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sion elicits truth; and the establishment of truth alone can bestow peace and happiness. Our conclusions, therefore, upon the subject of Church government, must and will be of importance, so long as the usurpations of the Papacy, and the divisions of parties, continue to agitate mankind. As far as the happiness of society in this world is concerned, it is impossible that the sincerity of error, can be equally acceptable to God, with the sincerity of truth. The sincere persecutor is an enemy to his kind. What may be the condition of the conscientious murderer in another world, is not the most interesting question to those who are compelled to become in this world the victims of his sincerity. Happiness is connected with truth, rather than with sincerity; and that which most promotes the happiness of man, must be more pleasing to God, than the sincerity which causes persecution. The form of worship which I believe to be proposed in the New Testament, would have effectually preserved the world from the sincerity of persecution; for it would have prevented the intolerable assumption of that ecclesiastical dominion, which was founded on usurpation, and is supported by intolerance and ignorance.

But it is said our opinions are not in our own power. The position is too general to be accurate. Opinions are not involuntary, when we possess the means of examining their evidence and foundation. I reserve till another opportunity, an inquiry into the criteria of moral and religious truth.

The most objectionable of the notions to which I refer, is the assertion that the Deity has not preferred one mode of discipline to another, or it would have been more plainly revealed.

I have endeavoured to shew that a plan of Church Government was so plainly revealed, that it was uniformly acted upon for fifteen centuries. That plan is founded upon the one simple and general proposition, that the

Church of God was to be composed of several societies, each of which should be united by this one rule-that no person should assume any spiritual office without the permission of those superiors to whom the power of ordaining, confirming, and regulating the Churches had lawfully and regularly descended. Every Church might consist of many congregations, and was independent of its neighbours; episcopacy alone being the bond of union among all Christians. The collisions of opinions which have taken place since the Reformation, have prevented the adherents of this form of Church Government from so uniformly maintaining this truth, as it was their duty to do. They shrank from the appearance of defending a position, with which their own interest was identified. The consequence has been, that episcopalians have been long considered, merely as the principal sect among Christiansand Christianity itself, as a collection of disputable opinions, supported by a variety of sects. The members of the reformed Episcopal Churches ought to have remembered that they were required in defence of truth, to submit to reproach and insult in every form, even though it bore that most odious of all forms, the appearance of self-interest.

The coincidence does not appear to be merely accidental, that the Baptist should be put to death at the time when the twelve apostles were sent forth. The Old Dispensation had now done its work. The schoolmaster led the people to Christ, and the twelve went forth to bring them in, to their divine lawgiver. The foundations of the Christian Church were laid: Christ and his apostles being the corner stones. He now continued his miracles, and teaching; by correcting the opinions of the people on their Jewish traditions-healing the Syrophænician, as the earnest of the future healing of the Gentiles, a doctrine never wholly lost sight of-feeding the four thousand, who had probably followed him in the anticipation that he would

save them from the Roman yoke. When our Lord healed a blind man about this time, St. Peter first declared his conviction in more express and decided terms, that the prophet of Nazareth was the Messiah. Upon this confession our Lord declares his Church to be built; and predicts to St. Peter that he should become its second founder, by first opening its gates to the Gentile world. He then astonishes the apostle by prophesying his approaching death; and confirms the faith of his wondering disciples whose minds were confounded with the apparent inconsistency between his asserted dignity and his anticipated degradation, by that scene which visibly opened the union of the two. worlds, the transfiguration on the mount. While their minds were still impressed with the remembrance of his glory, he' again predicted his sufferings-and submitted, as a man, who was bound by the political regulations of society, to the demand for tribute. The chapter concludes with the contention among the disciples for superiority. They could not till the Holy Spirit had illumined their minds, understand the doctrine of a spiritual kingdom. They saw that Christ could have maintained an army without expence they saw the people eager to follow him-and they imagined that the Roman yoke would be thrown off at an early opportunity.

The principal notes refer to some of the Jewish traditions-our Lord's applying to himself certain expressions, by which the Jews described their Messiah, and the nature of the Messiah, which they expected. The address to St. Peter the disputing of the apostles-and the transfiguration, are briefly considered as interesting subjects of inquiry, to the theological student.

V. The fifth Chapter embraces the next great division of our Lord's ministry, the period from the mission of the seventy to his own triumphant entry into Jerusalem. As the victim was led to the altar garlanded with flowers, and followed by the acclamations of the people, so was our great Sacrifice adorned for the altar of the cross. Few remarks

are necessary on the contents of this Chapter. The deeper impression which the preaching of his apostles and of the seventy, and of his own wonderful example, miracles, and teaching, began to appear more plainly. The agitation of the public mind at Jerusalem-the public assertion of his pre-existence-his increased boldness, as his personal danger became greater-his more numerous cautions to his disciples-his assertion of his divinity, and the consequent resolution of the Jews to apprehend him-successively prove the wisdom of the plan upon which our Lord acted, of gradually convincing the people, and then submitting to his painful death. No sooner was the resolution taken to seize him, than his lamentations over Jerusalem begin― his parables assume a more prophetic character, descriptive of the reception of the Gentiles, and the rejection of the Jews. At length he goes on to work his greatest miracle, the raising of Lazarus from the dead, and with that, (which appears to have been publicly performed before many of the rulers, who were eager to apprehend him,) to discontinue the appeal to the Jews by this kind of evidence. If he had wrought miracles at Jerusalem, it would have appeared that he desired to excite the people to rebellion. The whole nation were now made acquainted with his pretensions; and with the evidence upon which they were supported. He entered therefore Jerusalem amidst the shouts of the people, in a manner so remarkable, that he evidently fulfilled a prophecy of Zachariah. I have inquired, in a note to this passage, from a review of the history of the Jews, from the date of the prophecy to the destruction of the temple, whether the prediction can be applied to any ruler of Israel, under any dynasty of its own, or of its foreign sovereigns.

VI. The sixth Chapter relates the conduct of the holy Jesus from his triumphant entry into Jerusalem, till his submission to the Roman guard, to whom he was betrayed. I have generally avoided devotional remarks on

the New Testament, because every commentator abounds with them; and because they obviously present themselves to the mind of every reader of this wonderful, and beautiful book. I have, however, sometimes deviated from my rule, and was more especially tempted to do so, when I contemplated the joyful entry of our atoning Saviour into his once "holy city." The cleansing of the temple, and the voice from heaven, when the Greeks of the dispersion asked to see him, with the miraculous withering of the fig-tree, were sufficient to attest his divine power; but they were not miracles sufficiently splendid, to attract the universal notice, and excite the jealousy of the Pharisees. As the time of his betrayal was come, he did not hesitate to reprove with more boldness than he had hitherto assumed, all the sects among his countrymen. He commanded the Herodians, to render to Cæsar, the things that be Cæsar's, and to God the things that were God's. To the Sadducees he explained from the books of Moses, the doctrine of the Resurrection. The inconsistency of the apparently austere, but in reality immoral Pharisee, is reprobated with unsparing and indignant severity. The prophetic parables, the prediction of the fall of Jerusalem, and the allusions to the great event of which it was typical-his institution of the Eucharist, to be received by us all till he shall again come to judge the living and the dead—his exhortations to his disciples, his promises of his Holy Spirit, his meekness, his gentleness, and his love, present the perfect portrait, which the simple pen of inspiration can alone, adequately describe. The view which I have submitted to the reader, of the agony in the garden of Gethsemane, appears to be justified by the various circumstances which prove our Lord to be the second Adam. Our faculties must be enlarged in another state of existence, before we can comprehend the mysteries of Revelation. "One little part alone we dimly scan," that our faith may be strengthened with an earnest of the future great discoveries of

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