fact would, indeed, present a difficulty of no easy solution. But we make no such arrogant claim. Wherever the unfeigned love of our divine Saviour, an humble reliance on his atoning sacrifice, and a corresponding holiness of life, pervade any denomination of Christians, we hail them as brethren in Christ; we acknowledge them to be a true church; and although we may observe and lament imperfections in their outward government, we consider them as truly in covenant with the King of Zion, as ourselves. All this is perfectly consistent with believing, as we do, that Presbyterian church government was the primitive model, and that it is the duty of every church to conform to this model. It is certainly the duty of every man to keep the whole law of God; yet as we do not deny that an individual professor of religion is a real Christian, because we perceive some imperfections in his character; so neither do we deny a church to be a true church of Christ, because she is not in all respects conformed to our ideas of scriptural purity. We consider our Episcopal brethren as having wandered far from the simplicity of apostolic order. But what then? Must we arrogantly unchurch them on that account? By no means. No Presbyterian ever thought of adopting such an inference. We lament their deviation; but notwithstanding this, can freely embrace them as members of the church universal; and were there no church nearer to the apostolical model with which we could commune, should feel no scruple in holding communion with them as brethren.

Let none, then, be intimidated by the sentence often pronounced by certain advocates of the exclusive high-church claim, that "there is great danger to the best interests of the soul in being found without the

pale of the Episcopal church. My deliberate and confident answer to all such denunciations is, that the real danger is all the other way; that is, there is real danger in being found within the pale of those who make this unscriptural claim. I am far from meaning that there is danger in being found in an Episcopal church, as such; for I have no doubt that there may be, and actually have been, and are now to be found among Episcopalians as real, ardent piety, as precious, well founded gospel hopes, as in the Presbyterian or any other church. When I read the writings of John Newton, and Cecil, and Scott, and many more of like spirit, who were ornaments of an Episcopal church, I am ready cordially to say, "Let my soul be with theirs for time and eternity!"

But my meaning is, that there is real danger in being found in an ecclesiastical inclosure in which the high-church doctrine above referred to, with its usual spirit and accompanying errors, forms the prevalent system; real danger in being cast, and in believing with those who consider baptism as marking and constituting the commencement of spiritual life; who rely for justification before God on the sacramental seals of the visible church, instead of the perfect righteousness of the Divine Redeemer; and who lay more stress on ecclesiastical genealogy, on the official ministration of an "authorized priesthood," than on the work of the Holy Spirit, conforming the heart and the life to the image of Jesus Christ. In such a pale there is the deepest danger of eternal perdition. And, therefore, there is no point concerning which Presbyterian ministers are more careful to put the members of their own communion on their guard, than a reliance on external ordinances, instead of

union with the Redeemer by faith, as a mistake preeminently adapted to turn away the mind from the only scriptural ground of hope, and to destroy the soul. They diligently and conscientiously teach the people to regard with sacred care the scriptural order of the church; but they are always much more anxious that they should hold fast that precious system of evangelical truth which is "the life of the soul"—which is "the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth," and without which the most perfect external order is a lifeless forın.

Here we close our discussion of this subject; a discussion in which we engaged with reluctance, and which nothing but the unceasing invasions of scriptural truth on this subject, on the part of our opponents would have tempted us to undertake. Whether our pastors are lawful ministers, and the ordinances which they dispense legitimate ordinances, are questions which, happily, it is not for partial and bigotted sectaries to decide. There is a day approaching when they will be decided by an unerring Judge, and with consequences more interesting than language can express. Happy will it be for us, if, in that day, we shall all be found members of that holy church which the divine Redeemer hath purchased with his blood, and adorned with his Spirit! Happy will it be for us if it shall then appear that we have not rested in rites and forms, and that we have never "given heed to fables and endless genealogies, which minister questions rather than godly edifying!" Happy if we shall then be found to have received, not a mere name, or external organization, but the truth as it is in Jesus in the love of it; to have had "Christ formed in us the

hope of glory;" and to belong to that "chosen generation, that royal priesthood, that holy nation, that peculiar people, who shall for ever show forth the praises of Him who hath called them out of darkness, into his marvellous light!" That this may be the blessedness of those in whose favour this plea is offered, and equally of those also whom it is intended to oppose, is the unceasing prayer of him who has thought it his duty to pen the foregoing pages.

ADDITIONAL NOTES.

TESTIMONY OF SCRIPTURE.

In the chapter on this subject it was attempted to be shown, that the power of preaching the gospel, and administering the sacraments of the church, evidently, in the nature of things, included the highest powers that could be committed to the ministers of our holy religion. On this point, John Milton, the immortal author of "Paradise Lost," makes the following remarks:

"Wherein, or in what work, is the office of a prelate excellent above that of a pastor? In ordination, you will say; but flatly against the Scripture; for there we know that Timothy received ordination by the hands of the presbytery, notwithstanding all the vain delusions that are used to evade that testimony, and maintain an unwarrantable usurpation. But wherefore should ordination be a cause of setting up a superior degree in the church? Is not that whereby Christ became our Saviour, a higher and greater work than that whereby he did ordain messengers to preach and publish him as our Saviour? Every minister sustains the person of Christ in his highest work of communicating to us the mysteries of our salvation, and hath the power of binding and absolving; how should he need a higher dignity to represent or execute that which is an inferior work in Christ? Why should the performance of ordination, which is a lower office, exalt a prelate, and not the seldom discharge of a higher and more noble office, which is preaching and administering, much rather depress him? Verily, neither he nature nor the example of ordination doth any way require an imparity between the ordainer and the ordained. For what more natural than every like to produce his like-man to beget man; fire to propagate fire? And in examples of highest opinion the ordainer is inferior to the ordained; for the Pope

32*

377