To fum up this fubject, then, in a few words. The church is the body of CHRIST. He hath purchased it with his blood. All the privileges annexed to it are the confequences of his meritorious fufferings. To partake of the privileges of a fociety, man must become a member of the fociety, to which those privileges belong. The church is a society of CHRIST's forming: it cannot, therefore, be any thing that men please to make it. But that a man may become member of a fociety, the fociety itself must be distinguished, fo as to be known: for to call men to become members of an invisible society, feems to be, if not a contradiction, yet an abfurdity in terms. The characteristical mark which distinguishes any fociety, is its appropriate government. appropriate government of the visible church is that episcopal form, which was originally established by the Apostles: where that form of government is to be found, there the church of CHRIST, as a visible fociety, exifts. From whence it follows, that every Christian must know, if he will but confider, whether he be living in a state of communion with the church, or in a state of feparation from it. If in the former condition, he is in the fure road to falvation; "for He is faithful who hath promised:" the confe

The

quence of his being in the latter, it is not our business to determine. In this cafe," as we know only in part, we therefore prophefy only in part.' Still we know enough to authorife us to fay, that the opinions of men can make no alteration in Divine institutions; and though practice may render fin fo familiar, that all fenfe of it shall be loft, yet no practice can change the nature of it; confequently that heinous fin which fchifm was pronounced to be in the primitive days of the church, that fin it must continue to be, fo long as the church endureth.

I have the honour to be,

&c. &c.

LETTER VII.

IN

Sir,

the foregoing Letters, "I have, as near as I could, seriously answered things of weight; with smaller I have dealt as I thought their quality did require."*

It was not fo much my object to point out the weakness of the ground which you occafionally take,

as to examine the ftrength of it, wherever it was was to be found: much less was it my wish to take notice of those littlenesses, which will fometimes creep into our writings, in fpite of our better judgment; which, on the fuppofition that they really apply to the man to whom they are addreffed, do not belong to the cause in which he is engaged. "The dif courtefies which we experience, (faid the excellent JORTIN, alluding to the reception which fome of his writings met with from those who differed from him

* HOOKER.

in opinion) are things too common and too infignifi cant, to deserve a place in our memory, or in our writings; it is beft to bury them in eternal oblivion." Dedication to the second volume of Remarks, &c.

The object in view in my publication, however indifferent the execution of it may be, ought to have entitled the author to the candour, if not to the good opinion of every well-wifher to the establishment. For the axiom, that without religion no government can long fubfift, is not, I believe, a more decided one, than that the appointment of fome regular ecclefiaftical conftitution is neceffary to the prefervation of pure doctrine.

Our SAVIOUR thought fo, and therefore eftablished his church: that, as it was the office of the priests under the law to keep the light always burning in the temple, fo it fhould become the office of their fucceffors under the Gofpel, fo to keep the pure light of Divine truth burning in the church, as thereby to preserve it from being blown out by the falfe doctrines, which He, in his wisdom, forefaw the vain imaginations of men wonld be continually raising up.

When we communicate with flesh and blood, we may think nothing effential in Divine worship, but what our own fancies may direct: we may separate

from the temple of the LORD, and with JEROBOAM "caft off the priests from executing their office." 2 Chron. xi. 14. But when we see God's will by his word, we find, that under the Gofpel, as under the law, there are certain pofitive inftitutions, which do not leave to Christians that liberty in religious mat-, ters, which some among them have been at times apt to imagine. The GOD whom we worship has, under every difpenfation, diftinguished himself as the GOD of order, not of confufion. The offices and fervice of the Jewish temple had the fanction of his express appointment; and every violation of order, under that difpenfation, was followed by an immediate judgment on the party. To fecure the worship of the true God from the corruption of heathen idolatry, it was deemed neceffary, in the council of Divine wisdom, to restrain the vain imaginations of men by fome fettled and appointed forms. This idea gave rife to the establishment of that oeconomy, which was defigned as introductory to a more perfect system; by which the Jewish people, as the keepers of the oracles of GOD, Rom. iii. 2, were distinguished from all the nations of the world.

In conformity with the fame idea, of preserving the knowledge of that falvation which was prefigured