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find that the two churches differ less in the application, than superficial observers or hot disputants are willing to allow.

4. The spiritual power implied in church government is given "for edification and not for destruction." I employ this phrase, because it is used by the apostle Paul, 3 Cor. x. 8, and xiii. 10, in relation to his authority, εις οικοδομήν, και ουκ εις καθαιζεσιν ύμων. It is equally applicable to the authority of the office-bearers of the church in every age; and it expresses most significantly what I mean to include under this fourth position.

Those who entertain just views of civil government consider it as instituted by God for the good of the subjects. It is not for the sake of one, or of a few, to gratify their ambition, and to minister to their pleasure, that others are made inferior to them in rank, subject in many respects to their command, and dependent upon their protection. But all the privileges, and honours, and powers which distinguish individuals, are conferred upon them for the sake of the multitude, that by these distinctions they may be the more proper and successful instruments of communicating to those who are undistinguished the blessings of good government. The spirit of enlarged benevolence, which forms the character of the Gospel, gives perfect assurance, that the church government created by that religion has the like impartial destination. The great prophet, who "came not to be ministered unto but to minister," "the shepherd and bishop of souls," who came "to seek and to save that which was lost," taught his apostles to do as he had done; and they, instructed by his discourse, and guided by his example, spoke and acted as the servants of those, over whom they exercised the authority that was committed to them. "Not for that we have dominion over your faith, but are helpers of your joy. We preach not ourselves, but Christ Jesus the Lord, and ourselves your servants for Jesus' sake." "All things are yours, whether Paul or Apollos, or Cephas. Who is Paul, and who is Apollos, but ministers by whom ye believed, as the Lord gave to every man?" Paul reminds the servant of the Lord, to whom was committed the care of the church, that "he must be gentle unto all men, apt to teach, patient, in meekness instructing those who oppose themselves, if God peradventure will give them repentance to the acknowledging of the truth;" and Peter exhorts the elders, who had the oversight of the flock, to behave "not as lords over God's heritage, but as ensamples to the flock."||

It is manifest, then, that the government, which Christ had established in his church, was not intended by him to create a separate interest in the Christian society, by aggrandizing a particular order of men, and for their sake placing all others in a state of humiliating subjection. It is one branch of the provision which is made in the Gospel for propagating and maintaining the truth, for restraining vice, for assisting Christians in the discharge of their duty, and for promoting the universal practice of virtue; and when we consider the power which church government implies, as thus instrumental in carrying

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forward the great cause for which Christ died, we are taught to expect in the operation of this instrument the same regard to the reasonable nature of man, and the same tender consideration of every circumstance essential to his comfort, which appear in the other institutions of the Gospel. The exercise of a power which is purely spiritual cannot indeed affect the lives or the outward estate of Christians. But men have other rights as sacred as those which respect their persons or their properties. There is liberty of thought, the right which every man has of exercising the powers of his mind upon any subject, from which he hopes to derive pleasure or improvement. There is the right of private judgment, which necessarily results from liberty of thought, the right which every man has of forming his own opinions, and of determining for himself what he ought to do. He may form the opinion and the determination hastily or upon false grounds; but he is not a rational agent, if he conceives it to be his duty implicitly to allow another to form them for them. There is liberty of conscience, that branch of the right of private judgment which respects our duty to God; the right which every man has of judging what God requires of him, and of resisting any attempt to teach for doctrines the commandments of men, or to impose obedience to regulations merely human, as a matter of conscience towards God.

As these rights belong to the nature of a moral and accountable creature, any power which could claim the privilege of violating them would be given not for edification, but for destruction. It would destroy, not perhaps the person, but the character of the being over whom it was exercised; it would degrade his mind; and it is so diametrically opposite to the general conduct of the Almighty towards his reasonable creatures, to the style of argument by which Jesus always called forth into exercise the understandings of those who heard him, and to all the other parts of the provision which he has made for enlarging and improving the minds of his disciples, that this cannot possibly be the description of any power instituted by him.

It was not necessary to dwell long upon the proof of the third and fourth positions; because, after the meaning of the terms is fairly stated, the truth of them appears hardly controvertible. But it was necessary to enumerate them thus distinctly, because they are the foundation of my fifth general position, which assumes the third and fourth as proven, and applies them to a variety of subjects.

5. The power implied in church government is limited by the sovereign authority of the Lord Jesus, and the liberties of his disciples, both as to the objects which it embraces, and as to the manner in which it is exercised.

It professes to maintain the credit of religion, by preserving the truth uncorrupted, and by watching over the conduct of Christians; and it professes to minister to the edification of individuals, by affording them various assistance in following after righteousness, and by employing various means to reclaim them from error and vice. These objects are in themselves excellent; but it is not competent for church government to take every conceivable method of accomplishing them, because a spiritual power subordinate to the Lord Jesus, and not given for destruction, is restrained by these characters from doing.

many things, which, at particular times, may appear expedient. No exercise of any power can be legitimate, which is in direct opposition to the nature of that power; and the evils arising from admitting a contradiction between the general character of the power, and a particular exertion of it, will, in the result, infinitely overbalance any local or temporary advantage, which might be purchased by an exercise of the power that is illegitimate.

In applying the limits suggested by the third and fourth positions, to the power implied in church government, the easiest and safest method is to follow an established distribution. The subject has been so fully canvassed since the reformation, that we may be assured none of the objects which require to be considered under the fifth position were omitted by the many able men, who, with much zeal, particularly in the course of the seventeenth century, combated one another upon the various questions to which it has given birth. Taking, therefore, the distribution which is found in the ordinary systems, I shall divide church power into three parts, which, for the sake of memory, are expressed by three single words, the potestas doyμarıxn, διατακτική, and διακριτικη. The first respects δογματα, doctrines or articles of faith; the second respects diaragis, ecclesiastical canons or constitutions; the third respects discipline, or the exercise of judgment in inflicting or removing censures.

To each of these three I shall apply the limits and regulations suggested by the third and fourth positions.

CHAPTER IV.

POTESTAS Δογματική.

1. THE potestas doyuarin is limited and regulated by the sovereign authority of the Lord Jesus, and the liberties of his disciples.

The church of Rome, in the progress of that influence which she acquired over the Christian world, laid down the following positions, which were received as true by the members of her communion :That the authority of Scripture, its right to the faith and obedience of Christians, depends entirely upon the testimony of the church: that besides the written word, consisting of the books which Christians receive in consequence of the judgment of the church, there is also an unwritten word, of which the church are the keepers : that it does not appear to have been intended that the Scriptures should contain a complete rule of faith and manners; but that this defect, which arose unavoidably from their having been written by different authors upon particular occasions, is fully remedied by those traditions, which, although not written in any apostolical book, have been safely conveyed down through the church from the days of the apostles: that these traditions, pertaining either to faith or to morals, are to be received with the same piety and reverence as the Scriptures: and that the church, by being in possession of this unwritten word, is qualified in its teaching to supply the imperfection of the written word: that the Scriptures, being in many places obscure, it is impossible for the people, by the exercise of their own faculties, to derive from thence the knowledge of all things necessary to salvation; and that their attempting to form opinions for themselves out of the Scriptures, while it cannot lead them certainly to the truth, may produce a multiplicity of dangerous errors, and much bitter contention: that, to avoid these evils, it is, in general, expedient to debar the people from the free use of the Scriptures, or to grant it only to those whom their teachers judge the least likely to abuse that privilege that the church, being assisted by the Spirit of God in search of the Scriptures, having the promise of the presence of Jesus to the end of the world, and having possession of the unwritten word as a commentary upon the written, is the only safe interpreter of Scripture, and the supreme judge, by whose definitive sentence all controversies with regard to the meaning of particular passages, or the general doctrine of Scripture, must be determined: that it is the duty of Christians to acquiesce in this infallible determination: and that, although they do not understand the grounds upon which it rests, or

although other doctrines than those which the church declares to be true appear to their minds agreeable to Scripture, it is presumption and impiety, a breach of that reverence which they owe to the institution of Christ, and a sin for which they deserve everlasting punishment, to oppose their own private judgment, which cannot of itself attain the truth, and which may depart very far from it, to the decision of the church which cannot err: that the faith which becomes the dutiful subjects of the kingdom of Christ, and by which they are saved, is an entire submission of the understanding to the decisions of the church; a faith which does not include a knowledge of the things believed, which is more fitly defined by ignorance, and which supposes nothing more than an implicit and cordial acquiescence in all that is taught by the church.

The foregoing positions, or doctrines of the church of Rome, are combated in different parts of the ordinary systems. I have brought them together in one view, in order to give a full account of the extent of the potestas doyparixn, as claimed by that church. And I need not stop to expose the monstrous nature of a claim, which constitutes the great body of Christians mere machines; which invades the prerogative, and usurps the office and the honours of the great Prophet, whom it is the duty of Christians to hear; and which, by ascribing to the church an infallibility which is nowhere promised, and which is inconsistent with the weakness of humanity, has produced in that church errors, contradictions, and absurdities, which appear to every rational inquirer most disgraceful and pernicious to those by whom they are held.

To so monstrous a claim all Protestants agree in opposing this principle, that the Scriptures are the only rule of faith. This principle they understand to include the following positions:-The authority of the books of the New Testament does not depend upon the judg ment of the church. The history of what we call the canon of the New Testament may be thus stated. While many books, which claimed to be written by divine inspiration, were rejected in early times, those which we now receive were declared to be canonical, because they had been conveyed down from the days of the apostles, with satisfying evidence of their authority. This evidence, as laid before those who fixed the canon of the New Testament, consisted of internal marks of authenticity, of which a scholar in every age is equally qualified to judge, of the consent of the Christian world, of the testimony of adversaries to the Christian faith, and of many collateral circumstances, which must have been better known to them than to us, who live at such distance from the date of the books. But had any early council presumed to contradict the amount of this evidence, by rejecting a book which was authentic, or admitting one which was spurious, the voice of the Christian world would have risen against so daring a decision: and the remains of Christian antiquity which have reached our days, would have enabled us to disregard it. In judging then, of the authenticity of the books of the New Testament, we pay no further regard to the decision of the church, than as it constitutes a part of that tradition which must be the voucher of every book written in a remote age; and having satisfied ourselves in the only rational manner-in the same manner as we do with

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