Apostolic Roman Church for the mother and mistress of all CHURCHES!" A gross palpable contradiction: there is but one church, and no churches, in the sense they put upon the word, over whom Rome can be mother and mistress.

Till the Council of Nice, in the fourth century, the church, though tares grew among the wheat, was illustriously orthodox, as the Creed of that council evinces. But a period then began of corruption and relaxation of discipline, which soon issued in the introduction of pride and luxury, and every abomination into the visible church, making the house of God like a den of thieves. The consequence of course became a persecution of the true and holy men who protested against these evils, who still kept up their witness, though driven from place to place, and hated, and led like beasts to the slaughter. This is represented in the Scriptures as the wilderness period of the church; during which she is fed and nourished of God, warred against by the beast which blasphemes God and his tabernacle, and them that dwell in heaven. During these dark ages of persecution and wandering, there was no visible oneness in external things, either in the Papacy or in the true church. The Papal chair was often vacant, and occupied successively by opponents who annulled each other's acts, rent by more than twenty schisms, and exhibiting the very contrary of unity in doctrine, in worship, and in life. The true church, driven to hiding places, and constrained to silence, had no bond of unity but faith and sufferings; and this is the true, the only unity of the Gospel-one mind with Christ Jesus,-fellowship of his sufferings now, fellowship of his crown hereafter. This unity of spirit and of doctrine pervaded the darkest periods of the history of Christendom; and in the fastnesses of Caledonia, and Wales, and Piedmont, Christianity found a refuge; and the holy flame of truth was kept alive, burning bright and pure, till it burst forth again at the Reformation and enlightened the world with its blaze. These things are perfectly manifest to any one who will be at the pains to reflect; and they prove that the unity of the church is not to be found in externals, or rituals, or names, but there only where the Scriptures place it,-one body animated by one spirit, nourished by the same word of God, and exercising the same brotherly love in short, one body of Christ deriving its vital energy by uninterrupted communion with their living Head, and with each other. The dress and drapery, the skin and ligatures, the proper number and form of the members determine not the unity; these may be all apparently perfect, and the body paralytic or diseased-but true unity is that of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, by which we "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 part maketh increase of the body unto the edifying of itself in love" (Eph. iv. 16).

The Papal pretensions to unity are not only baseless, but selfcontradictory and absurd: we therefore err when we endeavour to find a stream of truth running through the Papacy, and deem Protestantism only its continuance. The Reformation was no such thing, but a PROTEST against Popery; not a stream flowing from it, and in the same direction, but a rock that thwarted its current: the Papacy retained no part of the truth by choice, and would gladly have swept away those unyielding barriers fixed by God to confine its course, and continually ruffling its stream and impeding its even flow. Truth and error are opposites; the former to be found in the universal church, a part of which was under the thraldom of Popery as one of the many forms of error, and subsisted in spite of, not by the favour of, Romanism. The continuity of the one true church is to be traced from a higher source and sought in purer channels than the Papacy, in the holy lives and pure faith of Apostolic men, who subsisting both in the east and the west, through all times, and defying all the rage of Mahomet, and all the arts of Rome, have refused to receive the mark of the beast or to bow to the Crescent, and these have transmitted to us Apostolic faith and Apostolic authority. The same rule of judging is as applicable and as necessary in these our times, when superstition and formality on the one hand, and popular usurpation on the other, have well nigh destroyed the true authority of the church; and when varieties of churches, and sects, and creeds have turned so many from the one catholic faith. In such a time it is not sufficient to say in general terms, that we must appeal to the Scriptures, for all profess to make these their standard, while they put opposite senses upon them. Our only safe guides, under present difficulties and times of such excitement, are the formularies of faith drawn up by the ablest men at the most enlightened periods of the church. These grew out of the trials and experience of the church; and, as the end designed by God has always been the perfecting of the saints, so the course of their trials must be very similar in all ages, and the confession of faith in each generation be in substance the same with that of all ages. The Augsburgh Confession drawn up by Melancthon, and subscribed by Luther and his compeers, is still the basis of orthodoxy on the continent; and against it, article by article, the Council of Trent put forth its canons of Apostasy. Shortly after the Protestants of Scotland put forth their Confession of Faith, which was ratified in parlia ment, at Edinburgh, 1569, and by many succeeding parliaments, and is sanctioned and confirmed in all the acts touching the Westminster Confession. This excellent Confession gives three notes

of the true church of God, "first, the true preaching of the word of God; secondly, the right administration of the sacraments of Christ Jesus, which must be annexed unto the word and promise of God, to seal and confirm the same in our hearts; last, ecclesiastical discipline uprightly ministered as God's word prescribeth, whereby vice is repressed and virtue nourished." At the same time the Church of England took its present form and the Thirtynine Articles were confirmed by Elizabeth, 1571. The nineteenth of these defines the visible church of Christ as 66 a congregation of faithful men, in the which the pure word of God is preached, and the sacraments be duly ministered according to Christ's ordinance, in all those things that of necessity are requisite to the same."

These definitions, explained by the other Articles as they were intended to be, sufficiently mark the church, and shew wherein its unity consists. The "true preaching" of the Scottish, and the "faithful men" of the English Confessions, imply unity of faith in the "preached word of God;" the right administration of the sacraments implies legitimate ordination to that office; and ecclesiastical discipline presumes Apostolic authority duly conferred. The most cursory perusal of Scripture will evince that these three things are requisite-faith in all parties-ordination in the minister, and its recognition in the flock-and authority to exercise discipline in the rulers, obedience in the people. Where these are allowed, unity is preserved; and more than these is not of necessity, but of convenience, for order and better government. The ministerial office is the highest office man can receive, a charge over the souls of men, each one of which is a treasure for which the whole world is not an equivalent. This is the chief Apostolic office; this was Christ's first commission, "I will make you fishers of men." When souls were gained by the Apostles, and communities formed, the episcopal office began, an office pertaining to the community, for its better government; no new commission from Christ; and archbishops and patriarchs and popes, which are so highly esteemed among men, are only farther and farther removals from the first, the chiefest work of Christ-the ministry; to which alone the immediate commission of Christ extends: for bishops claim only of the Apostles, patriarchs three centuries lower, and popes, as we now take the word, cannot go higher than Hildebrand, at the beginning of the ninth century. Let the minister of Christ therefore know his true dignity, the highest man can receive, a star in Christ's right hand; let him assure himself that he hath not taken "this honour to himself," but that he has been invested in it by Christ: if so, he is one of the saviours of the world, "the salt of the earth," a guardian of the unity of the church; one whom Omnipotence is pledged to

uphold as long as he keeps his high calling; who shall testify before kings and rulers, and make the mightiest tremble; who shall receive a mouth and wisdom, which none of his adversaries shall be able to gainsay or resist.

The practical conclusions which we would draw from the above are highly important at any time, but indispensably necessary in these times, when there is so great a tendency to lower all authority; in the people, and in those rulers who court or fear them, on the one hand; and, as might be expected, where authority has been exercised unquestioned for ages, an undue exaltation of station on the other. Let us, then, remember that the church, the body of Christ, is, of necessity, truly and strictly one, though consisting of many members: that each living member is truly united by lively faith to Christ, the living Head, by the indwelling Spirit, who is one with the Father and the Son: that all authority in the church descends from Christ, and may not be usurped by any member of his body, nor conferred by any without his authority, nor exercised by any beyond the limits assigned by Christ the Lord: that the highest authority in the church is that for dispensing the word and the sacraments; an authority which must be derived from Christ himself, direct or by transmission, and may not be usurped; an authority extending to the universal church, and without which no church can subsist that this highest authority being conferred equally on all the Apostles, no one of them could take supremacy over the others; and that Paul, though last, yet receiving his commission from Christ himself, was not a whit behind the chiefest of the apostles that the Holy Spirit, the other Comforter, the Vicar of Christ, as Tertullian calls him, is the bond of unity; the members as one body growing up into Christ, which is the one only Head, the source of all authority and power. The commission and endowments bestowed on the Apostles gave to each of them authority over the whole church, and power to transmit their endowments: "Feed my sheep," is the commission from Christ; "Freely ye have received freely give," is the command to dispense; σε Το you and to your children, and to all that are afar off, even as many as the Lord our God shall call," is the ample extent of the promise. The universal church being thus founded and endowed by Christ, its government was committed by him to his ministers; and from the successive emergencies and local wants of separate portions of the one universal church, all the gradations of rank, and bounds of authority, and variety of office, arose. The first of these inferior offices was the deacon, appointed by the Apostles, expressly because "it was not reason that they should leave the word of God and serve tables;" shewing beyond dispute wherein the real dignity of the Apostles stood, in their giving themselves "continually to prayer, and to the ministry of the word" (Acts

vi. 4). The same may be said of the office of bishop, in the sepa rate character of overseer. The bishop's true dignity stands in his apostolic office of preaching the word, confirmed and enhanced, as he is "no novice," &c. (1 Tim. iii.); the other honours, the local jurisdiction, the oversight of a diocese, are held under the king, and are, as wholesome ordinances, to be reverenced for the Lord's sake; but they stand on a different footing from Christ's own ordinances. Bishops are mentioned as existing at Philippi, Phil. i. 1 at Miletus and Ephesus, Acts xx. 28; and they are identified with elders here, ver. 17, and also 1 Pet. v. 2. "The elders I exhort, who am also an elder. Feed the flock of God, which is among you (this is the apostolic or ministerial office), taking the oversight (this is the bishop's office), not by constraint, but willingly; not for filthy lucre, but of a ready mind; neither as being lords over God's heritage, but being ensamples to the flock." In the bishops, or fathers, or elders of the church, by whatever name they may be called, resides that power transmitted by the Apostles of ordaining ministers, and of appointing to any particular work. The Apostles ordained elders in every city (Acts xiv. 23), and commissioned their successors to do the same, (Titus i. 5; 2 Tim. ii. 2). "The things that thou hast heard of me among many witnesses, the same commit thou to faithful men, who shall be able to teach others also." And some of these had an equal power with the Apostles themselves; such as Simeon, and Lucius, and Manaen (Acts xiii. 1, 3), who were commanded by the Holy Ghost to separate Barnabas and Saul for the work whereunto he had called them; who laid hands on them, and they were sent forth by the Holy Ghost.

In having the power of ordaining, bishops have of course the power of rejecting. They are specially charged to "lay hands suddenly on no man" (1 Tim. v. 22). And the angel of the church of Ephesus is specially commended, because he had "tried them which say they are Apostles, and are not, and had found them liars" (Rev. ii. 2). And Paul more than once appeals to the signs of his own apostleship (1 Cor. ix; 2 Cor. xi. 5, xii. 12); and speaks also of false apostles (2 Cor. xi. 13). Thus shall the bishops, elders, or rulers, preserve unity in the church; by themselves acknowledging no Head but Christ, and seeing that none are admitted to the ministry but those who are true servants of Christ.

The people on their part preserve the unity of the church by being subject to the higher powers, knowing that they are ordained of God. "Whosoever, therefore, resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance of God" (Rom. xiii). They "submit to every ordinance of man for the Lord's sake" (1 Pet. ii. 13), but especially" obey them that have rule," and "watch for their souls as they that must give account" (Heb. xiii. 17).

This obedience is in nothing more requisite, or more profitably