But, if any persons claim for any traditions of the church an authority, either paramount to Scripture, or equal to Scripture, or concurrent with it-or, which comes to the very same thing, decisive as to the interpretation of Scripture-taking on themselves to decide what is "the church," and what tradition is to be thus received these persons are plainly called on to establish by miraculous evidences the claims they advance. And if they make their appeal, not to miracles wrought by themselves, but to those which originally formed the evidence of the Gospel, they are bound to show by some decisive proof, that that evidence can fairly be brought to bear upon and authenticate their pretension; that they are, by Christ's decree, the rightful depositaries of the power they claim.

Kingdom of Christ.

A PRIMITIVE BISHOP.

It seems plainly to have been at least the general, if not the universal practice of the apostles, to appoint over each separate church a single individual as a chief governor, under the title of "angel" (i.e. messenger or legate from the apostles) or "BISHOP," i. e. superintendent or overseer. A CHURCH and a DIOCESE seem to have been for a considerable time coextensive and identical. each church or diocese, (and consequently each superintendent,) though connected with the rest by ties of faith and hope and charity, seems to have been (as has been already observed) perfectly independent as far as regards any power of control.

And

The plan pursued by the apostles seems to have been, as has been above remarked, to establish a great number of small, (in comparison with modern churches,) distinct, and independent communities, each governed by its own single bishop, consulting, no doubt, with his own presbyters, and accustomed to act in concurrence with them, and occasionally conferring with the brethren in other churches, but owing no submission to the rulers of any other church, or to any central common authority except the apostles themselves. And other points of difference might be added.

Now to vindicate the institutions of our own, or of some other church, on the ground that they "are not in themselves superstitious or ungodly"—that they are not at variance with Gospel principles,

natory of the very errors with which they are especially chargeable. Thus, those who from time to time have designated themselves "Gnostics," i. e. persons "knowing" the Gospel in a far superior degree to other professed Christians-have been generally remarkable for their want of knowledge of the very first rudiments of evangelical truth. The phrase "Catholic" religion (i.e. "Universal") is the most commonly in the mouths of those who are the most limited and exclusive in their views, and who seek to shut out the largest number of Christian communities from the Gospel-covenant. "Schism," again, is by none more loudly reprobated than by those who are not only the immediate authors of schism, but the advocates of principles tending to generate and perpetuste schisms without end. And "Church principles""High-church principles"-"Church-of-England principles"-are the favorite terms of those who go the furthest in subverting all these. Obvious as this fallacy is, there is none more commonly successful in throwing men off their guard.

or with any divine injunction that was designed to be of universal obligation, is intelligible and reasonable. But to vindicate them on the ground of the exact conformity, which it is notorious they do not possess, to the most ancient models, and even to go beyond this, and condemn all Christians whose institutions and ordinances are not "one and utterly like" our own, on the ground of their departure from the apostolical precedents, which no church has exactly adhered to-does seem to use no harsher expression-not a little inconsistent and unreasonable. And yet one may not unfrequently hear members of Episcopalian churches pronouncing severe condemnation on those of other communions, and even excluding them from the Christian body, on the ground, not of their not being under the best form of ecclesiastical government, but, of their wanting the very essentials of a Christian church: viz. the very same distinct orders in the hierarchy that the apostles appointed: and this, while the Episcopalians themselves have, universally, so far varied from the apostolical institutions as to have in one church several bishops; each of whom consequently differs in the office he holds, in a most important point, from one of the primitive bishops, as much as the governor of any one of our colonies does from a sovereign prince.

Now, whether the several alterations and departures from the original institutions were or were not, in each instance, made on good grounds, in accordance with an altered state of society, is a question which cannot even be entertained by those who hold that no church is competent to vary at all from the ancient model. Their principle would go to exclude at once from the pale of Christ's church almost every Christian body since the first two or three centuries.

The edifice they overthrow crushes in its fall the blind champion who has broken its pillars.

WHAT IS A CHRISTIAN?

The same.

There is a difference, and a wide one, between practising moral duties and being a Christian. Christianity is a religion of motives. It substitutes an eternal motive for an earthly one; it substitutes the love of God for the love of the world or the love of self. There may be, and are, many persons who practise temperance and other virtues, which Christianity inculcates, but who never think of doing so because they are so inculcated. It would be as absurd to ascribe a knowledge of mechanics to savages, because they employ the lever;

It is remarkable that there are Presbyterians, also, who proceed on similar principles; who contend that originally the distinctions between bishops and presbyters did not exist; and consequently (not that episcopacy is not essential to a church, but that episcopal govern ment is an unwarrantable innovation—a usurpation-a profane departure from the divine ordinances!--WHATELY'S Note.

or of the principles of astronomy to brutes, because, in walking, they preserve the centre of gravity; as it is to call such persons Christians. A Christian is one whose motives are Christian faith and Christian hope, and who is, moreover, able to give a reason of the hope that is in him.

THE APOSTOLIC SUCCESSION.

But as there are some persons who are too ready to separate from any religious community on slight grounds, or even through mere caprice, to "heap up to themselves teachers, having itching ears,' it has been thought-or at least maintained-that the only way of affording complete satisfaction and repose to the scrupulous, and of repressing schism, is to uphold, under the title of "church principles," the doctrine that no one is a member of Christ's church, and an heir of the covenanted gospel-promises, who is not under a ministry ordained by bishops descended in an unbroken chain from the apostles.

Now what is the degree of satisfactory assurance that is thus afforded to the scrupulous consciences of any members of an Episcopal church? If a man consider it as highly probable that the particular minister at whose hands he receives the sacred ordinances, is really thus apostolically descended, this is the very utmost point to which he can, with any semblance of reason, attain: and the more he reflects and inquires, the more cause for hesitation he will find. There is not a minister in all Christendom who is able to trace up with any approach to certainty his own spiritual pedigree. The sacramental virtue (for such it is, that is implied-whether the term be used or not-in the principle I have been speaking of) dependent on the imposition of hands, with a due observance of apostolical usages, by a bishop, himself duly consecrated, after having been in like manner baptized into the church, and ordained deacon and priest-this sacramental virtue, if a single link of the chain be faulty, must, on the above principles, be utterly nullified ever after, in respect of all the links that hang on that one. For, if a bishop has not been duly consecrated, or had not been, previously, rightly ordained, his ordinations are null; and so are the ministrations of those ordained by him; and their ordination of others, (supposing any of the persons ordained by him to attain to the episcopal office;) and so on, without end. The poisonous taint of informality, if it once creep in undetected, will spread the infection of nullity to an indefinite and irremediable extent.

* * * *

It is no wonder, therefore, that the advocates of this theory studiously disparage reasoning, deprecate all exercise of the mind in reflection, decry appeals to evidence, and lament that even the power of reading should be imparted to the people. It is not without cause that they dread and lament "an age of too much light,"

and wish to involve religion in "a solemn and awful gloom." It is not without cause that, having removed the Christian's confidence from a rock, to base it on sand, they forbid all prying curiosity to examine their foundation.1

THE LORD'S DAY NOT THE JEWISH SABBATH.

The same.

The opinion that Christians are bound to the hallowing of the Lord's day, in obedience to the fourth commandment, implies that there is a part, at least, of the Mosaic Law binding on Christians; I should say, the whole; for since the fourth commandment is evidently not a moral, but a positive precept, (it being a thing in itself indifferent, antecedent to any command, whether a seventh day, or a sixth, or an eighth, be observed,) I cannot conceive how the consequence can be avoided, that "we are debtors to keep the whole Law," ceremonial as well as moral. The dogma of the "Assembly of Divines at Westminster," that the observance of the Sabbath is part of the moral law, is to me utterly unintelligible; for I do not see on what principle we can, consistently, admit the authority of the fourth commandment, and yet claim exemption from the prohibition of certain meats, and of blood-the rite of circumcision—or, indeed, any part of the Levitical Law. But to those who fear that the reverence due to the Lord's day would be left without support, should we deny the obligation of the Mosaic Law, I would suggest two considerations, either of which would alone be sufficient to show that their apprehensions are entirely groundless: First, that there is no mention of the Lord's day in the Mosaic Law. Second, that the power of the church, bestowed by Christ himself, would alone (even independent of apostolic example and ancient usage) be amply sufficient to sanction and enforce the observance. To seek, therefore, for support for an institution which is "bound on earth" by the Church of Christ, and which, consequently, he has promised to "bind in heaven," among the abrogated ordinances of the Mosaic Law, where, after all, it is not to be found, is to remove it from a foundation of rock to place it on one of sand: it is to "seek for the living among the dead."

Throughout the whole of the Old Testament, we never hear of keeping holy some one day in every seven, but the seventh day, as the day on which "God rested from all his work." The difference, accordingly, between the Jews and the Christians is not a difference of reckoning; which would be a matter of no importance. Our

I regret that I have not room for more of the bishop's compact mass of logic on this subject, which so completely exposes the absurdity of this papal figment-the apostolical succession.

When Pitcairn's Island, in the South Seas, was visited by an English ship for the first time after its settlement by the remnant of the mutineers of the Bounty, our voyagers, on the day they arrived, which, to them, was Saturday, found the islanders observing Sunday:

computation is the same as theirs. They, as well as we, reckon Saturday as the seventh day of the week; and they keep it holy as the seventh day, in memory of God's resting from the work of creation; we keep holy the first day of the week, as the first, in memory of our Master's rising from the dead on the day after the Sabbath. Now, surely it is presumptuous to say, that we are at liberty to alter a divine command, whose authority we admit to be binding on us, on the ground that it matters not whether this day or that be set apart as a Sabbath, provided we obey the divine injunction to observe a Sabbath. One of the recorded offences, we should remember, of "Jeroboam the son of Nebat, who made Israel to sin," was his instituting a feast unto the Lord on the fifteenth day of the tenth month, 66 even the day that he had devised of his own heart."

One day is as good as another; except when there is a divine command which specifies one; and then it is our part not to alter, or to question, a divine command, but to consider whether it extends to us; and, if it does, to obey it.

* * * *

He who acknowledges a divine command to extend to himself ought to have an equally express divine command to sanction any alteration in it. Those Christians of the present day, however, who admit the obligation of the ancient Sabbath, have yet taken the liberty to change not only the day, but also the mode of observance. I believe they sometimes allege that the Jews were over-scrupulous on this point, and had superadded, by their tradition, burdensome restrictions not authorized by the Mosaic Law. This is true; but if we shelter ourselves under this plea-if we admit the authority of the written law, and reject merely the pharisaical additions to it-we are then surely bound to comply, at least, with the express directions that are written; for instance, "Ye shall kindle no fire throughout your habitations upon the Sabbath day;" which no Christians, I believe, profess to observe.

The rule which seems practically to be laid down by most persons of piety and good sense is, to abstain from any thing that may interfere (in respect of ourselves and of others) with the primary object of the Christian Sabbath, viz. public worship, and religious studies and exercises. This, in the Jewish Sabbath, seems to have been the secondary, and rest the primary circumstance. The fourth commandment, accordingly, does not even contain any injunction respecting public worship, or religious study. But the day was naturally made a day of worship, because it was a day of rest: the Lord's day ought to be made a day of rest because it is a day of worship. The two objects are indeed, generally, so far from inter

an obvious result of the circumstance that the Bounty and the other ship had arrived at the same spot by sailing from England in opposite directions. This is an instance of a mere difference of reckoning. Both parties designed to observe the same festival, though they kept it on different days.

Ex. xxxv. 2, 3.