body with the holy patriarchs, prophets, apostles, martyrs, confessors, and faithful Christians of all ages and times. We succeed in their faith, we glory in their succession, we triumph in this glory. Whither go ye, then, ye weak, ignorant, seduced souls, that run to seek this dove in a foreign cote? She is here, if she have any rest under heaven.”*

To the foregoing important considerations, let it be added, that every representation of the clergy of this Church, which tends to lessen their influence upon the community, does injury to the general cause. For this reason, it becomes necessary to separate, as far as may be, the office from the man; and not to disregard the ordinance of God, because it has been occasionally disgraced. And this distinction between the public and private character of the teacher, our Saviour has taught us to make, in the direction given to his disciples respecting their conduct towards the Scribes and Pharisees, who were at that time notorious for moral depravity. "The Scribes and Pharisees (said he) sit in Moses's seat. All, therefore, whatsoever they bid you observe, that observe and do; but do not ye after their works, for they say and do not."+ Though the ministers of the Church, therefore, ought to be, and would to God they all were, burning and shining lights to the world; yet it must be remembered, they are men. They have received "this treasure in earthen vessels,"‡ as men of like passions with those to whom they are sent. As men, therefore, they will have their personal defects. *Serm. on Cant. vi. 9.

But as their personal defects do not, through Divine grace, vacate the object of their commission, "any thing (according to the observation made by Dionysius to Novatian*) must rather be borne, than that we should rend the Church of God." A proper distinction, therefore, should always be made between the clergy and the Church. For if well-meaning pious Christians are to leave the Church, because there are some ministers who do no credit to their office in it; it may be difficult

say, when such a thing as unity could be found in it; since there never was a time, from the days of the Apostles, when such a cause for separation did not in a greater or less degree exist.

St. Cyprian sets forth the corruption of an early age of the Church in the following melancholy strain: "The discipline (says he) which the Apostles left us was corrupted with idleness and a long rest. Every one's care was to increase his estate; and quite forgetting either what the believers had done in the Apostles' days, or what it was always their duty to do, they gave themselves up to an insatiable covetousness, and laboured for nothing but to get wealth. There was no devotion in their priests, no charity showed in good works, not so much as the form of godliness in their behaviour." Yet St. Cyprian was so far from thinking that this shameful degeneracy of the clergy furnished an argument for separation from the Church, that he was one of the strongest advocates for the preservation of Christian unity.

*“Oportebat quidem nihil non ferre, ne ecclesiam Dei scinderes." DION. Epist. ad NOVAT. vide EUSEB, lib. viii. c. 44.

When the prophet said, "The priest's lips should keep knowledge, and they should seek the law at his mouth: for he is the messenger of the Lord of Hosts." It was at a time when the Jewish Church was in the most degenerate state; when the priests, as he afterwards tells them," had departed out of the way, had caused many to stumble at the law, and had corrupted the covenant of Levi."*

The reader will not suppose that it is our wish to shelter the present degeneracy of the clergy under that of their predecessors in any former stage of the Church. The only conclusion meant to be drawn from the foregoing circumstances is simply this, that the ministers of the Church are to be regarded in their public character, as "the messengers of the Lord of Hosts," the "ambassadors for Christ; "+ as bearing a commission, which, though at times unworthily discharged, demands consideration from the respect due to the Being from whom it is derived; and that the cause of the master ought not to be affected by the unworthiness of the servant.‡

In the course of the great rebellion, when the people were deluded to believe they could not set up the kingdom of Christ without pulling down that of their sovereign; among other transactions, we are told of an officer belonging to the rebels, who, after some skirmish, being taken prisoner with his party by the royalists, was modestly asked by one of them, "How it came to pass, that a gentleman of his seemingly good sense and education could be induced to engage in a cause so very unjust?" His reply was, "He had not so strictly examined the merit of the cause, as now he was convinced he ought; but one thing he could not but mention, that had prejudiced him (and he

Were this argument managed with skill equal to its importance, it would, with God's blessing upon it, put an end to all difference of opinion upon this subject. The errors into which many men have run, in consequence of their ignorance of the nature of the Christian Church; of their having considered it, not as a society made for man, but something left for man to make for himself; (like a lump of shapeless wax, to be moulded according to every one's fashion) would be corrected; and the object of that grand enemy of all religion, whose cause derives advantage from division among Christians, would be in a great measure defeated. Nothing is wanting to do justice to the cause of the Church, as a society of Christ's forming, but an unprejudiced mind, an honest heart, and a competent acquaintance with primitive Christianity. A bright ornament* of our Church, who possessed these qualifications in an eminent degree, has spoken so strongly and so plainly upon the subject to which I am now alluding, that every considerate man will at least pause before he ventures to set at naught such authority. "I would not (says he) be a heretic, or a schismatic in the believed a great many more) against his Majesty's service, was the licence taken among the cavaliers of swearing and drinking." The answer to this was: "Admitting the charge were true, it was highly unpardonable so excellent a prince as his Majesty should suffer for the irregularities of his soldiers; and besides, he ought farther to have considered, the crimes he mentioned were entirely personal, and the vices of 7 the malice, treachery, hypocrisy, and several other unparalleled vices, which made up the very essence of his cause, were the

vices of devils.".

men; whereas

Church, to have the wisdom of Solomon, the tongues of St. Paul, and the eloquence of Apollos; no not to be caught up into Paradise, and hear those unutterable things. I would not be the best preacher that ever was, and speak in the pulpit by inspiration, to have that accusation lie against me, which St. Paul drew up against the Corinthians, of envy, strife, schism." Elsewhere speaking of those spiritual gifts, which, through the vanity of their possessors, heretofore disturbed the peace of the Church of Corinth, he thus admirably expresses himself: "Gifts, (says he) whether real or pretended, whether natural, acquired, or inspired, are temptations to pride and apostacy, rather than security from them; witness Lucifer in heaven; Adam in paradise; and Solomon, who for his exceeding wisdom was styled the wise. So that no comparison ought to be made betwixt the excellency of knowledge and grace, and betwixt the intellectual and saving gifts of the Spirit; or between the gifts of the Spirit that make us wise, and learned, and fluent talkers, and those which make us good.

3

"It is better to be humble, than to be a prophet; it is better to be righteous, than to have the faith of miracles; and it is better to be holy, than to have the gift of tongues. But, to be peaceable and love union, is as great a grace, as to be humble, righteous, and holy; nay, as to be pure and temperate. For it is equalled with all those, and many other of the prime graces in the New Testament; it is reckoned with many of them among the fruits of the Spirit; and the fruits of the Spirit are better