But at length he, who came to seek and to save that which was lost, was taken, and by wicked hands was crucified and slain. And being dead and buried, in three days, he was "declared to be the Son of God with power, according to the Spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead." The period had therefore arrived for the final settlement of his visible Church. For the space of forty days previous to his ascension into heaven, he gave, according to the Acts, "commandments unto the Apostles whom he had chosen:" "speaking of the things pertaining to the kingdom of God." The investigation of their nature and import I shall commence on the succeeding sabbath; and greatly shall I be mistaken, if they do not afford, when combined with the subsequent practice of the Apostles, in the propagation of the gospel; greatly shall I be mistaken, if they do not afford unanswerable proof of the sole validity of an episcopal government and ministry in the Church of Christ.

I am however free to confess in relation to that branch of it, in which it has become my office to minister in holy things, that I love it most for the doctrines, which it maintains; the doctrines which are according to godliness. Here there has been no discrepancy upon fundamental principles from the beginning, and I trust and believe, that there will be none to the end. While many other denominations, growing out of the reformation in religion witnessed in the sixteenth century, have been inconstant and variable as the wind, a long and uninterrupted dissemination of evangelical truth has distinguished the annals of the Church. Like the laws of the Medes and Persians, her articles change not. Like the Author of that gospel, from which they are taken, they may be characterized as "the same yesterday, and to-day and for ever."

If you have been deeply smitten with any of the countless heresies, which have deformed the Christian world, you can find no encouragement to enter or continue within her pale. If you have been wrought up to some alarming pitch of religious phrensy, in which the feelings have been more inflamed, than the judgment enlightened; here there are no enthusiastick strains of devotion to keep alive the excitement, and no fanatick appeals calculated to bewilder, and then completely desolate the understanding. If you wish to cherish foul antipathies, to make your fellow Christians, the objects of scorn and odium, the butts of ridicule and derision; here is no

food to supply the evil passions of your nature, and no such bigotry, as to exclude from offices of love and brotherly kindness, a single individual of that human family, for which Christ our Saviour died. If you desire to confide in a barren faith, in an orthodox belief of doctrines, which are to have no salutary operation upon your lives, producing in you sobriety, righteousness, and godliness; here you can obtain no countenance; here your faith in Jesus must work by love, and spend itself in good deeds, or ye can have no part nor lot in this matter; we renounce the hollow hearted Christian, and would earnestly strive to be built up in true knowledge, faith, and holiness unto salvation.

But if there be a sorrowing penitent in this assembly; one who feels the intolerable weight of his sins, and would fain cast them off, as a sore burden, too heavy to be borne; one who sincerely believes in Jesus, and in the sole efficacy of his atonement; one who so understands his religion, as to be conscious, that he must adorn the doctrine of God his Saviour in all things, fashioning his life after his example, and making it his invariable rule to be holy as he was holy, and pure as he was pure; here he may find in the ark of Christ's own Church, a refuge from the impending deluge of the divine displeasure; here he may become a Christian upon principles, that are sound and practical; here his devotion may be pure, his faith rational, his obedience perfect, and the final recompense of his reward ensured, without boasting, without thinking himself better than other men, without straining at the gnats, and swallowing the camels of vice and errour.

Yes, Brethren, for these things it is, that I most love the Church, to which I belong. I love her for her moderate views, her chastened worship, her scriptural doctrines, and the catholick spirit of forbearance and good will towards others, which she would gladly inculcate upon the members of her communion. Wonder not therefore, that I am anxious to make you episcopalians upon principle, nor think it strange, that I should attach so much importance to an episcopal government and ministry, when I do most solemnly believe, that to this very reception of and continuance in the Apostolick faith and practice, we are mainly indebted under God for all those spiritual blessings and privileges, which have for so many ages been abundantly showered down upon our Zion: For all those fair proportions and unrivalled beauties, which the towering edifice

of her faith and holiness presents, and that must at some future period cause her to be universally hailed, as the joy of the whole Earth; her righteousness, according to the prophet's prediction, having previously gone forth as brightness, and her salvation as a lamp that burneth. AMEN.

SERMON III.

ISAIAH xii. 1.

For Zion's sake will I not hold my peace, and for Jerusalem's sake I will not rest, until the righteousness thereof go forth as brightness, and the salvation thereof as a lamp that burneth.

I HAVE now arrived at that stage in the discussion upon Church government, when it will be necessary to be a little more explicit upon the true nature of the question, which has for about three centuries agitated the Christian world.

Let it be remembered then, that the terms, episcopalian and presbyterian, are properly and legitimately applied to the government or ministry of a Church, rather than to the particular doctrines or form of worship, which it embraces. An episcopalian is one, who believes in the divine institution of three orders in the Christian ministry, having an episcopos or bishop for the first and highest A presbyterian denies this distinction of three orders, and contends that there is but one, the order of a presbuteros or presbyter, meaning the same with our English word elder. And I mention this circumstance, with the view of removing an erroneous impression existing in the minds of many, that the advocates of episcopacy are few in number, and on this account somewhat arrogant in their pretensions. When in reality, were you to divide the Christian world into twenty equal parts, eighteen, if not nineteen twentieths would be found ranged on our side of this important question.

The Roman Catholicks wherever situated; the very extensive denomination called the Greek Church in Russia and Turkey in Europe, and in some parts of Asia, including the Holy Land itself; the Armenians also of Asia; the Abyssinians of Africa; the Swedish and many of the German Lutherans; such as belong to the established Churches in England and Ireland, with a respectable Church in Scotland; all these, Brethren, are as much Episcopalians as we are: they maintain as strongly the Apostolick institution of episcopacy, and reject as openly every other form of Church government, because in their opinion founded solely upon the basis of human authority. I might add to this catalogue, the large and zealous body of Christians scattered over our own country, and the land of our fathers, known by the name of Methodists, who are Episcopalians in principle; although for reasons which will hereafter be briefly submitted, we are constrained to consider them, unpossessed of the requisite authority, in other words, of what we claim to be a valid episcopal ministry.

Nor must I fail to remark, that the great body of seceders from the Church, have the same common right to a common feature in their ecclesiastical polity. Presbyterianism, so far as one order of ministers, and one only, is concerned, includes the baptist, the congregational, the unitarian, the universalist, and other Churches, as well as the highly respectable portion of believers, who have chosen to designate themselves by that particular title. They are all the advocates of ministerial parity or equality. We, on the contrary, of imparity or inequality. They assert, that there is but one order of ministers in Christ's Church, all having the same power and authority. We say, that there are three orders, and that these are so arranged, that the lower cannot perform the prescribed duties of the higher.

Bear therefore this statement in your memories. It is what civilians would term the very gist of the controversy. By it, I am willing to stand or fall in the appeal, which I shall make to the testimony of the scriptures. If episcopacy does not meet with full and decisive authority there, I am content to abandon it, or at least to retain it on the ground of expediency alone. For if God has instituted no peculiar system of ordaining and perpetuating the ministerial servants of Christ, it must be obvious to every reflecting mind, that we are left to our own choice and discretion, that we are in

fact authorized by him to found what Church or what Churches we please, and to appoint over them what minister or ministers, it seemeth to us good. To this liberty I could not urge one single objection. I would agree to it, most heartily and most conscientiously. But hath God said, and shall we not do it? This is the question. Hath God given to his Son but one Church for his bride, and shall we dare to present him with many? Shall we dare to tender him a kind of divine polygamy, and please ourselves with the idea, that he himself is as highly pleased and gratified with the ofer? St. Paul, in his time, would have exclaimed, "God forbid !" and I love to be of the party of Paul; I love the Church that he loved, and in her defence would freely exhaust my feeble powers of argument and persuasion.

In my last discourse I closed with the strong probability, in favour of our three orders in the ministry, derived from the striking analogies subsisting between the Jewish and Christian Churches; and indeed showed that the high priest, priests, and Levites of the former were typical of the High Priest of our profession, the Apostles, and seventy disciples, whom he early gathered about his person. I also reminded you of the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ, and proposed to bring forward on the present occasion, the principal subject, which appeared to occupy his thoughts and conversation, during the forty days immediately preceding his glorious ascension into heaven. It was his Church. All Christians concur in this opinion, and are ready to admit, that at this time he did commission his Apostles to establish it upon the earth, wherever indeed they were directed to propagate the gospel of the kingdom.

The words of that commission I shall not now repeat, as there will be occasion to use them hereafter; but rather turn your attention to a position, that must command implicit belief from all, who truly reverence the character and authority of our Saviour, who acknowledge, that he was the Son of God and the messenger of his grace to the children of men. It is this. Whatever the Apostles did, in virtue of the commission of their Lord, to preach the gospel and baptize all nations, and after they were endued with power from on high, by the visible descent of the Holy Ghost upon them, in the shape of cloven tongues, as of fire; whatever they thus did, in relation to the Church and its ministry, is equally binding and

D