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be, the means made use of by him for the purpose will be no other than what a Christian ought to employ. Without pronouncing sentence, therefore, upon or disturbing those who are without the Church, his object will be to preserve those that still remain in it," &c. In page 37, you find me speaking the same charitable language. "Custom has, indeed, so far reconciled us to the divisions that have taken place among Christians, that they are no longer seen in the light in which they were seen in the primitive days of the Church; whilst charity, forbidding us to speak harshly of the spiritual condition of our brethren, has in a manner tended to efface the sin of schism from our minds. But though we presume to judge no man, leaving all judgment to that Being who is alone qualified to make allowance for the ignorance, invincible prejudice, imperfect reasonings, and mistaken judgments of his frail creatures; yet must it not from hence be concluded, that it is a matter of indifference whether Christians communicate with the Church or not, or that there is a doubt upon the subject of schism, whether it be a sin or not." In alluding to Baxter and his ejected brethren, in the last century, I speak of them as "pious, learned" ministers; and in common with every well-wisher to the cause of religion, lament the existence of those unhappy prejudices which deprived the Church of their ministerial labours.*

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You favour me with a passage from Dr. Saunderson, whom you call an able and strenuous advocate for our national Church, where he says, "For *Guide, p. 255.

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my own part, I make no doubt, nor dare I be so uncharitable as to think, but that many of them have honest, and upright, and sincere hearts towards God, and are unfeignedly zealous of the truth and for religion. They that are such, no doubt feel the comfort of it in their own souls, and we see the fruits of it in their conversation, and rejoice at it."* Give me leave to ask you, what does this passage contain that is not to be found, if the reader was disposed to find it, in my book. I have represented separatists as pious Christians, many of them exemplarily so, and in that respect a patlook can with tern worthy to be copied after. I as much reverence to the names of a Watts, a Leland, and a Doddridge, as Christians of distinguished piety, as you or any dissenter possibly can; at the same time that I lament their separation from our Church. And Dr. Saunderson, though charitable in his judgment upon dissenters, as Christians, possessed, I have no doubt, a similar idea upon the subject of their separation; or I do not understand upon what ground he could be a strenuous, able advocate for our national Church: and could I not discriminate between the pious Christian professor and the member of the esta blished Church, I should be totally unqualified to write upon the subject I have undertaken.

Having pleaded thus far in arrest of judgment in a case in which I feel myself deeply interested, because no charge is so readily brought against the ministers of the Church of England as that of want of charity; (and I believe no charge will, upon * Dr. Saunderson, p. 169.

fair trial, be found more destitute of foundation; for I will venture to say, that upon an appeal to the dissenters themselves, it will be admitted, that of all the Christian societies in this kingdom, that of the Church of England is by far the most tolerant and the most charitable ;) having, I say, pleaded thus far in arrest of judgment against a charge, which of all those contained in your book I feel most anxious to set aside, I proceed to the examination of the particular passage upon which your judgment against me in this respect has been formed. The passage in question is taken, I perceive, from my tenth discourse, which treats of the advantages attendant upon a conscientious communion with the Church, together with the disadvantages consequent on a wilful separation from it.

One of the principal considerations necessary to be impressed upon the mind of the reader on this occasion, was the commission from which the act of the minister of the Church derived its validity, for the benefit of the parties concerned in it. The commission to administer the sacraments of the Church was originally delivered by our Saviour to his Apostles, accompanied with a power to invest others with the same important office. From this Divine fountain all authority in this case must be derived. The priest " is ordained (says the Apos tle) for men in things pertaining to God."* He, then, who is to act in things pertaining to God in the affairs of his Church, must certainly have a commission from God to authorise him so to do. * Heb. v. 1.

“No man (the Apostle tells us) taketh this honour unto himself, but he that is called of God."* And in the Church as a visible society, that must be governed by some external polity, an outward and visible appointment to the offices in it is necessary; because without such an appointment no visible society could exist; and without the existence of such visible society as the Church, the profession of Christianity would in time be extinguished. "It cannot but be observed," says a judicious writer, who paid particular attention to this subject, and whose work I take leave to recommend, "that all the sects and denominations of religion, whose names have been ever heard of in the world, have appeared under the form of visible societies; and if any particular enthusiasts have pursued any chimerical scheme of an inrisible Church, their project has perished with them: and if Christ had left his Church without any obligation to external union as a visible society, his religion had had the same fate, and been long since forgotten.”†

From whence it has followed, that a regular reception of the Divine commission, through the channel appointed to convey it, has been a circumstance which in every age of the Church, from the times of the Apostles down to the present day, has been considered essential to the validity of the ministerial office. For when Christ said to his disciples on the Mount, "I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world,”‡ it has been understood,

• Heb. v. 4.

Rogers on the Visible and Invisible Church, page 141.
Matt. xxviii. 20.

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that his spirit and authority were to be with them as governors of the Church, and their appointed successors, in the due exercise of the commission with which he then invested them, to the end of time. Now to suppose that nothing on this occasion was exclusively promised, is to suppose that nothing was exclusively granted, and that the commission delivered to particulars, was designed to be exercised by mankind at large; an absurdity against which we presume it unnecessary to argue. To quote from Bishop Reynolds, (and I wish not better authority on this subject)" Necessary ordinances pre-suppose necessary officers to administer them. Christ hath appointed necessary ordinances to be to the end of the world administered; therefore, the officers who are to administer them are necessary likewise. He did not appoint a work to be done, and leave it to the wide world who should do it; but committed the ministry of reconciliation to stewards and ambassadors by him selected for that service.* But it may be objected, others may promote these ends as well as ministers; all believers are commanded to comfort, support, edify one another; therefore no need of such an office for the doing of them. For although every private Christian in his place and station ought to minister grace to the hearers, to have his speeches seasoned with salt, and fitted to the use of edifying; yet these great works are not done with the same authority, efficacy, certainty, or order, by a private hand as by public officers." “I was made a * 1 Cor. iv. 1; and 2 Cor. v. 19.

+1 Thes. v. 11, 14; Jude v. 20. Bishop Reynolds' Works, fol. page 1055.

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