work led the author to treat of it, in this particular aspect: and many reasons, which need not be detailed, forbade his taking it up on other grounds.

As the author has drafted these Letters for the special benefit of the people of his own charge, he has not sought the authority of great names to give them currency. Those to whom they are addressed, will know how to appreciate his good intentions, whatever they may think of the merit of the work. If others approve, he will be gratified. If any who read them should be profited, he will rejoice. And even if some should find, fault, he will not be surprised. They are committed to the special protection and blessing of Him, whose honour they are designed to advance, and the rights of whose church they are intended humbly to vindicate Sept. 12th, 1826.

A&

LETTERS, &o.

LETTER I.

CHRISTIAN BRETHREN,

EVER since there has existed a Church on earth, her laws, government, and order have been subjects intimately connected with her highest interests. If these have been badly framed, or injudiciously, or erroneously applied, the church has necessarily participated in the unhappy results arising from such mismanagement: just as the state, the structure of whose government and laws is founded in mistake, and the administration of which is in accordance with her established order, must suffer injury from the operation of the whole machinery of her government.-And, doubtless, the prosperity of the church, in her most vital interests, has often been greatly promoted by the scriptural character, and wise application of her external forms of order. These are matters of fact, well attested by the history of the church, from the earliest ages.

But how is the church to be constructed? What order shall obtain in her? Who shall bear authority in God's house? Or, are not all attempts at organization, and government in the church, by human hands, a daring usurpation of the high prerogatives of heaven? These, and other similar questions, have afforded ample scope for controversy, and have employed the talents, and the pens of many distinguished disputants in different ages of the christian church-nor is the controversy yet at rest. It still occupies a place among the various topics which interest the hearts, and furnish exercise to the intellects of the friends of Zion.

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It is not my intention, christian brethren, to enter this field of controversy as a disputant-I am not sensible that I am qualified for such a station.-But in the course of my ministry among you, subjects connected with the organization, government, and order of the church have been frequently forced upon my attention, by the progress of events, with which the greater part of you are acquainted. This has led to reflections and enquiries in relation to these subjects, which under different circumstances, would probably never have been made. And as my enquiries have been, in a great measure, elicited by the peculiar matters in controversy a-> mong ourselves, their results will, of course, be the better adapted for the perusal and instruction of those among whom I have been called to labour. It is with a view, therefore, to your edification, in some points of church order and government, about which there is perhaps a diversity of opinion amongst ourselves, and which are probably not sufficiently understood by all, that I

now appear before you and the public, in connection with controverted questions which have so often agitated the christian church, and some of which are, at the present time, occupying a large share of the attention of certain portions of the ecclesiastical world.

In the remarks which I have to offer, you will find but little reference to those sources of argument which have often been so extensively urged by the advocates of different forms of church order, arising out of the history of the early opinions of the church, as imbodied in the works of the Fathers. My local situation has prevented me from having free access to radical authorities, and I am unwilling that you should be taxed with the recital of that, which the writer himself should be obliged to receive on trust from others. Whatever claims therefore, may be set up in favour of church authority, and the principles and mode according to which it should be exercised, I shall attempt to sustain from the word of God, (the only infallible ground of appeal in matters of this kind) and by such arguments as may present themselves from the nature and constitution of society in its different organic forms. This course, I should prefer, even though I had access to all the Fathers, and could find every principle which I wish to establish, clearly sustained by their authority. while it is allowed that the authority of the Fathers may furnish us with a degree of collateral evidence in matters of fact, which ought not to be rejected, I apprehend that all arguments drawn from precedents, or the practice of the church, subsequent to the days of the Apostles, would have but little weight with those at whose conviction we aim in the following pages. Unless the

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