in this country, fecure our lives and properties in the midst of wickednefs. The laws delivered to the churches refpected the state of their hearts as well as their external conduct; and if the hearts of the members were not right, the outward restraints were too feeble to prevent open rebellion against Christ. He is not fo careful about the appearance as the reality; and the freedom he gives his people in their affociated character, is calculated to prove a ftumbling-block to wicked men, and to make them manifeft.

Under every human government men must part with a portion of their natural freedom, which is well exchanged for the security and the bleffings it provides. This is not the cafe in the churches of the faints. The members neither become fubject, ftrictly speaking, to any individual, nor to the whole body of their brethren. The apostles warned and exhorted them to ftand fast in the glorious liberty wherewith, Chrift had made them free; to remember one was their mafter, even Christ; to him alone they are accountable; to his laws alone they are fubject. Their brethren do not become the lords of their confciences; while they are all to be clothed with humility, to esteem others better than themselves, yea, all to be fubject one to another-they are on no account to deviate from what appears to themfelves to be duty: "Whatsoever is not of faith, is fin." As to any thing in itself indifferent, neither oppo

delivered by the apoftles, fuch as the eating of meats in the first churches, there they are their own masters, and in such a case, although a thing be lawful, it may not be expedient. They must not therefore please themselves; but if they are prevented from attending to any thing which appears to them to be their duty, either by the opinion of an individual or of a church, they are evidently seeking to please men, and are no longer the fervants of Chrift.

Men void of religion may frame a civil government. They may chufe fuch an one as they think beft; but the apoftles taught believers to confider themselves the fervants of Jefus. As fuch they entered a church, and confequently no laws in that church muft interfere with their allegiance to him. To prevent this, the apostles delivered laws which they were to obey in their affociated state, and these were neither to be increased, nor diminished, nor changed.

If any number of people form a voluntary fociety, they may exclude or receive whom they pleafe; but fuch were not the instructions of the apostles to the churches. If any one defired to join them, they were to inquire whether Chrift had received him? and if fo, to give him the right hand of fellowship-for church-fellowship is an ordinance for all his people. Did it appear by the conduct of a member that they had been

the authority of Christ, the church was then, and then only, to exclude him.

A member of the apoftolic churches might withdraw when he pleased; he might thus caft off the authority of Chrift: all that his brethren could do, was to warn him of the confequences; and if he perfifted, to behave towards him as a heathen man and a publican. It is evident, then, that this connexion, being founded on subjection of mind to Jefus Chrift, was capable of being maintained without many regulations which are abfolutely neceffary in civil fociety. It is, therefore, no objection to the conftitution of the churches of Chrift, that it would not answer in civil matters. It was not intended to do so. A form of government fuch as that of the churches of faints, is not fit for wicked men, or even for merely moral men, not under the influence of the gofpel. The kingdom which the apoftles fought to establish, was righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost. Whatever ordinances tend to promote thefe, they, under the influence of the Spirit, delivered to the churches; and any addition, however plaufible, will have a contrary effect.

Many Chriftians have grofsly erred on this fubject. They have been guided in their views of the government of the churches, by their political opinions. No wonder that men of the world have fallen into the fame error. • No

form of church-order is adopted on fuch principles, is equally abfurd. That the bishop should govern with unlimited fway, is not more so than that the people should be subjected to the authority of the elders; and that the people should govern themselves, is fully as oppofite as either to the apoftolic inftitutions. Chriftians are fubjects of a king. Jefus has, by his apoftles, delivered the laws by which his fubjects shall be governed, and in- · formed us how thefe laws are to be administered. The more we attend to his will, the more of his countenance and approbation may we expect to receive.

SECTION II.

IN oppofition to the view given of the word "church," fome have endeavoured to fhew, that by a church in the New Testament is fometimes meant the elders, whom they call the representatives of the whole body; but this is not only completely void of proof, but directly contrary both to the letter and spirit of the paffages where the word occurs. We find the people called the church, exclufive of the elders, Acts xv. 22. but never are the elders fo denoted without the people.

One of the natural confequences,' fays Dr

the facred order was, that they made way for another, by which the minifters of religion, in a manner, appropriated the term church to themfelves. I have had occafion, in thefe lectures, to lay before you the only undoubted acceptations wherein I find the word xxλnoia employed in the New Teftament, and have obferved, that when applied to the difciples of Chrift, it always denotes either the whole Christian community, or all those of a particular, congregation, under the guidance of their own paftors. I have alfo pointed out one deviation from the latter of thefe original meanings, naturally confequent on the change that in a few centuries enfued, when the bishop, inftead of the overfight of one congregation, had the superintendancy of many congregations; that is, when his one congregation, on account of the increase of profelytes, was split into several, and when the habit of applying the word in the fingular number to the whole of a bishop's charge, prevailed over strict propriety, and the primitive use of the term. This prepared men for a still farther extenfion of the name to all the congregations of a province under the fame metropolitan, and afterwards to all those of a civil diocese under the same patriarch or exarch.

I now intend to point out another still more remarkable deviation; a deviation not from the latter, as those now mentioned were, but from