Certainty with which regular formularies, but incidentally, irregularly, and often by oblique allusions; less striking indeed at first sight than distinct enunciations and enactments, but often even the more decisive and satisfactory from that very circumstance; because the Apostles frequently allude to some truth as not only essential, but indisputably admitted, and familiarly known to be essential by those they were addressing." On the whole then, I cannot but think an things en- attentive and candid inquirer, who brings to the joined, forbidden and study of Scripture no extraordinary learning or ary, may be acuteness, but an unprejudiced and docile mind, discretion distin guished. may ascertain with reasonable certainty, that there are points—and what those points are— which are insisted on by our sacred writers as essential; and again, which are excluded as inconsistent with the religion they taught; and again, that there are many other points, some of them such that the Apostles cannot but have practically decided them in one way or another on particular occasions, (such as the mode of administering the Eucharist, and many others) respecting which they have not recorded their decisions, or made any general enactment to be observed in all Ages and Countries. And the inference seems to be inevitable, that " See Rhetoric, 6th Edition, Part I. ch. 2, § 4. § 17.] Contrary Errors opposed to the above Principles. 111 they purposely left these points to be decided in each Age and Country according to the discretion of the several Churches, by a careful application of the principles laid down by Christ and his Apostles. errors at with the ciples. § 17. At variance with what has been now Opposite said, and also at variance with each other, are variance some opinions which are to be found among above prindifferent classes of Christians, in these, as well as in former times. The opposite errors (as they appear to me to be) of those opinions may in many instances be traced, I conceive in great measure, to the same cause; to the neglect, namely, of the distinction-obvious as it is to any tolerably attentive reader-which has been just noticed, between those things on the one hand, which are either plainly declared and strictly enjoined, or distinctly excluded, by the Sacred Writers, and on the other hand, those on which they give no distinct decision, injunction, or prohibition; and which I have thence concluded they meant to place under the jurisdiction of each Church. To the neglect of this distinction, and again, to a want of due consideration of the character, offices, and rights of a Christian Community, may be attributed, in a great degree, the prevalence of errors the most opposite to each other. Error of those who There are persons, it is well known, who from regard no not finding in Scripture precise directions, and Church- strict commands, as to the constitution and &c. as bind-regulation of a Christian Church,—the several ordinances, ing. Orders of Christian Ministers, the distinct functions of each, and other such details, have adopted the conclusion,—or at least seem to lean, more or less, towards the conclusion-that it is a matter entirely left to each individual's fancy or convenience to join one Christian Society, or another, or none at all;-to take upon himself, or confer on another, the ministerial office, or to repudiate altogether any Christian Ministry whatever :-to join, or withdraw from, any, or every religious Assembly for joint Christian worship, according to the suggestion of his individual taste:-in short, (for this is what it really amounts to when plainly stated) to proceed as if the sanction manifestly given by our Lord and his Apostles to the establishment of Christian Communities, and consequently, to all the privileges and powers implied in the very nature of a Community, and also the inculcation in Scripture of the principles on which Christian Churches are to be conducted, were all to go for nothing, unless the application of these principles to each particular point of the details of Churchgovernment, can also be found no less plainly laid down in Scripture. expecting rections point of Now though I would not be understood as Mistake of insinuating any thing against the actual morality precise diof life of those who take such views, I cannot on each but remark, that their mode of reasoning does detail. seem to me perfectly analogous to that of men who should set at nought all the moral principles of the Gospel, and account nothing a sin that is not expressly particularized as forbidden,nothing a duty, that is not, in so many words, enjoined. Persons who entertain such lax notions as I have been alluding to, respecting Church-enactments, should be exhorted to reflect carefully on the obvious and self-evident, but often-forgotten truth-the oftener forgotten, perhaps, in practice, from its being self-evidentthat right and duty are reciprocal; and, consequently, that since a Church has a right (derived, as has been shown, both from the very nature of a Community, and from Christ's sanction) to make regulations, &c. not at variance with Scripture-principles, it follows that compliance with such regulations must be a duty to the individual members of that Church. those who Scripture On the other hand, there are some who, in Error of their abhorrence and dread of principles and seek in practices subversive of all good order, and tending to anarchy and to every kind of extravagance, sanction to have thought,—or at least professed to think,-each that we are bound to seek for a distinct authori- enactment. or Tradition for a Church tative sanction, in the Scriptures, or in some other ancient writings,-some Tradition in short -for each separate point which we would maintain. They assume that whatever doctrines or practices, whatever institutions, whatever regulations respecting Church-government, we can conclude, either with certainty, or with any degree of probability, to have been either introduced by the Apostles, or to have prevailed in their time, or in the time of their immediate successors, are to be considered as absolutely binding on all Christians for ever;—as a model from which no Church is at liberty to depart. And they make our membership of the Church of Christ, and our hopes of the Gospel-salvation, depend on an exact adherence to every thing that is proved, or believed, or even suspected, to be an apostolical usage; and on our possessing what they call Apostolical Succession; that is, By "ancient" some persons understand what belongs to the first three centuries of the Christian era; some, the first four; some, seven; so arbitrary and uncertain is the standard by which some would persuade us to try questions, on which they, at the same time, teach us to believe our Christian Faith and Christian Hope are staked! "Scire velim, pretium chartis quotus arroget annus: Est vetus atque probus, centum qui perficit annos. Horace, Epist. I. b. 2. |