ambaffador's office confifts in his having received a commiffion from the party he represents.

You are perfuaded, you fay, page 208, that the fin of KORAH, DATHAN, ABIRAM, and UZZAH, CONcurs in all those who rafhly and unadvisedly take upon them the cure of immortal fouls, having no other commiffion but what they receive from the hands of men, without the inward call of the Holy Ghost.

KORAH'S fin confifted in his heading an insurrec tion against the established order of the church. UZZAH was punished by GOD for his error; and his error, Bishop PATRICK fays, " confifted, firft, in not carrying, as a Levite, the ark upon his shoulders with his brethren; and fecondly, in touching it, which he ought not fo much as to have feen, it being covered by the priests: the Levites were to take hold of the staves, and carry it." See PATRICK on Sam. chap. vi. 7. The reader, therefore, must be perfuaded, that there is not the least analogy between the cafes; and confequently that your comparison has nothing to do with the present subject.

Let us proceed then. You fubjoin to your com parison the excellent prayer of our church, which proves all that I want to have proved; that, according to the established plan of the Apostolic church,

there is power regularly lodged with the bishops and pastors of the church, to give authority to fit perfons to serve in the ministry of it. Authority and ordination therefore, not derived from this fource, must be confidered as felf-conftituted.

• You may be acquainted with many fpiritual perfons fully qualified for that office in the ministry which they undertake; and there are doubtless many fpiritual perfons much better qualified for the office, than fome of those who do undertake it; neverthelefs without a regular appointment they are not authorised to act in it. You may think yourself better qualified to discharge the office of an ambaffador for the King of Great-Britain, than fome who are employed in that office: but the act of the ambaffador, though your inferior in diplomatic talents, will be valid; whilft that of the felf-conftituted minifter will be confidered as an act of rebellion. Now to me it appears to be a matter of ftill greater importance, that the commiffion of the party, whofe office it is to treat with me as a finner in GoD's name, to whom the miniftry of reconciliation between GoD and man has been committed for that purpose, fhould be authentic, than that that commiffion should be so, which refpects only the adjustment of temporal concerns.

The commiffion delivered to the minifters of CHRIST's church is of a very important nature: it is to be found in the fixteenth chapter of ST. MATTHEW, and the nineteenth verse. I prefume, Sir, you admit that fuch words cannot be words of infignificance. The power of remitting fins is originally in GOD, and GOD alone. But this power our SAVIOUr, by virtue of his incarnate divinity, alfo exercifed: "The Son of Man hath power to forgive fins upon earth." MATT. ii. 10. This power, thus folely invested in GoD, he might have retained to himself, and without the means either of word, facraments, or ministers, have exercised immediately by himself in heaven. "But (as Bishop ANDREWS obferves, Sermon on John xx. 23) because CHRIST, to whom this commiffion was originally granted, having ordained himself a body, would work by bodily things; and having taken the nature of a man upon him, would honour the nature he had fo taken; for these causes, that which was his, and his alone, he vouchfafed to impart; and out of his commiffion to grant a commiffion, and thereby to associate them to himself, (it is his own word by the prophet) and to make them

vepy, that is, workers together with him, (as the

Apostle fpeaketh, 2 Cor. vi. 1) to the work of fal vation, both of themselves and others."

Now in the discharge of his commiffion, our SAVIOUR, as man, did not proceed without an outward and visible appointment; "for no man (fays the Apostle, Heb. v. 4) taketh this honour (of acting between God and man) to himself, but he that was called of GOD, as was AARON." You can have no doubt of our SAVIOUR being in poffeffion of the inward call of which you speak; for we are told he received the spirit without measure: still he thought it neceffary, and, probably, for an example to those who were to fucceed him in his commiffion, that the outward call and appointment should also be added to his inward qualification for it. And in the church, as a visible fociety, a visible appointment of officers is effential, that the members of the fociety may know who are the perfons appointed to manage the affairs of it.

An attempt, therefore, to distinguish between the inward call and outward appointment to the ministry, by which you lead the reader to conclude, that the one may qualify for the discharge of the evangelical commiffion without the other, is to feparate what GOD for wife reasons has joined together, and thereby to

introduce disorder and confufion into a work, which the Head of the church defigned fhould be regularly carried on for the benefit of mankind.

For, give me leave to ask what is to be done in this cafe? If the ftandard of judgment, by the regular appointment of minifters for the fervice of the church, be fet afide, what other shall we adopt upon which the member of the church can place dependence? The inward call of the Holy Ghost is an invisible thing, of which we can form no judgment. It may be least found where it is most pretended to exist. We know that this has been the cafe. As the gift, therefore, which qualified the party to try the fpirits, is no longer poffeffed by the church, if no other qualification for the discharge of the miniftry, but the pretension of the officiating minifter, be required, much mischief may be done in the Christian world before the cheat may be discovered; for in this case there is no drawing a line. It is impoffible for any man who breaks away from the regular and appointed order of the church, to fay,-thus far will I go, and no further. Error knows no bounds. He that has once stepped beyond the threshold of the church, feldom ftops till he gets quite out of the church-yard, and then he may be carried he knows