• that those only (who poffeffed any information on the subject) despised church-order, whose fituation rendered their obfervance of the apoftolic order impracticable.' Let us not then be led away by founds. Men ought, by means of candid examination of Scripture, to be fully perfuaded in their own minds, what to omit, and what to perform. Without this, no religious duty is a reasonable service.

When, instead of searching the Scriptures, and praying for farther light, as new born babes defiring the unadulterated milk of the word, we are inclined to search for arguments to justify our own practice, these will not be wanting. This ftate of mind fofters prejudices. Our fcruples, which, if attended to, would have led us to the Scriptures and to a throne of grace, and ultimately, by the bleffing of God, to the path of duty, being ftifled, wear away. The less a man liftens to the voice of confcience, the feebler it becomes. Many rejoice in having got rid of what they now confider to be weak fcruples. Let them examine Was it by fairly occurred to their

bow they got rid of them.

meeting the objections which minds? Was it by fearching the fubject to the bottom? or was it by acting in oppofition to their convictions? Scruples may be got rid of both ways. Those who have received a religious education, feel many fcruples before they can run to the fame excess of riot with others; but when

and childish, and they hug themfelves on their fuppofed fuperiority to weak prejudices.

I do not here intend to enlarge on the bad effects which arife from the differences among Chriftians about church-order. Some of them have been already hinted at. We know what a handle they give to infidels, and to those who are indifferent about religion; what alienation of mind they produce among real Christians; and how much they cramp their united exertions: and however much good men, deploring thefe confequences, may endeavour to put a stop to: them by enforcing mutual forbearance, from the confideration of the inconfiderable nature of their differences, experience may teach us that this will never fucceed.

To prove, then, that the Scriptures contain a particular standard and model for the imitation and government of the churches of Chrift, which all Chriftians are enjoined by divine authority to follow, (however they may be branded as perpetuating divifion and party-fpirit) will be found to be the only way by which union and brotherly love can be promoted amongft Chriftians. For this union God has made provifion in the accounts of the churches in the New Teftament. In this, as in other refpects, the foolishness of God is. wifer than man. Let him then that hath an ear,

CHAPTER V.

ON THE CONSTITUTION OF THE APOSTOLIC

CHURCHES.

SECTION I.

WHEREVER the apostles went, they

preached the gofpel, and befought and enjoined men to repent and believe it. When their preaching was successful, they directed their converts to affociate for the obfervance of public worship and ordinances, always on the first day of the week, and also at other times. These focieties were called churches. In this they have been imitated by all Chriftians. But it is not sufficient to retain appearances. In order to follow their example, our churches muft refemble theirs ; their conftitution must be fimilar. How much did the church of Rome, in the apostle Paul's time, differ from the church of Rome fome hundred years afterwards! Obedience to the commandment of Chrift does not confist in preserving the name while we do not observe the ordinance itself. We condemn the Roman Catholics, who profess to observe Chrift's dying commandment

the bread. We say this is not to eat the Lord's fupper, because while the name is kept up, the action is different. The fame will apply to the conftitution of a church. Our churches must be fimilar to those planted by the apoftles, and acknowledged in the word of God as his churches; we do not otherwife attend to the ordinance at all.

The word xxλnoia, church, means an affembly of any kind. It is often applied to Ifrael, which formed one affembly in the wilderness, as their males did three times a-year at Jerufalem. It is fometimes applied to an affembly called by a magiftrate, and fometimes to a tumultuous affembly. In Acts xix. 32. the mob is called the church, and again in verfe 40. he difmiffed the church. Verse 39. the fame word is ufed for an affembly called by the magiftrates. I fhall here quote a paffage from Dr Campbell on this fubject. Properly there is, in the New Teftament, but two original senses of the word xxλnia, which can be called different, though related. One is, when it denotes a number of people actually affembled, or accustomed to affemble together, and is then properly rendered by the English terms, congregation, convention, affembly, and even fometimes crowd, as in Acts xix. 32. 40. The other sense is to denote a fociety united together by fome common tie, though not convened, perhaps not convenable, in one place.

it fometimes occurs in claffical writers, as fignifying a state, or commonwealth, and nearly correfponding to the Latin civitas. When the word is limited, or appropriated, as it generally is in the New Testament, by its regimen, as 78 98, re xvgis, ty Xgiols, or by the scope of the place, it is always to be explained in one or other of the two fenfes following, corresponding to the two general fenfes above mentioned. It denotes either a fingle congregation of Chriftians, in correspondence to the firft, or the whole Christian community, in correspondence to the second. We can hardly ever be at a lofs to know from the context which of the two is implied. That it is in the former acceptation, is fometimes evident from the words in conftru&tion, as της εκκλησίας τη εν Κεγχρεαις, and τη εκκλησία τα θες τη εν Κορινθω, and the like. In the latter fense it ought always to be understood, when we find nothing in the expreffion, or in the scope of the paffage, to determine us to limit it; for inftance in the following, Επιλαύτη τη πέρα οικοδομήσω με την εκκλησίαν. Ο κυριος προσετίθει τις σωζομενες καθ' ήμεραν τη εκκλησια. In this last acceptation of the word, for the whole body of Chrift's difciples, wherefoever difperfed, it came afterwards to be distinguished by the epithet xaon. They faid, xxλnoia xadoxn, the catholic or univerfal church.

But in any intermediate fenfe, between a fingle congregation and the whole community of Chri