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fociety, abstractedly confidered, and the establishment of that Church, politically confidered, that the fciolifts of the present day stand indebted for fuch a palpable confufion of ideas on this fubject. Whether the political establishment of the Church stand or fall, the Church itself, so long as GOD fhall think fit to preferve it in any country, will remain, as to its conftitution, what it originally was, firm on its own Divine foundation. When those who are now feparated from the Church fhall be difpofed, from conviction, to return into her bofom, the Church, as a tender mother, must with joy receive them, as strayed fheep returning to "the Shepherd and Bishop of their fouls." But in fuch cafe, fhe receives them to a conformity with her doctrine, and a due obedience to her discipline. To receive them on any other plan, would be to attempt to form an uniform society out of heterogeneous and difcordant parts; a fociety, which, on the supposition that it could be brought together, and by whatever political establishment it might be fecured, muft, from the nature of its compofition, neceffarily crumble into early diffolution, for want of that principle of unity, which is the cement of the Chriftian Church, namely, a ftedfaft continuance" in the Apostles' doctrine and fellowfhip." Whereas this unity, on which the very existence of the Church, as a divinely-conftituted fociety, depends, according to the loofe and genera lizing notions of fome modern interpreters, (with the

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view of accommodating the word to thofe multifarious feparations from the Church, which they appear interested to fupport) "confifts not in the visible union of members in one community, but in that great unity of the members of Chrift's body, difperfed over all parts of the earth, vifibly united to communities of different perfuafions."* Now, though we do not take upon ourselves to explain, how the members of CHRIST's body, the Church, which is defcribed as a city that is at unity in itfelf," can be visibly united to "communities of different perfuafions," and ftill remain members of a community united in itfelf; because we have always regarded the union and divifion of the fame body as conditions impoffible, in the nature of things, to co-exist; yet we may be confidered as difcharging a part of our duty to the reader, in thus furnishing him with a fpecimen of that confùfion of ideas, and mifconstruction of meaning, by which so many fincere tho' unfufpecting Christians are continually led away from the plain unfophifticated language of their bibles, which, if fuffered to fpeak for itfelf, would rarely fail to preserve them found members of the Church.

Impreffed by a deep and repeated attention to the principles of the prefent times, and looking almost with an eye of defpondency to that deftruction of establishments, which fuch principles, if not timely counteracted, must ultimately effect, I feel myself, as

* Critical Review, March 1799, on the "Guide to the Church.”

a Minister of the Church, juftified in bringing forward to the confideration of every serious and thinking man the important fubject of the following work.

In this mind, oppofing patient investigation, Christian firmness and charity, to hastiness of decifion, to ignorance and flander; I have taken the ground on which a Minister of the Church of England ought to stand; and on which, provided he be not wanting to himself, he may ever ftand firm; by defending our Ecclefiaftical government on the high ground of Apoftolical Inftitution. The language made ufe of for the purpose has been that, which I have for the most part learned from my mother, the Church; a language, which were I, in times like the prefent, to withhold from fear of giving offence, I should be unworthy the character in which I glory, that of being her dutiful fon. In ftating the authority derived from the Apostles to thofe facred persons to whom the ministry of reconciliation has been cómmitted, my object has been to press on the minds of my readers the importance of the enquiry heretofore fuggefted by the judicious HOOKER: "Whether, as we are to believe for ever the articles of Evangelical Doctrine, fo the precepts of Difcipline we are not in like fort bound for ever to obferve?"

It is not, I will venture to fay, from an improper prejudice in favour of names and distinctions, nor from a narrow notion that the affairs of CHRIST'S kingdom may not be administered under any govern

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ment different from that which has been actually esta blished, that my conclufion on this fubject has been drawn; but from the fettled conviction, that what Divine Wisdom ordains maft, in this as in every other cafe, be beft calculated to promote the object which Divine Goodness has in view. It being therefore, in our judgment at least, a matter capable of demonstration, that the Apoftolic conftitution of the Church was the provision made, under the Chriftian difpenfation, for the preservation of true religion in the world; for this reafon it is, that we look up to the circumftantials of order and government, as they exist in the Episcopal Church of this country, (confidered as a branch of the Catholic Church of Christ) as to means divinely appointed for the purpose of conducing to that important end. And it is to be deeply lamented, that Chriftians of the present day feem, for the most part, not to be acquainted with the fundamental conftitution of the Church, nor fufficiently to have attended to the confequences of rebellion against it, to be duly fenfible of its value. It is, however, incumbent on us to remark, what the testimony of almost three centuries has now proved; that to the Establishment of the Apostolic conftitution of the Church in this country, we are, under Providence, indebted for the maintenance of primitive truth among us, affailed as it has been by every mode of attack, and by every diversity of fect. the poffeffion of this Establishment,

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glory. And when it is confidered, that that conftitution of the Chriftian Church, for which we manifeft our reverence, and in defence of which we have ventured to commit ourselves to the public, has been acknowledged even by those who are least disposed to commend it, to "have been from the beginning favourable to peace and good order, and fubmiffion to the Sovereign; and never been the occafion of any civil commotion in any country in which it has been once established;"* a principled attachment to fuch a Church will, it is prefumed, by every well-wisher to the community, be regarded as a more fit fubject for refpect and commendation, than for obloquy and reproach.

But it is said, and the present liberal mode of thinking (as it is falfely called) fanctions the idea, that to infist on the Apoftolic form, as the only Divine institution of Church government, is to pronounce an uncharitable fentence on all those who do not conform to it; on the ground, that those Christians who are not in the Church, must neceffarily be out of it; and as fuch, unpoffeffed of a covenanted title to the promises made to the Church by its Divine Head. Now, admitting the confequence in this cafe, it is certainly a confequence for which the Clergy of the Church of England are not anfwerable. To be confiftent minifters of that Church, they must argue confiftently from the premises which that Church has laid down.

*SMITH'S "Wealth of Nations,” b. viii. c. 1.

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