majority of Christian bishops: and afterwards, when 
 Councils were assembled under the protection of rulers converted to Christianity, the 
 fixing of the place of meeting has many times settled the question in dispute; the 
 judgment of the major part of the Church, the doctrine of the orthodox and catholic, 
 has been overruled by the acts of a minority, artfully selected and surreptitiously 
 assembled ; and thus, on one occasion, as St. Jerome expresses it, “ The whole world 
 
 groaned, and wondered to find itself Arian.’’’ 
 
 How little the rule of bishops, or the superintendence of patriarchs, tended 
 to unity, was exemplified in the condition of the Church, when the Roman Emperor 
 Constantine became a convert to Christianity. Africa in the hands of the Donatists, 
 —a large number of Bishops and their churches in Egypt, and whole districts in 
 
 Asia, professing the doctrines of Arius,—these judgments from God vindicated the 
 
 
 
 wisdom of His own ordained way of unity—apostles ruling His universal Church, in 
 respect of faith and order. And the low estate of morals, which, immediately on 
 the conversion of the ruler in the state, rushed in and supplanted the ancient purity, 
 and which hath ever since continued to disgrace the name of Christianity, equally 
 
 ' Ingemuit totus orbis, et Arianum se esse miratus est.—Hieron. Adv. Luciferianos. 
 H 
 
 
 

 
 50 
 
 manifested the decay of spiritual life. Faith and morals thus affected, and the true 
 source of reformation and revival wanting, the bishops of the Church should have 
 been induced to consider from whence they had fallen, and to return unto God with 
 weeping and supplication, that He would restore unto them the ancient ordinances : 
 instead whereof, with that reckless confidence in themselves, and that determination 
 that all things must needs be as they were, wherein the rulers of the Church 
 (as it would seem in judicial blindness ) have ever since persisted, they went forward 
 into a further act of spiritual wickedness, fearful in its spiritual aspect (though 
 surely they thought not so, but, with a zeal for God and for His truth not according 
 to knowledge, supposed that they were doing Him service), and by invoking 
 the interference of a Christian Emperor they admitted the exercise of civil authority 
 within the precincts of the Church, and paved the way to that union of spiritual 
 and temporal rule in the sarhe hands, which is the forestalling of the Resurrection 
 glory, and the anticipation of the heavenly kingdom, before the Father causes 
 
 it to come. 
 
 But we have now come to the period when not merely individual men, but 
 national bodies, acknowledged the authority of the Church; and we must therefore 
 point out more clearly the true relations of Sovereign Princes and their governments 
 
 on the one hand, and those of the Church on the other. 
 
 WHEN God’s peculiar people had provoked Him to depart from them; to 
 despise in the indignation of His anger the King and the Priest ;* to make void the 
 covenant of David; to profane his crown by casting it to the ground;’ to make 
 Zion a wilderness, Jerusalem a desolation; to lay waste their holy and beautiful 
 house, where their fathers had praised Him ;* to render Israel outcast, and to give 
 
 Judah to dispersion ;°* 
 
 He called forth His servant Nebuchadnezzar, and gave all 
 nations to serve Him, and commanded Zedekiah King of Judah, and all of the seed 
 of Abraham who yet remained in the land of their inheritance, to bring their necks 
 
 ] ** . 9 a : . ™ - Ps « . > m * * Pa 
 Lam. ii. 6. Psalm Ixxxix. 38, 39. * Isaiah, Ixiv. 10, 11. * Isaiah, xi. 12. 
 
 
 
 
 
51 
 
 under the yoke of the King of Babylon, and to serve him and his people—making 
 submission to that King the test of obedience to Himself.‘ And unto this 
 Nebuchadnezzar? God revealed Himself in a vision of the night; and when it had 
 passed from him, and none of the magicians nor wise men of his kingdom were able 
 to make it known, God revealed the same and its interpretation to Daniel of the 
 seed of the captivity. And this was the substance of the dream, and of the 
 interpretation thereof. Under the figure of an image, the head whereof was of gold, 
 his breast and arms of silver, his belly and thighs of brass, his legs of iron, his feet 
 part of iron and part of clay, were set forth four successive eras of universal 
 government over the sons of men, and the last thereof in two successive stages, of 
 strength, and of division and weakness. And the dream was thus applied: that 
 Nebuchadnezzar was a king of kings, for the God of Heaven had given him a 
 kingdom, and had made him ruler over all; and that after him should arise three 
 other kingdoms, the last whereof should at first be strong as iron, and afterwards 
 should be divided—“ And as the toes of the feet were part of iron and part of 
 “clay, so it should be partly strong and partly broken. And in the days of these 
 “kings,’”’ (set forth in the symbol of the vision by the toes of the image, separated 
 in outward form and mingled and divided in their composition,) “shall the God 
 “of Heaven set up a kingdom which shall never be destroyed. And the kingdom 
 “shall not be left to other people, but it shall break in pieces and consume all 
 
 “these kingdoms, and it shall stand for ever.”’ 
 
 The world being thus subjected in the providence of God to an universal 
 dominion under the fourth of the predicted kingdoms, the Roman Empire, not 
 in its last stage of division and weakness, but yet in all its vigour, Jesus was 
 born of the seed of David according to the flesh; and of Him it was declared by 
 the Angel to the blessed Virgin His mother, before He was conceived, “ The 
 “Lord God shall give unto Him the throne of His father David, and He shall 
 “reign over the house of Jacob for ever, and of His kingdom there shall be no 
 “end.”’? But in the example of His own most holy life Jesus enjoined tribute, 
 and paid it for Himself to the Roman Emperor, concerning whom and the tribute 
 
 t Jeremiah, xxvii.; xxxviil. 20, 21. * Dan. ii. $ Luke, i. 30. 33. 
 
 
 

 
 52 
 
 due to him, He spake these words: “Render unto Czxsar the things that are 
 “ Cesar’s, and unto God the things that are God’s;’’! and accordingly He 
 disclaimed authority in the affairs of this world, saying, “ Who made me a judge 
 “or a divider over you??? and when they would have taken Him by force and 
 made Him a King, He departed and avoided them.2 And in like manner, when 
 brought before the Roman governor, He acknowledged his authority, declaring, 
 “ My kingdom is not of this world: if my kingdom were of this world, then would 
 “my servants fight.” And, when Pilate had said unto Him, “ Speakest thou 
 “not unto me? knowest thou not that I have power to crucify thee, and I have 
 “power to release thee?” the Lord answered, “ Thou couldest have no power 
 “at all against me, except it were given thee from above: therefore he that 
 “ delivered me unto thee hath the greater sin.”’* And the truth, which He thus 
 conveyed by instruction and sealed by His example, was again confirmed in the 
 mouths of His apostles; for saith St. Paul, “ There is no power but of God; 
 “the powers that be are ordained of God :—for this cause pay ye tribute also, 
 “for they are God’s ministers.??5 And again, St. Peter saith, “ Submit yourselves 
 “to every ordinance of man for the Lord’s sake: whether it be to the King, 
 “as supreme; or unto governors, as unto them that are sent by him for the 
 
 *“ punishment of evil-doers, and for the praise of them that do well.”? And again, 
 
 “Fear God, honour the King.’’® 
 
 The kingdom, therefore, which “the God of Heaven shall set up,” is not yet 
 advanced into the administration of the affairs of this world: and while the 
 baptized Church hath now the first-fruits of that kingdom in the gift of the Holy 
 Ghost, the powers of the world to come, and is now, as St. Peter saith, “a 
 “ royal priesthood, an holy nation ;’?? and while, as St. John saith in the Revelations, 
 “Jesus Christ, who is the Prince of the kings of the earth, hath made us kings 
 “and priests unto God, and His F ather ;”* yet we must needs be subject for 
 conscience sake unto the powers that be. The kingdom of God is yet within us 7 
 
 it hath not yet come; we yet pray unto our Father, that it may come; it shall 
 
 ] / 4™ aha! lard 9 es 
 
 Mark, xii. 17. * Luke, xii. 14. * John, vi. 15. 
 4 a ee ; A . 5 ecco , ** 
 
 John, xviii. 363 xix. 11. Rom. xiii. 1, 2, 6. ° 1 Peter, ii, 13, 14. 17. 
 7 = ** “ ~ 
 
 1 Peter, ii. 9. ° Rev. i. 5, 6. ° Luke, xvii. 21. 
 
 
 
53 
 
 come “in the regeneration, when the Son of Man shall sit on the throne of His 
 “olory;” and then shall the twelve apostles, who were with Him on earth, “sit upon 
 “twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel.’’* And then also shall come to 
 pass the vision of St. John in the Apocalypse: “ I saw thrones, and they sat upon 
 “them, and judgment was given unto them.” “ This is the first resurrection : 
 “ Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection: on such the 
 “second death hath no power, but they shall be Priests of God and of Christ, 
 “and shall reign with him a thousand years!’’? We are yet in the natural 
 body, we have not yet received the spiritual: we shall receive it at His 
 appearing and His kingdom; “ For our citizenship is in heaven: from whence 
 “also we look for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall change our vile 
 “body.’’? And in the mean time we must be content to be as our Master when 
 He was on earth, and to follow His example. He was born a king, yet He submitted 
 Himself and paid tribute: and we, as baptized, are born kings, yea, and the Church 
 is the kingdom; and in the Church the rule of the kingdom is exercised, and 
 the ministers of the Church are officers of the kingdom, and the names thereof 
 are names of eternity ; but the Church is the kingdom “in the Holy Ghost,’’* 
 it is the kingdom in the mystery; the resurrection is not passed already, nor 
 are the kingdoms of this world yet subverted, but loyalty and allegiance are due 
 to the powers that be, in the matters of this world. And therefore it is that 
 in the Church the king, when he approacheth to the font of baptism, 1s baptized 
 as other men; when he approacheth to the altar of God, he receiveth the 
 Holy Communion at the hands of God’s Priests as other men, not as a king; 
 when he kneeleth in the House of God, in the congregation of the people, he 
 receiveth the blessing as other men. But in the State, the baptized, ministers 
 and people, must obey: it maketh no difference whether the king be baptized 
 or unbaptized; submission is due to the king in this world as the ordinance of 
 God for earthly rule; although the kingdom of this world is not the kingdom 
 of Heaven, and whatever higher reward the faithful king shall receive hereafter, 
 it shall be in respect of his greater responsibility as a man, and his fulfilment of 
 his duty as a Christian, not as a minister of the Church. Nevertheless, to suppose 
 
 1 Mat. xix. 28. 2 Rev. xx. 4. 6. $ Phil. iii. 21. * Rom. xiv. 17. 
 
 
 

 
 o4 
 
 that the throne is not the symbol, and in a Christian land more than the symbol, 
 the sure pledge, of the Eternal Lordship of Jesus Christ, even as the altar of 
 His priesthood is the symbol of His Eternal Priesthood,—or that in a community 
 of baptized men, and acknowledging as a community the faith of Christ’s Church, 
 kingly rule and priestly authority have not correlative and reciprocal duties, 
 is to do nothing less than to divide the Kingship, from the Priesthood, of Christ. 
 Domestic and civil relations are in their origin as much ordained of God, and as 
 much channels of blessing, as ecclesiastical relations. The king and the father 
 are as necessary as the apostle and the pastor. And in a Christian land baptism 
 sealeth them sacred, and God halloweth them by His priesthood in their very source. 
 In the Church of the Living God are received and allowed the vows of man and 
 woman affianced to one another; and by the act of God’s priesthood are these vows 
 accepted, and the union of two spirits effected. To the Church of God comes the 
 Christian ruler; there are his vows of faithful charge of his people, and fulfilment 
 of all kingly duties registered; and from the hands of God’s priest he receives the 
 anointing by which he is enabled to fulfil his duties, and so he reigneth by the 
 Grace of God. But to the Church of God, to the sphere of the spiritual 
 relations established in baptism or flowing therefrom, is the authority of the priest 
 confined ; and in the rule of the private family he may not interfere, much less, of 
 the family of the kingdom. And go also in the Church, the highest monarch is 
 but the receiver of the Grace of God: administration of rule, dispensation of 
 
 ministry therein, belong not to him, and if exercised, are usurpation. 
 
 The civil and ecclesiastical rulers have, therefore, each their proper 
 functions.— The office of the priesthood is to teach both kings and people 
 their several duties, and to be channels for imparting to all and each the 
 grace and blessing, without which they are unfurnished for discharging the 
 same. Those are no sound politics which are not Christian polities; and 
 the priesthood are the ordained teachers of principles, for the guidance of 
 both rulers and ruled. But their duty is strictly a spiritual duty. Their 
 
 words are addressed to the faith and conscience ; their authority is spiritual : 
 
 and as citizens they must obey. The duty of kings and rulers is to govern 
 
 —— Pa 
 
 
 
JV 
 their people by the statutes and ordinances of God, which, in faith of Him, not of 
 
 man, they receive from the lips of the priests ;—as chief among the sons, to be the 
 
 most obedient to the Church, from whose womb all the baptized are born unto 
 
 
 
 God, and from whose breasts they are nourished ;—and to guard and shield her 
 from every danger with filial care. Over the persons of all in their dominions they 
 
 are to rule in righteousness; but dominion or jurisdiction in faith 
 
 
 
 authority 
 internal or external in the Church—belongs not to them, and is an usurpation of 
 the office of Christ, the true Melchisedec, who alone is both King of kings, and 
 
 Priest of the most High God. 
 
 The anointing and coronation of a Christian king by the hands of God’s 
 priest is a godly order. It imports not that the priest hath jurisdiction temporal 
 over the ruler: it imports that none can fulfil their duties, save by God’s 
 blessing ; nor can that blessing be received except in His Church, and through 
 His ordinance there for blessing: and like all other solemn acts in God’s 
 Church it is no mockery, but an effectual means, whereby He gives grace to the 
 ruler, and constitutes the ruler and governed one covenant people in the Holy 
 Ghost. But at least it excludes the notion, that to the ruler belongs spiritual 
 jurisdiction over the Church, from whose ministers, as the hand of the Lord, he 
 receives his crown, and the blessing which he needs. It seals and sanctifies 
 all the original responsibilities of both king and people to God, and to each 
 other :—the duty of the king to rule not for himself but for the good of 
 his people, to shield the weak, to avenge the oppressed, to care for the 
 distressed, to exercise his authority for the protection of all, and above all 
 ever to bear in mind, that all power cometh from God:—the duty of every 
 man as a member of the body politic to stand in his place, ruling or obeying 
 as God may have set him, and to account himself the steward for the Lord 
 of all committed to his care—kings and rulers, and their council legislative 
 or deliberative, to rule, to counsel, and to frame and execute laws, in the 
 fear of God, and for the good of the commonwealth; judges and magistrates 
 to execute justice and equity; robles and gentlemen to hold themselves ac- 
 
 countable to Him for the use they make of their rank, honour, and property ; 
 
 
 

 
 
 
 56 
 
 merchants and manufacturers, and others of whatever profession, husbands 
 and heads of families, to provide things honest in the sight of all men; and 
 again, wives and children, servants, and all subjects, to reverence and obey 
 their superiors, recognising the authority of God in His names of King, and 
 Lord, and Judge, and Father, and Master. But the solemn act of the 
 renewing of the kingdom in the hand of the King, by his coronation in the 
 Church, conveys with it higher and more specific duties, and involves deeper 
 responsibilities. It involves a covenant on the part of king and people, that they 
 will protect and defend God’s true Catholic Church ; on the part of the King, that 
 he will give free course to the ministry of God’s word, afford facilities for the 
 instruction of all under his authority, and uphold, by his example and influence, 
 God’s authority in the Church ; and on the part of both king and people, that 
 they will receive the truths of God, declared unto them through the Church, and 
 that they will, asa nation, walk thereby. It involves an acknowledgment, that 
 the Father hath committed all power into the hands of the Son, and that the 
 ruler is His vicegerent until He comes. But above all, it brings both king and 
 people into the condition of receiving the Holy Ghost, for the fulfilment of the law 
 of Christ in government and in obedience. It insures the presence and protection 
 of God himself in all their ways, and the abundance of every national blessing : 
 but, it also insures the destruction of every moral tie which holds man together, 
 the removal of every restraint upon his passions, the corruption and dissolution of 
 the whole state of society, if this covenant be broken, and this standing be lost by 
 
 apostatizing therefrom. 
 
 Such should have been the relative standing of the Church and of the 
 State, when the head of the latter was converted, and Christianity became 
 the established religion. If the baptized had then been found in the true 
 standing of the Church, possessing all the ordinances for unity of doctrine 
 and of rule, the Church should have stood, the teacher of king and people, 
 whether they would hear, or whether they would forbear; the instructor 
 
 of all men in all respective duties of life; and the channel of grace to all 
 
 for their fulfilment. Between the ministers of the Church, filled with the 
 
 i" ee a Jon 
 
 — 
 
 - udiaks 
 
 
 
Or 
 ~] 
 
 Holy Ghost, and the believing rulers of a believing people, the question of the 
 connection between Church and State would never have been treated as a question 
 of expediency, either by one party or by the other: it would have been resolved 
 into the simple point, whether God, whose presence in the Church the nation and 
 government acknowledged, should by her ministers instruct them in the 
 motives, means, and objects, whereby they were to be guided in ruling for 
 Him, or living to Him. The true doctrine of the standing of the Church, 
 —not an intellectual speculation, but a living reality addressed to the consciences 
 of men,—would have preserved its ministers from the grovelling ambition of 
 usurping power in the State, and would have rendered it impossible and 
 unnecessary, that the authority of the State should have been admitted in spiritual 
 
 matters. 
 
 But when the Christian community contentedly suffered the Apostleship to die 
 away, and had satisfied themselves that thew sin was God’s will; when the actual 
 exercise of the power of delivery over to Satan, for the destruction of the flesh, was 
 to be supplied by excommunication, and delivery over to the temporal power ; and 
 when the authority of apostolic decision was exchanged for that of Synods of 
 bishops, in whose numbers consisted their sole authority in this behalf ;—these 
 weapons, as we have seen, were unequal to the contest, where bishop contended 
 against bishop, and synod against synod. If unity, or rather uniformity its 
 outward expression, were to be preserved (and unity was yet considered an 
 essential mark of the true Church), the only apparent means (God’s ordinances 
 having failed) were a resort to the civil power -—the immediate consequence of 
 this was to make the civil power supreme arbiter in matters of faith; and the 
 Emperor, seated in a Council of bishops, became the spiritual as well as the 
 
 temporal head. 
 
 And that this is the true state of the case, whatsoever pretext or colour 
 may be given to it, is proved by the results. If the Emperor was Arian, 
 the Bishops, who were allowed to retain their sees, were Arian; if orthodox, 
 
 orthodoxy was re-established. When the Emperor became Pagan, it is well 
 I 
 
 
 
58 
 
 known that the Church was unaffected in its internal relations, whatever was the 
 consequence to its external dignity or power. At length, on the decay of the 
 imperial power, and the division of the empire into many states, the Bishop of 
 Rome, being Priest of the chief city, and illustrious as the Bishop of that portion 
 of the Catholic Church where unity and orthodoxy had been longest, and most 
 successfully, contended for, sought to effect an unity, by again anticipating, though 
 in an opposite form, the kingdom of Christ, and by setting a Priest upon the 
 
 throne. 
 
 Whatever were the motives of those who first promoted the appeal to the civil 
 power, or the advancement of the Bishop of Rome,—whether it was spiritual 
 intolerance, or zeal for God’s truth in the former case, or spiritual ambition, or any 
 
 better motive in the latter, 
 
 
 
 at least the principle, that unity was a sign of the true 
 Church, and therefore should be visible, lay at the foundation of all their endeavours. 
 Unity they never could attain: it never shall be attained, except through the 
 indwelling of God; for which Apostles, Prophets, Evangelists, and Pastors( Apostles 
 and Prophets being the root of the others) were given. This striving for uniformity 
 was at least an acknowledgment of what the Church should be; the homage which, 
 fallen from theit spiritual standing, the baptized yet paid to the truth, which 
 they should have realized and manifested. But while the principle was admitted, 
 instead of repenting of the past and seeking God’s returning grace, they resorted 
 to means, which themselves became the instruments of corruption: first of all, the 
 abandonment and voluntary abdication of the true standing of a Church, from the 
 
 consequences whereof they were only preserved by the breaking up of the Empire, 
 
 
 
 the reed whereon they leaned ;—and next, the usurping by the Bishop of Rome 
 of the twofold prerogative of the Lord—claiming to be universal Bishop, and 
 to be Prince of the kings of the earth, exercising the privilege of electing and 
 deposing emperor and king, and of imposing tribute on all nations. The former 
 claim was no sooner made, than repudiated and protested against by the 
 whole Church, although by degrees acquiesced .in; and the result of both 
 
 these usurpations, and of the interference of the Civil Power in the affairs 
 
 of the Church, in the history of Christendom, has been the continual 
 
 
 
 
 
59 
 
 struggle between the temporal power and the spiritual, in mutual aggression. The 
 Emperor on the one hand, proceeding from the right of convoking and presiding 
 in Councils of the Church, to which the Rulers of the Church for their own 
 purposes had themselves invited him, to claim the right of confirming the election 
 of the Pope and other Patriarchs. And again, on the division of the empire 
 into many kingdoms, their kings claiming the right of the investiture of Bishops, 
 setting aside the election of the inferior clergy, and, though temporal rulers 
 only, stretching forth their hands to bestow the symbols of spiritual offices in the 
 Church. ‘The Clergy on the other hand claiming, and in great part effecting, 
 their. exemption from the Civil Courts, and from taxation or political control on 
 the part of the State, and proceeding in some cases to depose Kings. Avnd, lastly, 
 the Bishop of Rome, availing himself of these mutual aggressions and usurpations, 
 transferred the fruits thereof to himself, to strengthen his political supremacy 
 and to establish his power over all the other Bishops of the Christian Church,— 
 and yet, not undisturbed in the enjoyment of his authority thus obtained, was 
 compelled at one. time to yield to the Bishops of a national Church, as in the 
 
 case of the Gallican Church,—at another time to grant to the civil power. the 
 
 
 
 right of nominating to ecclesiastical office, and thus of being the organ of the Holy 
 
 (thost. 
 
 Such has been the external aspect of the Church, flowing by necessary 
 consequence from the rejéction of the external ministries and visible member- 
 ships of the Body of: Christ;—the internal condition also we have already 
 
 developed. 
 
 And to this very day the same evils, internal and external, have continued 
 to work ;—the spiritual life all but extinct, and the baptized resorting to 
 
 fleshly devices for expressing the decaying reality. Thus it is that, Spiritual 
 
 ruling in the Holy Ghost—being unknown, 
 
 
 
 rule in Doctrine and in Discipline 
 there has been a seeking to secular means, for establishing both the one and the 
 other. Thus it is that. the high and heavenly mystery of the Communion of 
 
 the body and blood of Jesus Christ hath been transmuted and debased into a 
 
 
 
60 
 
 visible and earthly thing. The purity, the virginity,’ of the followers of the 
 Lamb, into an outward affectation thereof by forbidding to marry, and com- 
 manding to abstain from meats. The glorious reality of the Communion of 
 Saints, into outward and superstitious acts of veneration to the images or relics 
 of the departed. The exercise, by Apostles in the Holy Ghost, of spiritual 
 chastisement, into the notion of a purgatory, wherein the redeemed Children 
 born of the Holy Ghost are yet to be purged from sin. The mystery of the 
 Church, the Kingdom, brought out into this age before the resurrection—the 
 regeneration—the period of the manifestation of the Sons of God and the heirs 
 of the Kingdom. And all this, with the hollow consciousness that they are not 
 what they assume to be, and the inability to stand up in the fearless majesty of 
 truth, demonstrated by the recourse had to persecutions and acts of monstrous 
 cruelty and wickedness, surpassing the deeds of any other class of men. But yet 
 through all these corruptions and forms of wickedness hath the Roman Catholic 
 Church been a witness to God—a witness for the unity of the Church, in faith, 
 in government, in worship ; a witness that there is a reality in the Sacraments, 
 that they are not mere forms. She preserved the very name of religion through 
 the period of Pagan and Arian barbarism. She was the means of rolling back 
 the tide of Mahometan invasion. She hath been the faithful Defender of the 
 
 Orthodox doctrine in many ages—and in all ages, of the true and Catholic doctrine 
 
 of the Holy Trinity. Would that those who separated from he 
 
 their opposition to those points wherein 
 
 r had confined 
 
 she had erred; and had not contended 
 
 for doctrines and principles, which are working deeper corruption and more 
 
 surely undermining the faith, leavening the whole mass of Christendom with an 
 
 infidelity which is most surely preparing the way for Antichrist, and which results 
 
 immediately from these principles, and not merely from the revolution of feeling 
 
 produced by the errors Just described. 
 
 The prominent point of doctrine whereon the schism took place between the 
 
 Greek and Roman Churches, namely, the Procession of the Holy Ghost, is not a 
 
 dispute about words, but is of the very vitals of Christianity. For the denial, that 
 
 ' Rev. xiv. 4. 
 
 * 1 Tim. iv. 3. 
 
 
 
 ‘ 
 BA 
 
 rh i eye 
 
 
 
 Cpe {ke 
 
 
 
 
 
61 
 
 the Holy Ghost proceedeth not only from the Father, but from the Father and the 
 Son, is a virtual, though not perhaps apparent, denial that the Lord Jesus Christ 
 is the Baptizer with the Holy Ghost—is a denial that the Church, which is the 
 Temple of the Holy Ghost, is the body of Christ; and involves in it, that those 
 who receive the gift of the Holy Ghost for the work of the ministry are not the 
 ministers of Christ ; and that those who receive the Holy Ghost as baptized men, 
 to all of whom the promise is made, are not witnesses to Him who is risen to the 
 right hand of the Father. To the Son the signs and wonders and gifts of the Holy 
 Ghost witness not, if so be that the Holy Ghost proceed not from the Father and 
 the Son—if so be that the Holy Ghost be not the Spirit of the Son, the Spirit 
 of Him who is the Truth. The error in doctrine, therefore, of the Greek Church 
 affects the whole standing of the Church as a body, and of every baptized man as 
 a member of Christ. And so it is by exact and just retribution that, as a body, 
 and as one great division of the Christian Church, they are found this day in their 
 internal condition more devoid of spiritual life, of intelligent devotion, of vital 
 religion, than any other body of Christians. And in their external relations their 
 ordinances for ministry have less of the standing of the Church, and their 
 ecclesiastical rulers are victims of greater oppression from the secular arm, than 
 any other ;—whether they be seen in Russia, their interests regulated and 
 themselves governed by a political board; or whether they are beheld in Turkey 
 and the East, the prey of the Ottoman, and kept in existence only because a 
 serviceable engine for state purposes, and a convenient pledge for the political 
 
 fidelity of their flocks. 
 
 The Protestants, on the other hand (we speak of them as a body, and as 
 regards the tendency and present operation and influence of the principles 
 generally admitted by them), object indeed to the errors and corruptions 
 in doctrine and practice which exist in the Church of Rome; but their 
 opinions and conduct, carried into the opposite extreme, for the most part involve 
 the denial (which by many is openly and boastfully avowed) of the essential 
 or even occasional visibility of the Church; of the reality of God’s ordinances 
 
 therein; or of the Sacraments, as anything more than mere conventional 
 
 
 

 
 
 
 62 
 
 symbols: and while in words they admit the Catholic doctrine of the procession 
 of the Holy Ghost as a Divine Person from the Father and the Son, they carry 
 out under a more subtle form the error of the Greek Church, counting the 
 work of the Holy Ghost in the Church to be little more than the emanation 
 of an influence from God: and substituting a traditional doctrine,—a metaphysical 
 or sentimental notion, in the place of the true doctrine of the incarnation and 
 of the abiding existence of the God-Man and His union with His Church ; they 
 have well nigh lost all faith, that He really liveth on the throne of His Father, 
 
 and speaketh to us from Heaven by the Holy Ghost through the ministries of His 
 
 Church. 
 
 The Protestant Reformers, even in the beginning, attained not to unity among 
 themselves ; ‘they builded not one Church out of the apostacy, but added many 
 sects to the Babylon which they found; they contented themselves with founding 
 systems, and sought to build the Church on doctrines and creeds, instead of 
 looking to God to build up His Temple on living men standing in His ordinances. 
 The leading bodies. of: Protestants, in defending themselves against the political 
 power of the Roman’ Catholics, soon made alliances with the rulers of the State, 
 each apart from the others, and each in order to establish their own system in 
 their respective and limited spheres—and these have manifésted the same evils 
 which exist in the Greek Communion, life almost extinct, and the Church of 
 God trampled under foot, or only treated as the handmaid of the State—while 
 the numerous sects, which separated from them, have given wild loose to the 
 spirit of lawlessness and insubordination, and of rejection of all authority whether 
 im the Church or in the State. The history of Protestantism has been an history, 
 not of the one Church, but of many sects; not of one faith, one hope, one baptism, 
 but of many faiths, many hopes, many baptisms.— They have not dwelt together 
 as brethren, eating and drinking in one holy place; but they have separated 
 from each other, biting and devouring one another.’ The Church ‘was one in 
 the beginning through the indwelling of the Comforter; afterwards it was bound 
 together by ambition and cruelty; but since the Reformation there has been 
 
 —~ © 
 
 no manifested oneness at all; but a mass of opposing sects, each contradicting 
 
 
 
 
 
63 
 
 the others, their only claim to union being in the Scriptures, as the standard 
 of truth; while they prove the fallacy of their claim, by each referring to 
 
 the Scriptures in support of their peculiar and, many times, contradictory 
 
 tenets. 
 
 From a very early period, the careless and unsanctified deportment of mul- 
 titudes professing the reformed doctrines too plainly betrayed that they welcomed 
 the Reformation, rather as an emancipation from the trammels placed by what they 
 designated as the Papal system upon the indulgence of their unrestrained wills, 
 than as a true freedom of the spirit from the thraldom of Satan. The recourse 
 now had to the sword, the interference of the Reformed princes and ecclesiastics 
 in the internal broils of Germany, and the prominent features of the religious 
 wars of France—their leaders, their captains, and their armies—clearly enough 
 
 ro) 
 
 a 
 
 revealed how low their spiritual standing: lastly, the undue importance which 
 the right of private judgment insensibly, nay almost unavoidedly, assumed among 
 those, who contended for right and truth against darkness and error, and who 
 exercised that right without restraint, apart’from the discipline of God’s house 
 or the voice of His: Spirit, to humble, cleanse, and keep them, discloses 
 the deep-seated root of that spirit of Antichrist, which has been of late so 
 rapidly and, to those who will observe, so palpably developed in every department 
 of life. For by this principle, as now interpreted, every individual is constituted 
 a judge of himself, and a despiser of all judgment and authority in king and 
 
 priest, magistrate and master, husband and parent 
 
 
 
 a censor of all things 
 around him and above him—his own sufficient guide and keeper and teacher, 
 having a heart lifted above God’s word, of which he is the interpreter to 
 himself, instead of being subject to it—dishonouring the Head of the body by 
 despising every ordinance, save as it is the object of his idolatry. Nor, in the 
 midst of the political and intellectual partizanship, into which the Reformed 
 Churches have sunk, do the late revivals, real or supposed, materially alter the 
 picture. The very prinéiple of evangelical revival, as it is called, is not the 
 restoration of the baptized to the healthy exercise of all the proper functions 
 
 of the Church of God, but the substitution for her of other agents individual 
 
 
 
64 
 
 or confederate; men not called of God, or religious societies, supplanting the 
 Church in the exercise of her remaining offices and gifts, by means devised 
 of men; missionaries, male, and even female, commissioned by voluntary asso- 
 ciations; and the Bible, which God hath entrusted to the Church, and which 
 should, by her authority and with her blessing, be presented to all her children, 
 circulated as a dead letter, like merchandize, and thus made the instrument 
 of denying, that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh, to whom its pages witness 
 
 as the only Saviour. 
 
 And now, reviewing the condition of Christians, regarding them as God 
 regards them as a whole, forgetting all their divisions and sects and denominations, 
 all equally remote from the one original frame and true constitution of the Church, 
 and knowing but one characteristic, the Baptized—we shall find in the two most 
 prominent of its main divisions the strivings of the Holy Ghost, the Spirit of 
 God, in the whole Church for fulfilling that twofold work (the communicating of 
 His life and the dispensing thereof in living witness), whereby God would perfect 
 the body of His Christ. We shall see also the twofold strugglings of the mystery 
 of iniquity, in counteracting and perverting both of these, in order to prepare the 
 Chureh and the world for the revelation of that Wicked one, the predicted Anti- 
 ehrist. For Roman Catholic and Protestant are not names of Two Churches, but 
 the expression of what is in the body, whether good or evil. So that there is no 
 error and no truth in the one, which is not in the other, of these divisions, though 
 the form of its manifestation may be very different, and though the characteristics 
 or prominent points in each are opposed. And what we shall say in reference to 
 these two divisions, will be found to comprise all which need be said on this subject 
 
 as regards the third great division of the baptized, the Greek Communion. 
 
 The Roman Catholic Church has aimed at the preservation of the Church’s 
 unity, in her forms, constitution, and doctrine. In her alone has there been seen 
 a witness that the Church is one, the activity of the principle that unity is 
 its essential character, or the continued effort to preserve it. Her witness is the 
 
 witness of the whole, that the Church is one. Protestantism is the history of the 
 
 
 
 
 
 
65 
 
 Church’s effort to maintain the Life of God, with which she was at first entrusted, 
 and of the strugglings of a consciousness to the need of something beyond mere 
 
 unity. Her witness is the Church’s witness fo the Life of God. 
 
 And further, as the witness respectively borne by these two portions of the 
 universal Church is of a different kind, so the sin, whereby the witness of each fails 
 to be true, is of a different character. The sin of the Church of Rome is, that, in 
 seeking to preserve Unity, she has had little or no regard to the preservation of 
 the Life of God in the Church. She has preferred the means to the end, and, in 
 order to effect an apparent unity, has substituted an outward uniformity ; and this 
 she has effected, in spite of innumerable divisions still existing within, not by 
 the communication of one Life going forth to every part, but by anathemas 
 
 and excommunications, by oppression and violence; and so it is a counterfeit unity 
 
 
 
 an unity of death. Whilst the Protestant Church has sought to maintain the 
 Life, by other means than those of God’s appointment, for individual and selfish 
 ends, and it may be said to the total setting aside of the Church of God; she has 
 
 a) 
 
 maintained the Life, but to exercise it in separateness and schism. 
 
 The one is the purchase of Unity at the expense of Life, the other the 
 forfeiture of Life through despising the Church, the Body of the Lord, without 
 which the Life, under the name of spirituality, is but a dream of mysticism. The 
 evils embodied in the Protestant system exist, because there is among the baptized 
 the endeavour to maintain Life independently of the Church, the ordinance of 
 God for that end. Those in the Papal system exist, because there is the love of 
 form with indifference to the Life. And thus the Papacy preferring the means 
 before the end, and Protestantism seeking the end without the means, both fail of 
 being true witnesses for God,—both tend to bring about and to exhibit the fallen 
 
 and ruined condition of the baptized. 
 
 The effects consequent in the universal Church are such as we have described: 
 ignorance and unholiness and superstition, in the first place, working their baneful 
 
 influence, until the Church was seen oppressed under the sensual, profane, and venal 
 
 K 
 
 
 

 
 
 
 66 
 
 condition presented in the centuries preceding the Reformation; and then, from 
 that long slumber under outward form, during which the Life was fast ebbing 
 all the while, the bursting forth of independence first, and then of the pervading 
 spirit of schism. And when all these opposing but equally fatal principles have 
 been together at work,—light and ignorance, self-sufficiency and superstitious. 
 prostration, lawlessness and priestcraft,—the inevitable result is Infidelity, which 
 is more nearly allied to superstition on the one hand and religious enthusiasm on 
 
 the other, than the prominent features of each would at first indicate. 
 
 While some of the Protestant bodies avoiding the kingship of the Pope have 
 fallen into the priesthood of the King, avowedly submitting spiritual offices to his 
 nomination, and suffering without protest the property of the Church to be seized 
 by rapacious rulers as the price of obtaining their support; others have rejected the 
 very notion of government in the universal Church, and have sought to emancipate 
 each little knot and congregation from all connection with any other, and, under 
 the mask of Christian liberty and the right of private judgment, have brought into 
 states, as well as into churches, the hatred of all rule and the rejection of all 
 authority. Under the form of personal religion, and communion with the Head 
 unseen, they rend without scruple His body, part His garments, and cast lots 
 for His vesture ; they set up the phantom of an invisible Church, and a mysterious 
 
 unity, which does not even profess, like that of the Roman Catholic, to stand in 
 
 the ordinances of God. 
 
 And the Protestant Governments for the most part, deriving and defending 
 their disregard of the holy ordinances of the Church from the failure to vindicate 
 and maintain them, have used the Churches in their dominions for their own 
 purposes; have interfered with unholy patronage, introducing, into places in the 
 
 Church, men who had nothing but friends or bare learning to recommend them; 
 
 and at length, ignorant that the Church is one body and not many, and hath one 
 doctrine and not many, they are now exposing their subjects to be drawn aside by 
 every wandering adventurer in the trade of preaching, the wickedest of all trades. 
 
 And the people thus on all hands, taught by the examples of their superiors, and 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
67 
 
 many times by the precepts of their instructors, that they are competent and entitled 
 to form opinions on all matters of politics and religion, that the denial of such claims 
 is tyranny and ignorance, and that the unbridled use of the tongue is their inalienable 
 birthright, have cast off the fear of God, and are ready to overthrow every barrier 
 which religion or constituted government can oppose to them, and to reduce into 
 practice the theories ostentatiously set forth by the speculative, and the principles 
 
 alas ! actuating all classes of the community throughout Christendom. 
 
 We say throughout Christendom: for it is not among Protestants only that 
 these principles are in operation; all classes of those in authority, whether in the 
 Church or in the State, are courting the people; even those who in private are 
 the most attached to the principles of reverence, of authority, and of piety, which 
 consecrate the King and the Priest in the heart of man, conceal their opinions from 
 the sight of men in deference to the public voice; and adopting that petty wisdom 
 of the present age, expediency, effectually assist to swell the note of that great lie 
 of Satan which is now re-echoed from land to land throughout Christendom, that 
 “the people are the source of legitimate power.”” And so it is, the favour of 
 the people is sought, and the avowal of truth is restrained; and the thought, 
 that the Ruler is the ordinance of God, departs from his own breast, as it hath 
 departed from the breasts of his subjects ; and the authority of the Church, in 
 its relation to the State, is no more to be the teacher of kings and people, but is 
 just limited to the degree of political influence which she may possess; and her 
 ceremonies and services, on all state occasions, are no longer looked to as conveying 
 a special blessing, but are either disappearing, or only retained as part of an empty 
 
 pageantry. 
 
 And so it is that, among the improvements of the age, the payment of 
 Tithes to God’s Altar must be abolished. In some countries they have 
 fallen into desuetude—the Reformed Clergy fearing to stand upon their right. 
 In others they have been swept away by the lawless violence of revolution, 
 and cannot be re-established. And now the last remaining remnant is 
 
 demanded under the specious argument, that modern maxims of Political 
 
 
 
68 
 
 Economy demand the sacrifice, that tithes are a partial tax, and injurious to 
 agriculture. The fact, that this argument hath any truth in it, is the standing 
 evidence of the Apostacy of Christendom from the faith of their Forefathers. 
 They are an unequal tax on land, because St. Augustine’s' charge to the faithful 
 to give Tithe, not only of their annual produce, but of their daily gains, is no longer 
 the principle nor the practice of Christians. When the piety of our forefathers, 
 by collective and national acts, dedicated their Tenths unto the Lord, the riches of 
 the Roman Empire had disappeared, and it is not too much to say, that no 
 other sources of wealth were in existence but the produce of the earth; and 
 therefore, and because equitable laws could not well apply to other descriptions 
 of property, the letter of the statutes of all nations referred to nothing else 
 but the produce of land. But now (when, in reward of the piety of the 
 nations of Christendom, God hath increased their riches of every kind beyond 
 all example of earlier history) even where the letter of the law remains 
 uncancelled, the spirit wherein tithes were dedicated is departed; and _ so, 
 instead of the faithful giving tithes of all they possess, their posterity have 
 restricted themselves to the mere obligation of the letter, and have, by their 
 own act of withholding the tenth of their other property, made the tithe from 
 the land to seem an unequal impost. Meanwhile the national acknowledg- 
 ment of God, expressed in paying to His Church that portion which He hath 
 undoubtedly reserved unto Himself in giving the Earth and its Fruits unto 
 the children of men (for tithes are more ancient than the law of Moses, and 
 have ever been the acknowledgment made by the faithful to God as the 
 giver of all), is exchanging everywhere for scanty provisions, annually doled 
 out from motives of expediency or bounty, not by right: and the Priests of 
 God are becoming pensioners of the State. The history of Europe is shewing, 
 and will yet more fearfully demonstrate, that for these things the judgment of 
 
 -—~\ . H oe : . 3 : ‘ . - te : cs ‘ - . os 8 +. 
 God tarrieth not; as saith the prophet Malachi, tracing the sin from its origin, 
 ' Precidite ergo aliquid, et deputate aliquid fixum, vel ex annuis fructibus, vel ex quotidianis 
 questibus vestris. ... Decimas vis? Decimas exime, quanquam parum sit.—Aug. Com. in Psalm exlvi. 
 Quod cumque te pascit, ingenium Dei est; et inde Decimas expetit, unde vivis; de militia, de negotio, 
 
 de artificio redde decimas. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
TMA | 
 
 69 
 
 giving intimation of the only remedy, and predicting the proud answer of 
 Christendom to the charges of the Lord: “Even from the days of your 
 “Fathers ye are gone away from mine ordinances, and have not kept them. 
 “ Return unto me, and I will return unto you, saith the Lord of Hosts. But 
 “ve said, Wherein shall we return? Will a man rob God? Yet ye have 
 “robbed Me. But ye say, Wherein have we robbed Thee? In tithes and 
 “offerings. Ye are cursed with a curse: for ye have robbed Me, even this whole 
 
 “ nation.’”! 
 
 The next step in this fearful descent is, the principle that the State shall 
 consider and act towards all forms of religion on a footing of perfect equality, 
 and either bestow on each sect a similar bounty in proportion to its numbers, 
 or leave each to maintain its own Ministers. In either of these cases the State 
 ceases to recognise the Church of God; but in the latter it ceases also to 
 recognise either God or religion. In the former case the State ceases to be 
 Christian, in any proper sense of the word: in the latter it proclaims a principle 
 of Atheism, so far as the Government is concerned. God’s truth is one; His 
 salvation is one; and in the one Church of God alone are they to be found. 
 They proceed from God to man, and must be received by man, or rejected 
 at his eternal peril;—they never can be matter of human choice, nor be 
 decided by mere human majorities: and therefore to place all classes of 
 religionists on equal terms, is a virtual denial of revelation on the part of the 
 State; it is a betrayal of their trust, wherever the Ministers of religion, who claim 
 to be the Church of God, concur in it; it isa denial of their baptism in the People 
 to seek it. Ifthe people are not kept conscious of their obligation—if the clergy 
 do not assert for Christ their place, as His appointed channels of all God’s 
 blessings, and His Priests to bring the people up to God, they will but degrade 
 themselves to a level with those self-elected pastors, those voluntary bishops, the 
 birth of modern times, who neither have, nor profess to have, any Divine consti- 
 
 tution or authority for their office; they will act either as if the pastoral work 
 
 * Mal. in. 7,8, 9: 
 
 
 

 
 70 
 
 and all ecclesiastical functions required no gift or authority of God, no delegation 
 from Christ; or as if their own standing were questionable as the inheritors of 
 
 that gift, authority, and delegation. 
 
 It is true that some Governments have not avowedly acted on this principle, 
 and that the established Churches have reprobated it; but it has nevertheless 
 insinuated itself into the policy, not only of every Protestant State, but also of 
 every State containing a large proportion of Protestants; and, even in the most 
 strictly Roman Catholic Governments, the Rulers will be found prepared to avow, 
 whenever they can do it with safety, that the favour to be paid by a Government 
 to any class of religionists is te be proportioned to their numbers, and that 
 the only ground for recognising a State Church is, that it is the Church of the 
 
 majority. 
 
 Thus are abandoned the only means remaining to Rulers, to enable them 
 to fulfil their duties as God would have them, and to stem the evils which 
 are rushing in on the nations of Europe—for righteous government can- 
 not be administered in the power of the natural man, who is always foolish, 
 tyrannical, and rebellious; and those Rulers who do not seek to God for the 
 grace of His Spirit, who forget the anointing they have received from the 
 Holy One, will proceed to abuse the authority given them of God, and will 
 
 become oppressors. And this hath ever been the source of oppression and 
 
 
 
 misrule :—in Pagan times, because they had not the Anointing ;—after the 
 establishment of Christianity, because they abode not in the grace which 
 they professed to have received, yet neither renouncing nor disregarding it :— 
 but now is the consummation of the sin of the Rulers of Christendom, that 
 they are in their secret spirit disregarding and forgetting, or even renouncing 
 and despising it. And hence the convulsions and judgments overtaking their 
 kingdoms; for the people, suffering from systems of Government which 
 have not ensured their peace and happiness (and people and rulers alike 
 
 forgetting the source from whence the reformation of their grievances must 
 
 come, even God), are rising up with impetuous violence to seek the remedies 
 
 
 
71 
 
 for themselves, and, led away by the vain speculations of reforming and revolu- 
 tionising men, are the ready instruments for involving all institutions in Church 
 
 and State in one irremediable destruction. 
 
 The French Revolution of 1793 was but a partial outbreak of that 
 universal convulsion which is now preparing—the first shock of that Earthquake, 
 which will throw down every civil and ecclesiastical fabric :—Corruption in the 
 Court and in the Church had destroyed the happiness and moral feelings, and 
 infidelity had supplanted the principles of the great mass of the people ;—and the 
 people, oppressed and exasperated, at last burst through all restraint, and then 
 every evil passion was let loose: wickedness, cruelty, and bloodshed, a diabolical 
 hatred of God and of Religion, and of all Government, and of decency and virtue, 
 had their full sway, and unheard-of crimes were committed in the palace of the 
 king, and detestable lewdness and outrageous sacrilege revelled even in the 
 temples of God,—Murder became the policy, and Atheism the religion, of a 
 
 whole nation. 
 
 But that revolution rose up in the face of better principles then still 
 existing, the which with mighty force it assailed and sought to overthrow, but 
 which ultimately stayed its violence. But now the revolution, of which the 
 former was the type and omen, impends upon Christendom leavened throughout 
 with the evil, and sweeps and carries away institutions, whose foundations are 
 already sapped: and that infidelity, which flowed darkly and silently its course 
 beneath through the period of Papal corruptions, which gained strength and 
 has burst forth into the light of day in Protestant apostasy, shall swell out into 
 that third and last flood of Antichristian blasphemy, which shall carry away 
 both Church and State, as visible ordinances publicly witnessing to God, 
 and raise up in their room the ordinances of Hell; mischief shall be 
 framed by a law, and every insult against God, and His Christ, shall be 
 perpetrated, not by the tumultuous acts of infuriated mobs, but by legislative 
 measures, with all the pomp and circumstance of Government, yet springing 
 
 from the people, whose will shall be all-powerful; the ties of society, formerly 
 
 
 
12 
 
 burst asunder by the violence of man’s passions, shall now be loosed by the 
 impiety of his wisdom; and, the bands of God being broken, none other shall 
 bind men together; every man’s hand shall be against his brother, and misrule 
 shall be the law of the world, until all are gathered up under that Antichrist who 
 
 hastens to be revealed.’ 
 
 For we know from God’s word, that in the last days—self-love, covetous- 
 ness, boasting, pride, blasphemy, disobedience, unthankfulness, unholiness, the 
 want of natural affection, truce-breaking, false accusation, incontinence, fierceness, 
 disrelish of good, treason, rashness, highmindedness, love of pleasure,’ cloaked 
 indeed by all the forms of worship and godliness, but denying all power 
 therein, shall not only have their votaries as they have ever had, but shall 
 reign triumphant over the minds of men. In one word, lawlessness shall 
 pervade and prevail, tossing men to and fro as the waves of the sea, until 
 it shall bring forth its concentrated energy in that Wicked, the lawless one, 
 who shall be revealed, the man of sin, “who opposeth and exalteth himself 
 “above all that is called God, or that is worshipped; whose coming is after 
 “the working of Satan, with all power and signs and lying wonders.”* And 
 he must be manifested speedily ; for amid the increasing tumults and confusion of 
 all people in every country of Europe, in this distress of nations, with perplexity, 
 the time foretold in God’s word rapidly approaches,‘ when the Son of Man 
 shall come in the clouds of heaven to judge the nations, and to set up that 
 kingdom which shall never be destroyed. And when He cometh, that lawless 
 one stands already revealed: for it is written, that “the Lord shall consume 
 “him with the spirit of His mouth, and destroy him with the brightness of His 
 
 Sa ing ’? 
 comune. 
 
 And this is the fearful crisis in the history of man to which the world 
 approaches; and this is “the hour of temptation, which cometh upon all 
 the world, to try them that dwell upon the earth.”’® And “as a snare it 
 
 ! Micah, vu. 5. OT. th. 225. > 2 Thess. u. 8. 4. 9. 
 
 Rey. 1m. 10. 
 
 * Luke, xxi. 25. * Dan. vii. 13, 14. 
 
 
 
 Me ALS RE ee ee eR eR PA ee AN cE” ree 
 
 
 
~] 
 2.6 
 vy 
 
 comes upon all them that dwell upon the face of the whole earth.’?' Oh let the 
 warning enter now into the ears and hearts of all God’s anointed; for except 
 they hear it and believe, nothing can hinder the Priests of God’s Church from 
 ranging themselves under the “false Prophet which rises out of the earth,”’’ 
 nor preserve the kings of Christendom from giving their kingdom to the 
 Beast which ascends out of the bottomless pit,? and from gathering together 
 under him to make war with the Lamb:—and that war shall end in their 
 destruction, as it is written, “I saw the beast and the kings of the earth, 
 and their armies, gathered together to make war against Him;’’* of which 
 kings it is also written, “ These shall make war with the Lamb, and the Lamb 
 
 shall overcome them, for He is Lord of lords and King of kings.’”” 
 
 The apostasy and approaching judgment, the visible corruptions and present 
 calamities, of God’s baptized people; the utter dissimilarity of those bodies called 
 Churches, of any one of them apart, or of the whole of them together, whether 
 in outward form, order, unity, and spiritual glory, or in inward _ holiness, 
 purity, peace, blessedness, and goodness, to that body described under the 
 same name “the Church’? in Holy Scripture; their consequent inability to 
 fulfil God’s purpose in them, or their duty to Him and His creatures; and 
 their utter unpreparedness for the coming of the Lord, we have now declared ; 
 and we cite as our witnesses the consciences of all to whom this testimony 
 comes :—'The scornful Infidel points the finger to the baptized ;—referring to 
 the Scriptures, he compares the record with the fact, and deduces his argument 
 for rejecting revelation from the practical confutation apparently afforded by 
 those who profess to believe it. The cold and sceptical religionists of the 
 day, differing from the infidel only as one class of theorists on speculative 
 philosophy may differ from another, reduce Christianity merely to a system of 
 
 ethics, and ascribe all which would convey any higher meaning to oriental 
 
 phraseology. And the great body of Christians, without thinking of God’s glory 
 
 or God’s purpose, or whether he hath any purpose at all, are pleasing: themselves 
 
 35. * Rev. xiii. 11. 5 Rev. xvi. 8. * Rev. xix. 19. ° Rev. xvii. 14. 
 L 
 
 * Luke, xxi. 
 
 
 

 
 74 
 
 in their various modes of spiritual gratification, or seeking peace to their con- 
 sciences merely, with no higher views or principle than their Pagan forefathers: 
 for if we will use religion only to quiet our fears, or to gratify imagination, 
 as though God had no interest therein, nor design, which He is slowly, to our 
 apprehensions, but surely working, we in fact reduce it to a christianised Paganism. 
 And not only the assent of conscience to the things we state, but its apprehensions, 
 defined and undefined—its fears of present evils which cannot be averted, and 
 its terrors because of what may remain behind—these also are our witnesses ; 
 and the restless uneasiness of the world, the never ending and never satisfied 
 inquiries wherefore these things are so, the universal clamour for reform and 
 change, in like manner testify to the truth. But reformation without God, 
 the best constituted government which man’s wisdom can devise for Church 
 or State, without the Spirit of God, is illusory and vain, and, attempted without 
 reference to Him, is wicked: it is the act of Saul seeking to familiar spirits, 
 when God answered him no more by dreams, nor by Urim, nor by Prophets ;' 
 or, as Nebuchadnezzar, troubled in his spirit to know the dream of futurity, 
 called for the magicians and astrologers of Babylon. But it is God alone “who 
 “revealeth the deep and secret things: He knoweth what is in the darkness, 
 “and the light dwelleth with Him.’ And, because ye are still His anointed, 
 He hath now interpreted the signs of the times, and made known the hidden 
 causes of these evils—the fearful judgments which impend,—the fierce tyranny 
 of that enemy of God and man, the old Serpent, who deceived man at the first, 
 and is now gathering up the deceived to involve them in one fell catastrophe,— 
 and the near approach of Him who shall be revealed from Heaven with His 
 mighty angels, recompensing “rest’’ to those who are waiting for Him, but 
 shame and everlasting contempt “to those who know not God, and obey not the 
 
 “ Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ.’”? 
 
 “ But who may abide the day of His coming? and who shall stand when He 
 
 “appeareth? for He is like a refiner’s fire, and like fuller’s soap. And He shall sit 
 
 1 Sam. xxviii. 6, 7. * Dan. ii. * 2 Thess. i. 7, 8. 
 
 - tite Oi — 
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 4 om wee > ’ 
 
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 a a. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 on} 
 sh 
 
 
 
79 
 
 “ag a refiner and purifier of silver; and He shall purify the sons of Levi, and 
 “purge them as gold and silver, that they may offer unto the Lord an offering in 
 “riohteousness.””' It is only an holy people who can abide before Him, walking 
 as “children of light and children of the day ;’’* it 1s only a people filled with the 
 Holy Ghost, the servants of God whom He sealeth on their foreheads, before the 
 four winds of heaven let loose the elements of destruction on the earth and on the 
 sea? And that ministry of the Holy Ghost cannot be given, that sealing cannot 
 be affixed, the Church cannot be perfected, except through those ordinances which 
 God gave at the first for that end. But they shall be given; all the promises 
 contained in His word of the Restoration of His Zion, in the hour of her greatest 
 peril, shall be fulfilled ; and that purpose shall be accomplished according to His 
 own counsel, and by His own instrumentality, and by no man’s devices. God will 
 appear again in the mighty presence of His Spirit; again shall His gifts, given 
 
 2) 
 
 without repentance at the ascension of His Son, be manifested; Apostles, sent 
 forth not of man, neither by man,—Prophets, Evangelists, and Pastors and 
 Teachers, ordained by Apostles,—shall work the work of God in His Church, and 
 minister to the edifying of the body, and the body shall be replenished with lite ; 
 the dead bones shall be brought together, framed again in their wonted order, 
 and shall stand up a mighty army ;° and the followers of the Lamb, the undefiled, 
 in whose mouth shall be no guile, without fault before the throne of God, shall 
 stand with the Lamb on mount Zion, the manifested first-fruits® unto God and 
 the Lamb, the earnest of that glorious harvest, when the Son of Man shall send 
 forth His angels, and shall gather His elect from the four winds, from one end 
 of heaven to the other.6 And this is your calling, O ye baptized, for God hath 
 not cast you off; and this is your hope:—* His Spirit yet remaims among us, 
 “according to the words of His covenant when we came out of Egypt;’’’ and 
 Jesus Christ, the Head of the Church, is still ready to put forth His ordinances 
 for this very end, that the duties which He requires of His ministers they may 
 
 be enabled to fulfil. 
 
 1 Mal. ni. 2—4. 2 1 Thess. v. 5. 3 Rev. vii. 1—3. + Ezek. xxxXvii. 
 
 ° Rev. xiv. 1—®5. § Matt. xxiv. 31. ” Hag. ii. 5. 
 
 
 

 
 76 
 
 And therefore ye Bishops, fathers of the Church, ye are called upon to present 
 
 your flocks unto Him, an holy people, who shall be able to abide the judgment, 
 and be counted worthy to stand before the Son of Man: and you, ye Royal 
 Potentates, and all Princes, unto you will God be faithful, and save you and 
 your people from the floods of ungodliness, if ye on your part will recognise your 
 allegiance to Him, and will seek unto Him in His Church. And this salvation 
 is no earthly deliverance, nor restoration of earthly dignity or power. The last 
 notes of the knell of this world’s Dispensation are pealing,—the world passes 
 away, and the things of the world; the only hope is that which hath been ever 
 the hope of the Church, to be caught up to meet the Lord in the air, and so to be 
 ever with Him, saved from the snare of the temptation and the great tribulation 
 which are coming upon the earth. But will ye hear? God knoweth; doubtless 
 many will hear, and all may—and whosoever will, shall be surely sealed from the 
 destruction, and kept in the pavilion of God in the time of evil: but whosoever 
 will not hear, who will not receive God’s seal, how shall he escape the judgment 
 written, that “because they receive not the love of the truth that they may 
 “be saved, God shall send them strong delusion that they should believe a lie, 
 “that they all might be damned who believed not the truth but had pleasure 
 
 “in unrighteousness.’”! 
 
 But ye, who mourn over the low estate of Christ's Church ; who desire that 
 the baptized should be conformed to the image of Jesus the Son of God, should 
 be seen walking in holiness and love—the image of God restored, the company 
 of the believers of one heart and of one soul, filled with the Holy Ghost; who, 
 having no proud methods of your own, do desire that these things shall be 
 effected by God’s means, and by none other; you above all we implore, that ye 
 will not resist His grace which we proclaim unto you, neither let the truth of 
 His purposes, which we have declared, be counted a thing incredible. Refuse 
 ye to believe that God’s gifts and callings are for ever withdrawn; lift up your 
 
 heads, for in the midst of darkness He causes light to arise; and the period of 
 
 ' 2 Thess. ii. 11, 12. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
7d 
 approaching judgment has ever been the time for raising His voice to warn, and 
 
 for ordaining His refuge wherein there may be shelter and defence. 
 
 God, the Father Almighty, who holds the hearts of all men in His power, and 
 disposes and guides them in unerring wisdom, pour out upon you the knowledge, 
 and fulfil in you all the good pleasure, of His will. The grace of our Lord Jesus 
 Christ, your Saviour, replenish you with all the blessings of His goodness. 
 The Holy Ghost, the Comforter, the Spirit of the Father and the Son, guide 
 you henceforth unto the end in His perfect way, to the Glory of God, and the 
 
 salvation of your souls, and of the souls of all His people. Amen. 
 
 Glorp be to the father, and to the Hon, and to the Holp @host ; 
 As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without 
 end. Amen. 
 
 
 

 
 
 
 

 

 
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