blished under a particular government, for the purpose of Chriftians living in communion with it, is any thing, and every thing that men please to make it, a feparation from it becomes impracticable; because a society must have acquired fome regular and collected form, before a feparation from it can take place. But upon the fuppofition that every fociety of profeffing Chriftians is the church of CHRIST; the church, in that cafe, confists of as many feparate focieties under differrent forms, as there are fanciful men to make them; and, confequently, is no longer in that collected state, in which it is poffible to live in communion with it. For before the members of the church can live in communion with each other, the church, as a fociety, must be at unity in itself.

To determine upon the legality or illegality of a practice, from man's opinion concerning it, is to fet up a standard of judgment which is perpetually varying, and on that account ever liable to deceive. Chriftians, in religious matters at least, have a more fure word than that of man to depend upon; if they are wife, therefore, they will not fuffer themselves to be governed by a leffer authority, when they have a greater at hand always to direct them. Custom has, indeed, fo far reconciled us to the divifions that have

taken place among Christians, that they are no longer feen in the light in which they were seen in the primitive days of the church; whilst charity, forbidding us to speak harfhly of the fpiritual condition of our brethren, has in a manner tended to efface the fin of schifm from our minds. But though we presume to judge no man, leaving all judgment to that Being who is alone qualified to make allowance for the ignorance, invincible prejudice, imperfect reasonings, and mistaken judgments of his frail creatures; yet muft it not from hence be concluded, that it is a matter of indifference, whether Chriftians communicate with the church or not; or that there is a doubt upon the fubject of fchifm, whether it be a fin or not.

"There is one plain rule to direct all men in this enquiry; that wherever there is a church established by public authority, if there be nothing finful in its constitution and worship, we are bound to communicate with that church, and to reject the communion of all other parties and fects of Chriftians. For the advantage always lies on the fide of authority. No publick establishment can justify finful communion; but, if there be nothing finful in the communion of the national church, which is established by publick authority, to feparate from fuch a church, is both difo

bedience to the fupreme authority in the state, and a fchifm from the church." "Now (proceeds the Bishop, in another part of his discourse) if schism be an innocent thing, and the true Catholic fpirit, (as from the present too prevailing practice among Christians we might be induced to think it was) I have no more to fay, but that the whole Chriftian church, ever fince the Apostles' times, has been in a very great mistake. But if fchifm be a very great fin, and that which will, according to the judgment of the primitive church, damn us as foon as adultery and murder, then it must be a dangerous thing to communicate with fchifmatics."*

Indeed, with respect to the reality and heinous quality of this fin of fchifm, it scarcely feems poffible for Chriftians, who enter fufficiently deep into the fubject, to entertain two opinions.

Looking into the writings of St. PAUL, I fee fchifm fpoken of as a carnal fin; and that this fin confifts in a feparation from the communion, and a fetting up of teachers independent of the government, and deftructive of the unity of the Chriftian church. A fin, which, befides its being the parent' of confufion

* Discourse of Church Communion, by Bishop GROVE. See London Cafes, No. 1.

and diforder in the church, is moreover deftructive of that charity or brotherly love, by which it was defigned that Chriftians should be joined together.

In the epiftle of ST. JUDE mention is made of those who "perished in the gainfaying of CORE," even those who separated themselves, being fenfual, having not the Spirit. From whence it is to be concluded, that there is a fin in the Chriftian church, anfwering to that of KORAH in the Jewish; fome refemblance, confequently, there must be between the two churches, to justify, in this cafe, the Apoftle's application: for if there were not, the method adopted by the Apostles and primitive writers, of making the law minister to the explanation of the Gofpel, by confidering the former as the intended type of the latter, (a complete fpecimen of which we are presented with in the Epiftle to the Hebrews) would have been calculated, not fo much to inform as to lead their disciples into error.

By referring to the fixteenth chapter of the Book of Numbers, we find in what the fin of KORAH confifted. KORAH conformed to the law, the doctrine, and worship, which GOD had appointed; for we do not read that there was any dispute upon either of these points. But KORAH, being a priest of an

inferior order, wanted to encroach upon the authority of AARON the high-priest, and to continue no longer under fubjection to him. The fin, therefore, of KORAH confisted in his rebelling against the order of government established in that church, of which he was an inferior minifter. An order of government, therefore, must exist in the Christian church, against which it is a fin to rebel; otherwise the fin of KORAH, described in the Old Testament, and the gainfaying of Core, mentioned by ST. JUDE,* cannot constitute parallel cafes.

That a particular order of government has been established in the Chriftian churcli, an unanfwerable proof has been already brought from the writings of ST. PAUL, where he calls upon the members of the church" to obey thofe that had the rule over them, and to fubmit themselves." To give force, therefore, to the Apoftle's injunction in this cafe, fpiritual governors, there must be in the church, to whofe authority fubmiffion is required. In withdrawing, therefore, that fubmiffion, in confequence of certain felf-fufficient minifters of an inferior order fetting themselves up as heads and leaders of feparate congregations, independent of their refpective bishops, + Heb. xiii. 17.

Epift. of JUDE, II.