three propositions. Do you believe in the one God, the Jehovah of the Jews? Do you believe that Jesus was the Messiah, who was promised to the world? Do you believe that his mission was miraculous, that God anointed him with the Holy Ghost and with power, and in the other miraculous attestations of Christianity? If so, then you can assent to the Christian faith and be baptized.

This view of things is confirmed by the next article of unity: "One God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all." Father, here, you perceive, is used as synonymous with God, as it is always in the New Testament. He is the Jeho

vah of the Jews, but not a national God. He is the God and Father of all, both Jews and Gentiles. He is above all. He has no one to share his Deity. He pervades all, and dwells in the hearts of all good

men.

Here, then, we have complete the articles of unity in the Christian church. They had one God, the Jehovah of the Jews, and the Father of all mankind; one Lord and Master, Jesus of Nazareth, the Messiah of the Jews. They professed the same faith in the forms of baptism, though they were different under different circumstances. They were pervaded by the same spirit, one soul animated them all, they were united by a moral sympathy, which more than anything else made them one body.

We now turn to the subject of the second quotation in our text, the outward organization of the different branches or portions of the church, and we ask, if there

was here the same uniformity? Had each particular church the same officers for its growth, instruction, and edification? Our text plainly tells us, No. These were different, under different circumstances. Christ, when he ascended on high, the Apostle says, "gave some apostles, and some prophets, and some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers." In another place, the functionaries of the primitive church are enumerated in a manner entirely different. "God hath set some in the church, first, apostles; secondarily, prophets; thirdly, teachers; after that miracles; then gifts of healing, helps, governments, diversities of tongues. Are all apostles, are all prophets, are all teachers, are all workers of miracles, have all the gifts of healing, do all speak with tongues, do all interpret?" In a third place, we have still another enumeration of the officers of the early church. Having then gifts differing according to the grace given unto us, whether prophecy, let us prophesy according to the proportion of faith ; or ministry, let us wait on our ministry; or he that teacheth, on teaching; or he that exhorteth, on exhortation; he that giveth, let him do it with simplicity; he that ruleth, with diligence; he that showeth mercy, with cheerfulness." The official men of the apostolic churches are enumerated in a fourth place in a manner and order still different, in a manner which intimates that the offices did not depend on ordination, or on conventional rank, but on personal endowment. "But the manifestation of the spirit is given to every man to profit withal. For to one is given by the spirit, the word of wisdom; to another the word of knowledge by the

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same spirit; to another faith, by the same spirit; to another the gifts of healing, by the same spirit; to another the working of miracles; to another prophecy ; to another discerning of spirits; to another divers kinds of tongues; to another the interpretation of tongues." Can any one from such passages as these, determine what the primitive organization of the church was? Is there any modern church in which these different offices and orders have their representatives? There is, and there can be no apostolic succession, in the true sense of the word. No uninspired man, by the comparison of the different passages, can now define what these different offices were, and how they were distinguished from each other. There is a church, which claims to be exclusively apostolic, because it is organized with bishops, priests, and deacons. But you search the above catalogues in vain to find the names even of either of these church dignitaries. There is no church on earth, which corresponds precisely in its organization with the churches founded by the apostles.

Christ, the Scripture says, "gave some apostles, and some prophets, and some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers for the work of the ministry." Could this organization be perpetual? Certainly not. Neither an apostle nor a prophet, who founded a church, could have for a successor an apostle or a prophet. As soon as miraculous powers ceased, they were, of course, succeeded by some other species of teacher under some other name. The church in the next age after the apostles, was instructed and governed in a different manner from what it was during their lives.

It is plain, then, that the outward organization of the Christian community was left to circumstances, that is, it was to adapt itself to the various conditions in which it should be placed. Christ's religion was a spirit and not a form, and therefore capable of such adaptation. It was to spread over the earth, and establish itself among every nation and kindred and tongue and people. It was to survive innumerable changes in the forms of society. It would have been a clog to its advancement, if it had been tied down to one set form and one unchangeable organization.

Christianity and Judaism were essentially different in their fundamental principles. Judaism had a ritual, the forms of which were prescribed to the minutest particular. Not only were certain things ordered to be done, but it was set down by positive statute, how they were to be done. The two ordinances of Christianity are commanded to be celebrated; but as to the manner, there is a profound silence. In Judaism, the priest hood was appointed to a single family, and to be transmitted from father to son, by lineal descent. In Christianity there could be no priesthood, because all sacrifices were done away by Christ's sacrifice of himself. Not only was there no succession of apostles appointed, but it was impossible that they should have any successors. Their relation to the church was peculiar, and could not be transmitted. There could no more be a succession of apostles than there could be a succession of New Testaments. The very phrase apostolic succession, carries in itself a fallacy. It suggests ideas which do not correspond to facts.

The Christian church was not modelled upon the Jewish hierarchy. It did not spring up in the temple. It had its origin in the synagogue, where a totally different order of things existed. Christ himself began to teach in the synagogue. In the synagogue the apostles commenced their ministry in the various cities of the Roman Empire. The organization of the synagogue is well exhibited, as far as our subject is concerned, by a glimpse we have into one of them in the Acts. "And when they departed from Perga, they came to Antioch in Pisidia, and went into the synagogue on the Sabbath day, and sat down. And after the reading of rulers of the synagogue

the law and the prophets, the sent unto them, saying, Ye men and brethren, if ye have any word of exhortation to the people, say on." After the church seceded from the synagogue, the elders of the church, likewise called overseers, or bishops, were the successors not of the apostles, but of the rulers of the synagogue. The rulers of the synagogue were men of mature age, of respectability and gravity of character, and of influence in society, who had the oversight and management of its affairs. Hence it is, that in the first churches of which we read in the New Testament, there were many bishops to one church, instead of being, as in modern times, one bishop to many churches. "Paul and Timotheus, the servants of Jesus Christ, to all the saints in Christ Jesus which are at Philippi, with the bishops and deacons.”

The office of teaching was not confined to the rulers of the synagogue. They might call on any one they supposed qualified by learning or wisdom or experience,