sacraments nor Christianity itself can be divinely instituted; since, being committed to fallible men, they may be abused, and the salvation of men thereby endangered. Such reasoning amounts to this, that the right application of divine ordinances cannot be effectual, because they have no effect when wrongly applied; the fallacy of which is extremely apparent. A wrong sentence of excommunication will doubtless be of no avail; absolution will doubtless be of no benefit to the unrighteous receiver; but for all that, a right sentence of the former, and a due reception of the latter, may, like the due participation of the sacraments, have a mighty influence upon the condition of men in a future state.

These powers, it is also contended, can have no effect in the other world, because the displeasure of God is incurred solely on account of a man's own behaviour; if his conduct be bad, he will suffer merited punishment without any human condemnation; but if good, no human sentence of absolution can either prevent or forward his reward. The plausibility of this objection will vanish upon a little consideration; for it might be applied with equal success against the Christian religion itself; and it might be in the same way argued, that, as God's displeasure is incurred by a man's behaviour alone, the outward means of grace can neither raise nor lower men in the Divine favour.

Nay, it might be even argued, that the coming of Christ into the world can be of no effect in that respect, if God's displeasure depends solely upon their conduct. Yet he tells the Jews that "if he had not come and spoken unto them, they had not had sin; but now they have no cloke for their sin," John xv. 22. which plainly implies that his coming into the world altered their condition as to the favour of God. And why may not the same effect attend a just sentence of excommunication, or a devout and righteous receiving of absolution?

There is nothing, then, unreasonable in the effects here ascribed to the just exercise of ministerial authority. It is God's ordinary method to dispense both his blessings and his judgments by the hands of men. Our Saviour requires his disciples, in order to salvation, to associate themselves to a visible church, to partake of visible ordinances, and to submit to the visible ministrations of men duly commissioned to be their rulers and instructors in spiritual things. Faith forbids us to doubt that God, who is the author and worker of all graces, actually sheds his blessings upon these outward means. In respect to the preaching of the word, and the administration of the sacraments, it is not denied that grace is vouchsafed through the instrumentality of men. As little reason is there for denying that excommunication as effectually makes us aliens from the favour of God, and that absolu

tion as really communicates a pardon, as baptism, when rightly administered, makes us the children of God, and heirs of eternal life. Our inability to comprehend how these things are so, is no rational ground of objection. As christians we must acknowledge that, in the Gospel covenant, the intervention of human means is made necessary to salvation. It may be inexplicable how spiritual blessings can be communicated, or the Divine judgments inflicted, through human ministrations; but we must receive the word of God in its unadulterated integrity, in full conviction that the adorable Creator will, though in a mode mysterious and unknown to man, reconcile absolute justice with his boundless mercy, and infinite wisdom with his providential government of the world.

CHAPTER V.

ON CHURCH WORSHIP.

I. The worship of Almighty God is either public, or private and domestic. With the latter the church has no further concern than to promulgate it as a necessary duty, and to recommend its continued and holy practice, leaving the manner of performing it to the direction of each individual's judgment and conscience. Its cognizance extends alone over the public acts of its members; with their retired devotions it cannot lawfully interfere. The claim of a power to do so can only rest upon reasons which would equally establish auricular confession; for if the church had a right to preside over the solitary prayers of believers, it would have an equal right to command their attendance at the confessional, as the most effectual way of directing their private sentiments and actions. Whatever comes under public observation, their outward religious professions, and their outward behaviour, is within the reach of

the authority which the church can exercise; but no human power has jurisdiction over the sacred and silent hours of the soul's private communion with its God.

Solitary devotion, the delighted employment and the renovating nutriment of the Christian life, must, to be effectual, be the spontaneous offering of a heart swelling with adoration to its Creator; and no one can interfere with it without trenching upon the divine and indefeasible privilege of liberty of conscience. Our blessed Lord, who exemplified it in his own conduct, frequently retired to a solitary place to pray, Matt. xiv. 23; xxvi. 36; Luke v. 16; ix. 18; and he forbids the obtrusion of others; "When thou prayest, enter into thy closet; and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father, which seeth in secret, shall reward thee openly," Matt. vi. 6. To intrude into the privacy of the closet, or of the family circle, under the pretext of forwarding and guiding domestic devotion, is to invade the secrecy which is approved by our Lord, and to violate the liberty wherewith he has made us free. An authority, then, over private prayer, the church can neither lawfully assume nor confer.

As it is not the design of this work to discuss doctrinal points, the duty of publicly assembling together to worship God, must here be taken. for granted. But the external mode and various

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