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ages have been received with implicit submission by mankind, undergo in turn doubt, inquiry, proof, denial or acceptance, as the stream of evidence or caprice carries along the judgments of mankind. It has not unfrequently happened that the proofs and evidences of the opinions most important to men's moral and social condition, and which have been long deemed certain and undoubted, have been found to be of the most abstract and profound nature, requiring considerable learning and acuteness to comprehend, and high mental powers to estimate aright.* It is not therefore to be

* The existence of God is the most striking example of this observation. The arguments of Cicero, St. Augustine, and Samuel Clarke are of the most abstract character, and require a metaphysical mind to understand them. The atheism of revolutionary France, and the materialism and other errors on the nature of the Deity, were only to be refuted by abstract reasoning. The objections were intelligible and easy, the answers were abstruse and difficult. The former proceeded from ignorance, and the mistakes of first impression; the latter were obliged to unravel the origin of the error, and develop the true principles of the subject. The same observation applies to revealed truths. The divinity of Christ and other fundamental doctrines of the Gospel, long held sacred and undoubted, on being questioned and denied, require in their expla nation, defence, and proof, the most laborious exercise of logical acuteness, critical skill, and literary knowledge, and the result of the controversy is always highly unsatisfactory. Socinus and Crellius maintained their ground against the most learned orthodox divines. Priestley and his followers heaped treatise upon treatise in attacks upon the doctrine of the Trinity, and replies to its proofs. Belsham withstood Archbishop Magee in a long controversy; and Yeates has lately maintained a tedious dispute against Dr. Wardlaw on the same subject. The same result has attended the controversy respecting infant baptism, human merit, election, predestination, final perseverance of the Saints, Church government, and the other subjects which have divided Christians. There is scarce one, if any, which has been settled by argument and discussion, exemplifying the words of the Apostle, "That there must be heresies or schisms, that they which are approved may be made manifest." (1 Cor. xi. 19.) Is not this sufficient to lead us to doubt the competency of reason and private judgment in interpreting holy Scripture, to decide controversies, or to deduce an authoritative rule of faith and worship? Those who have studied divinity are not surprised at the divisions among Christians; for having seen the plausible manner in which each "FORM OF GODLINESS" is maintained,the number and apparent force of the arguments,-the confidence of their advocates, and the ingenious explanations which they give to the objections of their opponents, it is not to be wondered at that those who have been taught to regard any particular system as true, to associate its creeds and forms with Scripture, and who are not acquainted with the objections brought against their systems, and the evidences of other forms of religious belief, should feel the firm

expected that the evidence of the Apostolic Church, minis-try, and tradition should be demonstrative and free from difficulties, or that it should be fully apparent without research and consideration. The constitution of nature

compels us to act where the probability of attaining our object is very low, we are obliged to encounter difficulty and labour where success is not only uncertain, but highly improbable.* So, in religion we must not expect absolute certainty upon explicit, positive, and precise declarations of

est confidence in the truth of their own system, and esteem the reasoning of its advocates perfectly conclusive. Each system has its apology or defence. Even the insanity of Swedenborg bears the dress of Scriptural language and spiritualism; the mysticism of the Quakers, set forth by the piety and ingenuity of Barelay, is fully. sufficient to secure the faith and attachment of those who have a bias towards the system from education or natural disposition. No conclusion can, therefore, be more firmly established than the inefficacy of private judgment to decide controversies, or extinguish heresies, and the consequent necessity for a visible rule and guide of faith and worship. THREE HUNDRED AND EIGHTEEN Bishops, from all parts of the world, assembled at Nice, in the year 325, to judge the heresy of the Arians: each Bishop repeated the faith of his Church, as transmitted from the first teaching of the Apostles, when they delivered to the Churches the doctrines and institutions of the Gospel. Their unanimous testimony recorded in the Creed which they compiled IS AT LEAST A SURE AND PRECISE RULE OF FAITH. The institutions of the Church, as they UNDENIABLY existed for several centuries before the usurpation of the Papacy, have at least A PRESUMPTIVE EVIDENCE of being established by the Apostles. 1st. Where, therefore, private judgment is found inefficacious;-2nd. Where heresy and schism endanger salvation ;3rd. Where the rule of Providence requires us to pursue what is advantageous to us, and to judge on the most essential moral subjects on evidence barely probable;-4th. Where the creed and worship of tradition have nothing in themselves acknowledged to be plainly repugnant to reason or Scripture ;-5th. Where they promise higher advantages and privileges than any system of private interpretation;6th. And where they alone claim to be the Apostolic tradition, and present the only means of unity in the Church, it follows that all reason, sense of interest, and reverence for the Lord, inculcate the duty of submitting to the Church, and receiving its creed and ordinances as the only rule of faith and of worship, the only guide to a full understanding of the doctrines and institutions of Scripture,and the essential instructor of Christians, restraining them from presumption and error,-securing them against heresy and schism,— and leading them, by the sacred authority of Christ, to accept the full truths of Holy Scripture, and walk in the commandments of the Lord, and in the holy ordinances and penitential devotion of the Gospel.

* Butler's Analogy.

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Scripture. No truths are so revealed; and all we can hope for is to find, in conformity with nature, such a disclosure of the Divine will as may lead to our own benefit if received by the spirit of piety and submission. In natural things, he who will not adopt the course which leads to a beneficial result because the result itself is not certain, and because his attaining it is improbable, will remain destitute of the chief advantages of life. So in religion the hope of spiritual advantages should be deemed a sufficient reason to accept the means by which they may be attained. Nature is covered with blessings and benefits for those who will seek and receive, and use them aright. But the course of ages flows on with successive generations of men perverting and misusing the gifts of Nature to their own injury and destruction, rendering her greatest blessings curses and evils upon themselves. In the same manner Religion proposes her blessings*,--the Church offers her guidance, instruction, privileges, and graces: but men will not "hear her ;" and therefore suffer the evils of being counted as heathens, or

*It is wonderful, that both in religion and nature, the Lord should suffer the gifts which he designed to be blessings for men, to be perverted by them to their injury and destruction. But that such is the fact is undeniable. The Church of the Temple turned its visible blessings and advantages into causes of sin and destruction. The Church of Rome for many ages, in a similar manner, perverted religion to the grievous injury of the whole Christian Church. And in later times heresy and schism, and the popular rejection of the Church, have mingled the spirit of men's reason and of worldly wisdom with the devotion of the Gospel; and in the distraction of men's minds, amid conflicting systems, have withheld the full blessings of religion from general acceptance and enjoyment. Men are apt to think that the present form and temper of religion is correct because it is general, and individuals rest content with the condition of the community. But this is but the semblance of security: in it the Jews confided, as the children of Abraham, with so many spiritual blessings and marks of Divine favour for which they were in the highest degree zealous, that they could not entertain a doubt of their acceptance with God. And so the Church of Rome vainly supposed that it was establishing the Kingdom of Christ, when it was setting up a human system of carnal policy to corrupt and tyrannize over the souls of men. no one, therefore, trust in his system of religion because men call it pure, and spiritual, and evangelical, &c. Rather let them distrust it on that ground, for popular religion is not the religion of the cross. Let those who would take a Scriptural guide against heresy, or neglect of true devotion and Christian worship, remember the repeated declaration of the Apostle to hold fast the traditions, "the form of healing words." Let them in all things "hear the Church, the pillar and ground of truth," and so be secure in "the house of the living God."

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excluded from her advantages, and are led away with every wind of doctrine. In natural things, to neglect even a remote prospect of advantage is deemed contrary to reason; so, in religion, neglect of the great truth which promises guidance, instruction, security, and the greatest privileges and graces, is the most sinful and fatal error. It therefore is required by the spiritual interest of men, and by religion, to follow the analogy of nature, and seek spiritual advantages even should the prospect of attaining them be not only uncertain but improbable. Those, therefore, who even doubt the Divine institution of the Church and Ministry, are bound to seek the advantages she dispenses by obedience and submissive acceptance of her authority, unless some reason can be shown why men are to disregard in religion the pursuit of any advantage however great unless it be certain, and yet in their temporal concerns are to be continually engaged in pursuit of advantages not only uncertain, but highly unlikely to be attained.

In the same manner, in the temporal pursuits of men the prospect of advantage is alone considered, and difficulties and objections are disregarded where success, however improbable, is deemed attainable. But in religious objects, even though the advantage is inestimable, and the pursuit certain to be successful, men are discouraged easily by objections and difficulties, and relinquish the pursuit where the objections, far from being sufficient to justify despair, scarce furnish ground for doubt. The principle of human actions, temporal, moral, and religious, is hope and faith, not certainty; and piety and wisdom inculcate the necessity in religion, as in temporal things, to pursue what is advantageous regardless of difficulties and objections.

Every Christian must confess that the continuance of the Church in the precise condition in which it was established by the Apostles, with the ministry whom they had ordained, the faith which they had taught, and the institutions and worship which they had established, would be of the highest spiritual advantage to Christians. Even, then, if the existence of the Apostolic Church were doubtful and covered with objections, there would still be a religious obligation upon Christians to receive it, and to submit to it, while there was a prospect, however slight, of its continuance and truth. We are not to expect that the means of spiritual advantages, however essential, should be certain and positive without difficulty or objection. Were they so proposed, they would contradict the whole analogy of the divine dispensations to

men, and leave no room for the trial and exercise of faith, hope, and submission, which are the common principles of human actions in religion and temporal things.

These considerations should materially influence men in their obedience to the Church, and lead them to submissive acceptance of the advantages it proposes, and of the rule of life it inculcates; and should prepare them to encounter and overcome the objections and difficulties which are inseparable from human pursuits. The bias of the mind should be towards acceptance, submission, and obedience: doubt, reluctance, and rejection should be considered as temptations which lead to the forfeiture of spiritual advantages. In the case of the Church and Ministry, doubt and rejection involve an aggravated degree of sin, for they exhibit an unwillingness to accept a Divine institution of the highest advantage to the spiritual condition of mankind. The disposition, therefore, which corresponds with the analogy of nature, and with the reverence due to religion, is an earnest and humble acceptance of the Apostolic Church as the institution of Christ, and a deep desire to repress objections, and overcome doubts and' difficulties concerning its truth and authority. This is plainly the disposition conformable to piety, and that which is opposite to it carries with it its own condemnation and punishment. The disposition to receive willingly objections to any religious truth amounts to a denial of that truth; for no part of the Gospel is so proposed or taught as to force assent to it, and no religious truth can be received without an inclination to accept it. He alone can "hear who hath ears to hear,' "who is willing to receive" the Divine truths of the Gospel. Reception of the Apostolic Church, therefore, is not only not discretionary, but cannot be rejected without a sinfulness of disposition shown in reluctance to accept it, or in indifferénce to its truth and authority.

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As the Church is the authoritative guide and instructor of Christians, the pillar and ground of truth, "to be heard by all who would not be counted heathens,"-it exhibits by Divine mercy, in the Scriptural proofs which have been examined, a degree of evidence NOT POSSESSED by any other doctrine of the Gospel. It accordingly, in minds not pre-occupied by objections and prejudice, and by strong reluctance to accept it, produces the firmest conviction-the highest confidence in its truth as the saving institution of the Lord. It is found to be the system of Christ for uniting, preserving, and saving his people. All other institutions of religion resolve themselves into it,-it embraces the whole Christian

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