value of inferior spiritual gifts; but the Corinthians are not warned against this error by theatening them with the terrors of eternal damnation.

Making a schism, however, is seldom a virtue, because when the schismatics happen to be right in their opinions, they often defend them by an unjustifiable warmth of temper; and no opinion is of sufficient importance to excuse indulgence in the bad passions. The worst of schismatics are they who magnify petty differences into matters of the utmost consequence, and who make them terms of communion, and necessary to salvation.

Objection. "Allowing every person to preach who conceives himself qualified, has been the cause of our being divided into innumerable sects and parties, and this surely is a great evil, which is forbidden in sacred scripture." Where is it forbidden in scripture? Show me chapter and verse. If the church of Christ was to consist of one sect only, to the end of the world, which is that sect? It cannot be the church of England, for its constitution is only a few centuries old. It is said by its advocates to have been formed on the model of the primitive church, as it existed for the four first centuries. Admitting this to be true, for the sake of argument, it is not pretended that any church since the fourth century has had a similar constitution. Now, then, where was the church of Christ from the fourth century to the reformation? What church made our thirty-nine articles the standard of its faith, and used our liturgy as its only manual of devotion? Let the true church be found where it will, if you cannot find our articles and prayer-book in it, the church of England is a dissenter from it; and, therefore, according to the objection, is not a church of Christ. Is the church of Rome that sect? It is not pretended by the papists that the church of Rome is the same now, that it was when first constituted by an apostle; for they freely admit, that councils have added to it innumerable articles of faith, and rites and ceremonies of worship.

Both parties endeavour to justify the additions they

have made, by pretending, that "the church has a power to decree rights and ceremonies, and authority in matters of faith." As no one pretends that the church of Rome was not once a true church, by allowing her then to possess the power pleaded for, you cannot deny her to be a true church still. Admit this authority, and she will justify all her abominations. It must be evident at once, that such a power ought only to be lodged in infallible hands: for if you suppose those who possess it liable to err, they may soon, by virtue of it, turn the church of Christ into a synagogue of Satan. Upon this point the catholics are consistent. The church of England, by admitting this power, cannot possibly justify her separation from Rome; and by claiming this power herself, without asserting her infallibility, she is guilty of the grossest folly.

Let us come then to the point. All parties agree that the gates of hell cannot prevail against the church. The objection supposes the church of Christ to consist of one sect, the individuals composing which all agree in the same articles of faith, the same formularies of worship, and the same rules of discipline; and that this sect has existed since the days of the apostles. It has been shown, that the church of Rome cannot be that sect, unless you admit her plea to the divine attribute of infallibility; and the fallacy of this pretension has been so often exposed, that it is quite unnecessary to dwell upon it here. The church of England cannot be that sect, because it has existed only for a few centuries; and I will defy any man to prove that such a sect is in existence. The church of Christ does not consist of any one sect exclusively, but of the virtuous among all sects.

The apostles of Christ had no idea of uniformity in the constitution of Christian churches. They made no other creed than the scriptures. No person now is so ignorant as to believe, that what is called, The Apostles' Creed, was composed by them. They made no liturgy to be used in public worship, but left every

church to manage this important business as well as it could. What is said to prove that they composed forms of prayer by inspiration, for the use of the church, does not deserve serious consideration. If they made a prayer book, how happened it that it was not preserved as well as their other writings? They had no uniform plan of discipline. The apostles themselves, and Timothy and Titus, who were all itinerant preachers, executed discipline in the churches they founded and visited, during their stay. In their

absence, this power was exercised by the presbyters; and where there were no presbyters, as at Corinth, the people did this business themselves. Presbyters were sometimes appointed by apostles or evangelists; and sometimes, with the consent of the people, they were self-appointed. These things have been proved at large in the Essay on Ordination. Here, then, was as great a difference between many apostolic churches, as there is in the present day between many sects and parties. This diversity of the primitive churches, is perfectly inconsistent with our modern ridiculous notions about uniformity.

It has been remarked already that our Lord excused the man who refused to join with the apostles, and to submit to their authority, which he surely would not have done, had it been unlawful to refuse subjection to an holy, apostolic church. Jesus said to these apostolic silencers, "Forbid him not; " let him go on casting out devils and making converts in his own way. When Paul was at the head of the church of Rome, there was another sect in the city, which was opposed to his. Instead, however, of abusing them as schismatics and heretics, he rejoiced in the success of their labours, though they thought to add affliction to his bonds. (Phil. i. 16-18.) Many will be of opinion that the apostle Paul was the only infallible head the church of Rome ever had, and he denounced no curses against the separatists; so that, if the popes are not even more infallible than he was, they ought to wish success to all denominations of christians. If

Paul sends no spiritual thunder against those who divide from an apostolic church, the anathemas of priests and bishops must be perfectly harmless.

After creed-making came into fashion, the articles were very few for some time ; but after the council of Nice, they gradually swelled into volumes. For several centuries, each bishop made a creed and liturgy for the use of his own church. This is proved at large by Bingham, who observes, "That every bishop had at first the power and privilege to compose and order the form of divine service for his own church, I have shewed in another place, where I had occasion to discourse of the independency of bishops, and their absolute power in their own church. Where among other things I observed, that as they had the privilege to word their own creeds, so they had the privilege to frame their own liturgy; which privilege they retained for several ages; as may be confirmed by this farther and most certain observation, that when any new episcopal church was taken and erected out of another, the new-erected church was not obliged to follow the model and prescriptions of the old church, but might frame to herself a form of divine service agreeable to her own circumstances and condition.' Add to this, what no one, at all acquainted with ecclesiastical history, will dispute, that in the primitive times the people chose their own bishops; and it will appear very evident, that both people and pastors, in those times, enjoyed much greater liberty than the members of most modern national establishments. It is true that when a minister preached any doctrine which was supposed to be novel and dangerous, he was called to account before a synod or a council, and if his heresy was judged by the majority to be damnable, he was excommunicated; but if he agreed in substance with his brethren, nothing more was required.

From the above it is easy to see, that there was nearly, if not quite, as great a diversity of creeds and prayers used in the churches of the orthodox in primi* Bingham's Antiquities, book xiii., chap. v., section i.

tive times, as is to be found among the dissenters of the present day. Were the church of England really, as she is in pretence, constituted on the plan of the primitive churches; were the people allowed to elect their own pastors; and were the pastors required to subscribe to no other articles than what are generally believed to comprise the essentials of christianity, and left at liberty in other respects to use their own creeds, prayers, rites, and ceremonies, nearly all the dissenters in the kingdom would conform to the establish

ment.

Those who deem conformity to an established church a matter of importance, must surely be convinced that its terms of communion ought to be as moderate and easy as possible. There never was a church which carried uniformity so far, and which, therefore, made conformity so difficult to a conscientious mind, as the church of England. Its ministers are not permitted to use a single ceremony or prayer but what is prescribed by the liturgy; and they are required to signify their unfeigned assent and consent. to everything contained in it. The only liberty allowed is in preaching; and it is astonishing that churchmen, in their zeal for uniformity, did not get an act of parliament to banish all sermons from the pulpit, except the homilies; for it must be as dangerous to permit a clergyman to use his own composition in the pulpit as in the reading desk. Even the pope permits different forms of prayer to be used in different places; and both Pius IV. and Gregory XIII., offered to queen Elizabeth to confirm the English liturgy.*

If dissent from the established church be a damnable sin, nothing should be a term of communion in it that is not necessary to salvation. For admitting everything in the church to be scriptural, all men are not capable of perceiving every religious truth; and if some men are kept out of the church in consequence of their scruples about matters of minor importance, churchmen are guilty of sending such men to hell for * De Laune's Plea for the Noncon., pages 59, 60.