membrance on earth, that shall be the means to restore this accord to the Church; that once we might keep a true and perfect Pentecoft: when the difciples of CHRIST were all with one accord in one place."

May the GOD of Peace grant, that every member of the Church, more particularly every Minister of it, may feel the full force of the above fpiritual language of the excellent Bishop ANDREWS. In fuch cafe, we might hope, that the Dove,* the spouse of CHRIST, as the Church is called, may still take her reft in this favoured land; and that the spirit of her beloved may dwell among us of a truth.-To this end, do Thou, O Holy and Eternal Spirit, who, in feparating us to the ministry, didst take us out of the world, cleanse our thoughts by thy holy inspiration, keeping them out of the corruptions, and above the policy or wisdom of the world, which is "foolishness, with GOD." And do Thou, O bleffed LORD, who haft fet fuperior watchmen upon the walls of thy Church, and inferior at her gates, cause them to watch over her by night and by day; that uniformity of doctrine and wholesomeness of difcipline may fo work together for the good and glory of thy Church, that she may not always labour under the

* Song of SOLOMON, C. ii. 14.

"Ergo hanc unam Columbam, et dilectam fponfam fuam CHRISTUS appellat; hæc apud omnes hæreticos et fchifmaticos effe non poteft." Optat. Milevitan.

distress and disorders of a fiege; but may come forth in the face of her enemies, "terrible as an army with banners."* Even fo, Amen.

It remains only, from a refpect usually paid to the candid reader, that I briefly inform him, that the present edition differs from the preceding one, chiefly in the adduction of those authorities, which were judged neceffary to the more firm establishment of the ground undertaken to be maintained. And if, instead of taking up with the floating, unfettled, and for the moft part erroneous opinion of the day, on the fubject of the Church, he will be at the trouble to vifit the fountains, from which I have drawn; he will know, that no new things are brought to his ears, but that I have written as I have read. The advantage he will derive from this mode of proceeding will be twofold. In the first place, as a balance against his not thinking with the croud, (a mortifying circumftance, it must be allowed, to those who take the world for their standard) he will have the fatisfaction to think with those, who most confidered, and certainly best understood, this important fubject. In the fecond place, fhould the argument, in his opinion, have fuffered from my want of fkill in conducting it, he will be qualified to improve it to his own mind; and having, as I have no doubt will be the cafe, thereby confirmed himself, his time cannot afterwards be better employed, than in strengthening his brethren,

Song of SOLOMON, C. vi. v. 4.

NO wife man makes the practice of the world a

rule for his government in religious matters; being fatisfied that no practice, however general, can make that right, which the word of God has determined to be wrong. wrong. Cuftom Custom may indeed reconcile us to any thing. But cuftom is not the law of the wife man; because, being at times no less an advocate for error than for truth, it can furnish no reasonable fatisfaction to the party governed by it. Men, as men, are liable to error. Nevertheless error and truth are two things effentially different from each other; and it will always conftitute the best employment of the reafoning faculty, properly to difcriminate between them.

To enable the thinking man fo to do, that he may thereby become proof against the various delufions

upon the subject of Religion, which have at different periods prevailed in the world; his appeal must be made to the standard of judgment fet up in the word of Gov.

Time was, when Schifm, or the fin of dividing the Church by a feparation from it, was confidered to be a fin of the most heinous nature; "fo great, that fome of the ancients have thought it is not to be expiated by the blood of martyrdom."* It cannot be, because opinions on this fubject have changed with the times, that the nature of this fin is also changed. For fo long as the Church continues to be, what it originally was, a fociety of CHRIST's forming, a wilful feparation from it must be at all times equally finful; it being not lefs an oppofition to a Divine inftitution in one age of the Church than in another. Confequently what was faid upon this fubject in the first days of Christianity, muft apply to it with the fame force and propriety in the times in which we live.

Upon the authority of an infpired Apostle we are informed, that thofe who " caufe divifions in the Church" are to be avoided, as perfons" who ferve

*Perfuafive to Communion with the Church of England, by Bishop GROVE. See London Cafes.