been held among them, that Scripture only is the rule and the test of all religious ordinances; and that human authority is to be altogether excluded. Their ancestors, I believe, would have been not a little embarrassed with their own maxim, if they had not possessed a singular talent of seeing every thing in Scripture which they had a mind to Almost every sect could find there its own peculiar form of church-government; and while they enforced only their own imaginations, they believed themselves to be exccuting the decrees of Heaven. see. But the present race of men who dissent from us, will hardly maintain that the rules they observe, whether in the choice of ministers or the discharge of ministerial duties, are prescribed to them by divine authority. Why then do they reject human ? — why rather do they admit it in one form and reject it in another? Their ministers are subject, and they must be subject, to the particular congregations by whom they are employed, — perhaps, to an association of several. Why not to the community at large? Why not to that sovereign authority which is entrusted with the common concerns of the whole nation? It will readily be allowed, that, in the kingdom of Christ, Christ himself is the sole Lawgiver and the sole Judge; but what connection is there between the invisible kingdom of Christ and the outward form of a National Church? The laws of his kingdom are no other than the conditions he himself has prescribed of pardon and salvation. No human power can repeal or change them, no human wisdom can apply and enforce them; but the laws of the National Church are quite of another kind: rules of expedience only, prescribed by our governors, for the public administration of the offices of religion. They who submit to these rules with a good conscience, and they who separate themselves for conscience-sake, may equally be members of Christ's spiritual kingdom, and heirs of eternal happiness. It is only maintained here, That they who depart from rules, for no other reason than because they are prescribed by authority, act on a principle inconsistent with the very being of society, either ecclesiastical or civil. May we all of us be careful to discharge our respective duties to the honour of God, the increase of true religion, and the salvation of our own souls! -and may we never want the assistance of God's holy Spirit to strengthen and support our weak endea vours.! DISCOURSE VIII. ON THE DIFFICULTIES WHICH ATTEND ISAIAH xlv. 15. Verily, thou art a God that hidest thyself, thou God of Israel, the Saviour. NOTHING is more precarious than the ways in which men usually judge concerning the fitness of divine dispensations; and there cannot be a more remarkable instance of this rash judgment than an opinion, which we hear delivered every day, That religion must of necessity be something plain and easy. If we would condescend to take notice of obvious facts, instead of amusing our K selves with deductions of argument, we should soon see that religious truths, even of the most important kind, are very frequently wrapped up in obscurity; we should see that the Lord of the Universe does not obtrude himself upon our view, but expects that we should trace out his being and perfections by slow, and cautious, and patient steps; that his moral perfections in particular, are environed with difficulties, the ways of his pros pects of futurity, to far the greater part of mankind, dim and uncertain. "Righteousness "indeed and judgment are the habitation of "his throne; but clouds and darkness are "round about him *." If this be, as it seems to be, plain matter of fact, all reasonings to the contrary must be deceitful; and, to prove it fact, I appeal to the experience of all ages. Not only Heathen, but Christian, philosophers have lost themselves in endless mazes of error, while engaged in the pursuit of the most sublime truths. How much less can the bulk of Psalm xcvii. 2. |