this out, it should be proved that the net catches all the fish wherever it is cast into the sea.

To crown this argument; the kingdom of heaven is likened unto "ten virgins, of whom five were wise, and five were foolish." Matt. XXV. 1. This also must mean "civil society," or the hypothesis we are considering is ruined. But what man in his senses will venture upon so extravagant an assertion? All these virgins professed to belong to the train of the bridegroom—All the members of civil society make no such profession. It is wasting words to press the point further. This notion of the state of civil society being represented by the parable of the tares, &c., is a fable invented in order to get rid of a troublesome truth: and adds another to the numberless examples already given by zeal without knowledge, of its being much easier to contradict the Scriptures, than to explain them. The sum is,

That the kingdom of heaven cannot designate the election of grace; because no one belonging to that will be "cast into the furnace of fire."-We have proved that it cannot signify the state of civil society, and it would be superlatively ridiculous to confine it to a single congregation; therefore,

It must mean the external Visible Church, which, according to the conditions of description, can be but ONE.

If we proceed a little further, we shall meet with the same thing under a different

form. The apostle Paul, in his first letter to the Corinthian Christians, chap. xii. treats, at length, of the various gifts which the Holy Spirit had bestowed upon various individuals. He argues that these gifts ought to be no ground of dissension, for these two reasons: first, that they were all of the same divine original; and secondly, that they all contributed to the common good, and most effectually by retaining each its appropriate place. The latter reason is illustrated by the analogy of the human body; and winds up with declaring "Now ye are the body of Christ, and members in particular." The question is, what are we to understand by the "body of Christ?"

That it signifies a whole, is as plain as that words signify any thing. Then, what whole? Not the church at Corinth, far less a particular congregation, unless the commission of the apostles and the use of all spiritual gifts, extend no further.

Not the church of the elect; for there are no "schisms" in that body, as such. A schism which cannot be perceived is no schism; and the moment you render it perceptible, you are in a visible church. Nor can it be affirmed, but at the expense of all fact and consistency, that God hath set no officers except in the church of his Redeemed. For, upon that supposition no church officer could ever exercise his office toward any non-elected man; the pastoral relation could never be fixed without knowing beforehand

who are the elected of God; or else, no person, however blasphemous and abominable, could be kept out of a church, because such "blasphemer and injurious" may possibly be "a chosen vessel." These are absurdities.

But a body, a church there is, in which "God hath set, first, apostles; secondarily, prophets; thirdly, teachers, &c." An individual congregation it is not. A partial coalescence of congregations it is not. The "church of the first-born whose names are written in heaven," it is not: and yet it is a church; the church to which God hath given his ordinances. There is no escape; it can be no other than what we have called the Visible Church Catholic.

The reader has been more inattentive than it would be fair to suspect of any who shall peruse these sheets, if he has not remarked, that all the means of salvation are external. The Scriptures, the Sabbath, the solemn assembly, the sacraments, the ministry; in a word, the whole system of instituted worship, is visible. Now, is it not a most incredible thing, that the church and the ordinances committed to her, should be of opposite natures? Or rather, that the ordinances. should have a solid, external existence, and the church to which they are given, no such existence at all! A visible Bible, visible ministry, visible worship, visible sacraments, visible discipline, and no visible church! Nothing but a phantom, a metaphysical idea, as the repository of God's truth and

institutions! One fact in the history of revelation, is enough to dispel these visions. It will not be controverted that the Scriptures are God's testimony to his Church. But more than one half of this testimony was delivered to the Israelites in their public covenanted character; for "unto them were committed the oracles of God." Unto whom, then, have the subsequent Scriptures been committed?"Unto the New Testament Church," you will say. Agreed. But the question falls back upon you, what is the New Testament Church? If she is not the very same great society which God formerly erected for the praise of his glory, and has caused to pass under a new form of dispensation, three consequences follow:

1st. That the Old Testament is no part of the trust deposited with her, and belongs not to the rule of her faith.

2d. That God has divided his testimony between two churches of the most different nature; and of which one has long been extinct. Therefore,

3d. That the whole Scriptures, as the testimony of God, never were, nor can be, committed to any church whatever, unless in virtue of another special revelation.

But if, on the contrary, these Scriptures are the testimony of God deposited with his Church, then it irresistibly follows, that she is now, and ever has been, since her first organization, a public visible society which God has appropriated to himself; where his

name is known, and his mercies are vouchsafed.

And, indeed, the general principle of the Church visible is so inseparable from the Christian style and doctrine, that its most strenuous opposers are unconsciously admitting it every hour of their lives. They talk habitually of "the Church; the faith of the Church; the worship of the Church; the sufferings of the Church; God's dealings with his Church," and a thousand things of like import. Let them ask what they mean by such expressions? They will not say, "a particular congregation;" and if they say "the election of grace," they will speedily contradict themselves, and fact, and the word of God too. Their whole language, as Christians, is accommodated to the very thing, which, in form, they renounce. There is no getting along without it. No ingenuity can enable them to converse five minutes together about the Church of God, as existing on earth, without the introduction of an idea different from either of those which they affix to that term: and this third idea, if they will be at the trouble to analyze it, will turn out to be no other than that of the Visible Church Catholic.

We have now developed our views of that phrase, "the Church," and assigned our reasons for them: the reader will, therefore, recollect, when he meets with it in the course of our disquisitions, that we mean by it the aggregate body of those who profess the true