dangerous fallacy. Provided, we are told, the essentials of religion are fecured, what are deemed the circumftantials of it are no longer confidered worthy atten tion. From which general premises it is concluded, that, provided Chriftians hear the Gofpel, and become pious perfons, it is a matter of no importance on what miniftry they attend. With truly pious perfons, of whatever denomination, every faithful minifter of CHRIST'S Church must cordially wish to be united; for true piety is that gracious quality of the human heart, which at all times challenges respect. But it may be asked, we truft without offence, whether it can be any recommen ation even of true piety, that it fhould be eccentric: or, whether true pit become lefs fo than it really is, or in any degree sink in the scale of estimation, by being accompanied with a due regard to order and obedience? To us it appears, that of two fuppofed equal degrees of piety, that of the party who lives in communion with the Church is to be preferred to that of the person who separates from it; on the ground of his piety being accompànied with that humility, which, in conformity with the Apoftolic injunction, has preserved its poffeffor in fubmiffion to the authority appointed to rule over him. We know that the first open rebellion against established order in the Jewish Church, though grounded on the holinefs of the parties, was followed with the most fignal mark of the Divine displeasure, And there is no paffage in Scripture from which it

can be concluded, that fimilar rebellion in the Chrift ian Church, is not equally offenfive to its Divine Founder; though the crime be not attended with confequences equally prompt and decifive.

But it may be further afked of thofe Christians, who thus discriminate between the effentials and the circumftantials of religion, where they draw the line between what is to be regarded of effential obligation to Chriftians, and what is not? or by what criterion their judgment on this head is determined? Should the government of the Church be reckoned among their non-effentials, and confequently a matter of indifference, as from the practice of the day we have too much reafon to conclude, we must fay, that we are at a loss to understand, how a government that has received the fanction of Divine appointment, (" divinâ lege fundatum," fays CYPRIAN) can be feen in this light. But exclufive of this confideration, which should of itself, it might be supposed, preclude every seeming objection on this head; the great object which, the government of the Church was defigned to fecure, proclaims the wisdom of its eftablishment. The Apoftle calls the Church "the pillar and ground of the truth:" 1 Tim. iii. 15. * Στυλος και εδραιωμα;” a pillar, and the bafis of that pillar: in other words, a pillar upon its bafis, firmly fuftaining that which was built upon it. The fimilitude is taken from ancient houfes, built on pillars, placed firmly on their bafes, for the fupport of the

In

incumbent building. Thus the Church is confidered as a pillar erected on the bafis or foundation of JESUS CHRIST and his Apoftles; for the purpose of fuftaining and upholding the truth, which, as a superftructure, has been raised upon it. In conformity to this idea is the following description of the Church at Ephefus: "Now, then, (fays the Apostle writing to his Ephefian difciples) ye are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellow-citizens with the faints, and of the houfhold of GOD; and are built upon the foundation of the Apostles and Prophets, JESUS CHRIST himself being the chief corner-stone. whom all the building, fitly framed together, groweth unto an holy temple in the LORD."* "If (fays the learned HAMMOND) the truth of the Gospel had been fcattered abroad by preaching to fingle men, and those men never compacted together into a society, under the government of bifhops or ftewards, &c. fuch as Timothy was, to whom was delivered by St. Paul that пapanaladŋun, that depofitum, or body of found doctrine, 1 Tim. vi. 20, to be kept as a standard in the Church, by which all other doctrines were to be measured and judged; if, I fay, fuch a fummary of faith had not been delivered to all Christians that came in, in any place, to the Apoftles preaching; and if there had not been some steward to keep it; then had there wanted an eminent means to sustain and uphold this truth of the Gofpel, thus preached Ephes. ii. 20,

unto men. But by the gathering of fingle converted Christians into affemblies or churches, and appointing governors in those churches, and entrusting this depofitum, or form of wholefome doctrine, to their keeping, it comes to pass, that the Chriftian truth is fuftained and held up; and fo this house of GOD is affirmed to be" the pillar and basis of the truth;" or "the pillar on that divine bafis by which truth is fupported.".

And hence it is that St. IGNATIUS, (who, St. CHRYSOSTOM informs us, received his ordination from the hands of the Apostles themselves, and confequently must have been inftructed by them) infists so much on the indifpenfible neceffity of communion with the bishop; because he confidered that form of doctrine depofited with, and kept by the bishop in the Church, as the only fure means to fupport and preserve the truth. And fuch, in the early days of the Church, was confidered to be that established mode of proof, by which the truth was to be effectually ascertained against heretics; namely, by tracing the form of found doctrine, through its feveral fucceffive depofitaries, the governors of the Church, up to its original Apoftolic fource. On this established principle IRENEUS built his argument against the heretics of his day. "We can reckon up (faid he) those who were by the Apostles ordained bishops in the churches, and those who were their fucceffors, even to our own time. They never taught nor knew any of the wild opinions of these men; and had the Apostles known

any hidden myfteries, which they imparted to none but the perfect, (as the heretics pretend) they would have committed them with particular care to those perfons, to whom they committed the churches themselves. For they would be extremely defirous, that thofe fhould be perfect, and unreproveable in all things, whom they left to be their fucceffors, and to whom they configned their own authority."* And afterwards, fpeaking with immediate reference to the Church of Rome, as the largeft, moft ancient, and then best-known, church in the world; he proceeds' thus: "By fhewing forth the tradition received from the Apostles, and the faith delivered to mankind, and defcended even to us by means of the fucceffions of thofe bishops, (to whom that Church has been committed) we confound all thefe heretics." TERTULLIAN argues against heretics in a fimilar way, where he fays," that the true knowledge of the Apoftolic doctrine, of the ancient state of the Church, together with that of the character of the body of CHRIST, was preferved in the whole world by the

"Habemus annumerare cos, qui ab Apoftolis inftituti funt Epifcopi in ecclefiis, et fucceffiones eorum ufque ad nos, qui nil tale docuerunt neque cognoverunt, quale ab his deliratur. Etenim fi recondita myfteria fciffent Apoftoli, quæ feorfim et latenter ab reliquis perfectos docebant, his vel maximè traderent ea, quibus etiam ipfas ecclefias committebant. Valde enim perfectos et irreprehensibiles in omnibus eos volebent effe, quos et fucceffores relinquebant, fuum ipforum locum magifterii tradentes.-IREN. lib. iii. c. 3.

"Eam quam habet, ab Apoftolis traditionem, et annunciatam hominibus fidem per fucceffiones Epifcoporum pervenientem ufque ad nos, indicantes confundimus omnes eos, &c."-IREN. lib. iii.c.

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