to the ministry, didst take us out of the world, cleanse our thoughts by thy holy inspiration, keeping them out of the corruptions, and above the policy or wisdom of the world, which is "foolishness with God."* And do Thou, O blessed Lord, who hast set superior watchmen upon the walls of thy Church, and inferior at her gates, cause them to watch over her by night and by day, that uniformity of doctrine, and wholesomeness of discipline, may so work together for the good and glory of thy Church, that she may not always labour under the distress and disorders of a siege, but may come forth in the face of her enemies, "terrible as an army with banners."+ Even so, Amen.

It remains only, from a respect usually paid to the candid reader, that I briefly inform him, that the present edition differs from the preceding one, chiefly in the adduction of those authorities, which were judged necessary to the more firm establishment of the ground undertaken to be maintained. And if, instead of taking up with the floating, unsettled, and for the most part erroneous, opinion of the day, on the subject of the Church, he will be at the trouble to visit the fountains from which I have drawn; he will know that no new things are brought to his ears, but that I have written as I have read. The advantage he will derive from this mode of proceeding will be two-fold. In the first place, as a balance against his not thinking with the crowd, (a mortifying circumstance, it must be allowed, to those

* 1 Cor. iii. 19, † Song of Solomon, vi. 4.

who take the world for their standard) he will have the satisfaction to think with those who most considered, and certainly best understood, this important subject. In the second place, should the argument, in his opinion, have suffered from my want of skill in conducting it, he will be qualified to improve it to his own mind; and having, as I have no doubt will be the case, thereby confirmed himself, his time cannot afterwards be better employed than in strengthening his brethren.

NO wise man makes the practice of the world a rule for his government in religious matters; being satisfied that no practice, however general, can make that right, which the word of God has determined to be wrong. Custom may, indeed, reconcile us to any thing. But custom is not the law of the wise man; because, being at times no less an advocate for error than for truth, it can furnish no reasonable satisfaction to the party governed by it. Men, as men, are liable to error. Nevertheless error and truth are two things essentially different from each other; and it will always constitute the best employment of the reasoning faculty, properly to discriminate be

tween them.

To enable the thinking man so to do, that he may thereby become proof against the various the subject of Religion, which have at different periods prevailed in the world, his

delusions

upon

appeal must be made to the standard of judg ment set up in the word of God.

Time was when Schism, or the sin of dividing the Church by a separation from it, was considered to be a sin of the most heinous nature; "so great, that some of the ancients have thought it is not to be expiated by the blood of martyrdom."* It cannot be, because opinions on this subject have changed with the times, that the nature of this sin is also changed. For so long as the Church continues to be, what it originally was, a society of Christ's forming, a wilful separation from it must be at all times equally sinful; it being not less an opposition to a Divine institution in one age of the Church than in another. Consequently, what was said upon this subject in the first days of Christianity, must apply to it with the same force and propriety in the times in which we live.

Upon the authority of an inspired Apostle we are informed, that those who "cause divisions in the Church" are to be avoided as persons "who serve not the Lord Jesus." "Now I beseech you, brethren, mark them which cause divisions and offences contrary to the doctrine which ye have learned, and avoid them; for they that are such serve not our Lord Jesus." If they serve not the Lord Jesus, it requires no great sagacity to determine whom they serve, for there are but two masters in this case that can be served; either

* Persuasive to Communion with the Church of England, by Bishop Grove. See London Cases.

Rom. xvi. 17, 18.