the office of public preaching, or ministering the sacraments in the congregation, before he be lawfully called and sent to execute the same. And those we ought to judge lawfully called and sent, which be chosen and called to this work by men who have public authority given unto them in the Congregation, to call and send Ministers into the Lord's Vineyard."s

Church

subversive

tions and

rights of a

Church.

Those who are not satisfied with the founda- Pretended tion thus laid, and which, as I have endeavoured principles to show, is the very foundation which Christ and of the funchis Apostles have prepared for us, who seek to take higher ground, as the phrase is, and maintain what are called according to the modern fashion 65 Church-principles," or "Church-ofEngland principles," are in fact subverting the principles both of our own Church in particular, and of every Christian Church that claims the inherent rights belonging to a Community, and confirmed by the sanction of God's Word as contained in the Holy Scriptures. It is advancing, but not in the right road,-it is advancing not in sound learning but error,-not in faith, but in superstitious credulity, to seek for some higher and better ground on which to rest our doctrines and institutions than that on which

s See § 23.

Apostles, seem to imply some such object to be furthered by them. At any rate, those who shall have thus established their claim to be considered as messengers from Heaven, may evidently demand assent to whatever they may, in that character, promulgate. If any persons therefore pretend to such a mark of a divine commission as the gift of tongues, or any such power, no one who admits their pretensions can consistently withhold assent from any thing they may declare themselves commissioned to teach.

“And, again, 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 evidence 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 depositories of the power they claim.

"But to such as reject and protest against all such groundless claims, an interminable field is still open for the application of all the faculties, intellectual and moral, with which God has endowed us, for the fuller understanding and development of the truths revealed in his written Word. To learn and to teach what is there to be found; -to develop more and more fully to your own minds and to those of your hearers, what the Evangelists and Apostles have conveyed to us, will be enough and more than enough to occupy even a longer life than any of us can expect.

"The Mosaic Dispensation was the dawn of 'the dayspring from on high,' not yet arrived,— of a Sun only about to rise. It was a Revelation in itself imperfect. The Sun of the Gospel arose; the true Light, which lighteth every one that cometh into the world' appeared: but it was partially hidden, and is so, still, by a veil of clouds ;-by prejudices of various kinds,-by the passions, and infirmities, and ignorance, of mankind. We may advance, and we may lead others to advance, indefinitely, in the full development of Gospel-truth,-of the real character and meaning and design of Christ's religion;

not by seeking to superadd something to the Gospel-revelation; but by a more correct and fuller comprehension of it;-not by increasing, absolutely, the light of the noonday-sun, but by clearing away the mists which obscure our view of it. Christianity itself cannot be improved; but men's views, and estimate, and comprehension of Christianity, may be indefinitely improved.

66

Vigilant discretion however is no less needful than zeal and perseverance, if we would really advance in the Christian course. The most active and patient traveller, if he be not also watchfully careful to keep in the right road, may, after having once diverged from it into some other track, be expending his energies in going further and further astray, while he fancies himself making progress in his journey.

"In various ways is the Christian, and not least, the Christian Minister, liable to this kind of self-deception. I am not now, you will observe, adverting chiefly to the danger of mistaking what is absolutely false, for true, or wrong for right; but rather to that of mistaking the real character of some description of truth or of valuable knowledge. We have to guard against mistake, for instance, as to what is or is not a part of the Christian-Revelation ;-a truth

belonging to the Gospel, and resting, properly, on divine authority. While advancing in the attainment of what may be in itself very valuable and important knowledge we may be in fact going further and further in error, if we confound together the inspired and the uninspired, the sacred text, with the human comment.

"There are persons (such as I have above alluded to) who in their zeal in itself laudable -to advance towards a full comprehension of the Gospel-revelation, have conceived that they are to seek for this by diligent research into the tenets and practices of what is called the Primitive Church; i. e. the Christian world during the first three or first four Ages; and some have even gone so far as to represent the revelation of the Christian-scheme contained in the New Testament as a mere imperfect and uncompleted outline, which was to be filled up by the Church in the succeeding three centuries;—as a mere beginning of that which the early Fathers were empowered and commissioned to finish: though on what grounds any kind of authority is claimed for the Church then, which does not equally belong to it at this day, or at any intermediate period, no one, as far as I know, has even attempted to make out.

Now, to learn what has been said and done by eminent men in every Age of the Church, is