ginal ideas on this fubject; confidering the cafe of Diffenters as a fchifmatical feparation from the Communion of a true and Apoftolical Church. The dif courfes written on this occafion, for the purpose of recovering the Diffenters to unity, though, through the infirmity of human nature, they failed in producing the defired effect, do infinite honour to the divines of that day; and ought to be in the hands of every clergyman, who would be thoroughly acquainted with the weakness of the objections, by which the unhappy feparation from the Communion of the Church of England was originally maintained.

The increasing establishment of feparate congregations, which took place fince the above period, though it could not alter the ftate of the cafe, as it really ftands between the member of the Church and the separatist, or in any degree change the nature of the fin of fchifm, tended however to loofen the ideas of Christians in general on the subject of Church communion; fo that fome who entertained very correct notions relative to the original Apoftolic form of Church government, began still to question, whether it was fuch a fine quâ non as might not be difpenfed with. Le Clerc has exhibited a strong specimen of this accommodation of fentiment to the changing circumstances of times. Profeffing, in one page of his writings," to believe Epifcopacy to be of Apoftolical *Thefe Difcourfes are now collected together in three vols. octavo, under the title of" the London Cafes."

Inftitution, and confequently very good and lawful; that it was justly preferved in England; and that therefore the Proteftants in England, and in other places where there are bishops, do very ill to separate from that difcipline, because nothing is more proper to prevent things from being turned into chaos, and people from being feen without a call, and without learning, pretending to infpiration, than the Epifcopal difcipline:" with this belief in his mind, on the subject of Epifcopacy, Le Clerc, in another part of his works, writes thus: "It is nothing to the purpose to thew that Chrift and his Apostles inftituted this form of Church government, and that the Church 'never had any other kind of government in it for above fifteen hundred years, from our Saviour's days downwards; which, though it be fo clearly evidenced, that the truth of it cannot be denied; yet it is of no weight, nor deferves to be regarded. For those who would make the hierarchy neceffary to the constitution of the Chriftian Church, ought to prove, that GOD inftituted Christianity for the fake of the Epifcopal order; and that the Epifcopal order was not instituted for the fake of Christianity. For if this order was appointed for the fake of the Church, (which they cannot deny) they must also acknowledge, that if it be more advantageous to the Church in fome places to have this order abolished, it is not amifs to lay it afide in fuch places." Now to us it appears, that there is nothing neceffary either to be

proved or acknowledged on this fubject; but fomething highly neceffary to be confidered; namely, that as Gop, that all-wife Being, "who feeth the end from the beginning," was, by his Apostles, the inftitutor of the government of his own Church, (a kingdom not of this world;) it is to be in humility concluded, that no form that man might fubftitute in its place, would equally answer the purpose; and confequently that it could not prove more advantageous to the Church in any place, that the divinelyinftituted form of its government should be abolished. Although therefore we make the hierarchy necessary to the conftitution of the Chriftian Church, because it has been divinely instituted; we are not obliged to prove that God inftituted Chriftianity for the fake of the Episcopal order; nor fhould we expect to be called upon for fuch proof by any man of competent underftanding; it is fufficient for us to fay, that the government of the Church, in its original form, was instituted for the fake of Christianity, to preserve its truth in the world; for from thence it will follow, that for the fake of Christianity, in other words, for the the fecurity of the fame divine object, it ought to be preserved." We do not fay, that Christianity was inftituted for the fake of the outward polity of the Church, or the Church for the fake of the Epifcopal order; but we may juftly fay, what is plainly faid in Scripture, and was conftantly professed in the pureft ages of the Gofpel, that the belief of "the Holy

Catholic Church" being a part of the faith which Christianity requires, and the Epifcopal order a part of what we are taught to believe concerning the constitution and government of the Church, no feparation must be attempted of what our God and Saviour has thus joined together."* And this, it might be prefumed, fhould be enough to fay to any reasonable and modest Christian on the subject.

But error cannot, be ftationary; it is constantly proceeding from bad to worfe; the breach at which the waters enter is continually growing wider, till the inundation becomes univerfal. That looseness of opinion on the fubject of Church government, which the original feparation from the Apoftolic form of it by degrees introduced, appears at length to be arrived at the ne plus ultra of ecclefiaftic infubordination: for we are now, at the end of the eighteenth Century, told by a Profeffor in a Church which has been gene, rally diftinguished by the ftrictnefs of its difcipline, that "the first order given to the Eleven to make converts, to baptize, and to teach, carries in it nothing from which we can difcover that it was a commiffion entrusted to them exclufively as Apoftles or Minifters, and not given them alfo as Chriftians; and that the Apostles were particularized, because best qualified, from their long attendance on Chrift's ministry, for

* See Bishop SKINNER'S excellent Defence of Epifcopacy againft the attack made on it by the late Dr. CAMPBELL, under the title of "Primitive Truth and Order vindicated," &c.

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promoting his religion in the world; but not with a view to exclude any Christians, who were capable, from co-operating with them in the fame good caufe." CAMPBELL, vol. i. P. 118.

Nothing but the eagerness to maintain, at allevents, a favourite hypothefis, could, it may be fuppofed, have prevented the able refuter of the fophiftical HUME from adverting to the particular circumftances which accompanied the original delivery of the Apoftolic commiffion, and thence perceiving the objection to which fuch a mode of reafoning is palpably ob noxious. The word commiffion, from the verb committo, which in one of its leading fenfes fignifies to entrust, to give in charge, is thus illuftrated by AINSWORTH, from Cicero: "Rem magnam difficilemque alicui committere." But according to Dr. CAMPBELL'S ufe of this word, as applied to our SAVIOUR'S commiffion delivered to his Apoftles, we are to understand by it a commiffion of no charge or office to particular perfons, which might not be freely affumed and exercifed by all; a fenfe, which if we mistake not, totally evacuates its established and peculiar meaning. We cannot, indeed, be surprised, that a minister, unable to trace his own cominiffion from the proper fountain, fhould attempt to perfuade the world, that no commiffion has been delivered, but what may be indifcriminately exercised; fuch a principle does not seem to be an improbable confequence of the original deviation from Apoftolic practice. But that