ciple in its obvious application to other cases. It will be readily admitted, that there are numerous crimes, and some of them of the most heinous description, which are necessarily beyond the cognizance of human laws, and exempt from every hunan penalty; and that there are others, with which, from motives of policy, they forbear to interfere. Will it therefore be maintained, that a man has an absolute right to do all the wrong which the laws permit, that he may measure his liberty by his impunity, that he may freely and with a safe conscience expatiate throughout the extensive range of iniquity, which is thus opened to his career? If there could be no hesitation in replying, that in all these cases the commands of God and the immutable obliga

"which he will be worshipped, I am no more at li"berty, upon the mere ground of my own persuasion, "to worship him in any other way, than I am at liberty "to act in contradiction to his revealed will in any other "matter. When men, therefore, talk of liberty of con"science, they would do well to consider, whether it be "not, as the phrase is now generally understood, rather 66 a liberty of their own making, than any portion of "that liberty wherewith Christ has made them free." Ibid. p. 132.

tions of religion await not the decision of any earthly tribunal, why in the case before us is it not also made the first consideration, what are the institutions of God? Why is it not equally plain, that to found a claim to neglect or alter these institutions on the i permission of the civil magistrate, is to attribute to him a right which he neither possesses nor assumes; to look to an

i The extreme inconsistency of such a plea, when advanced by our own Dissenters, is well worthy of more particular observation. "The Dissenters," says an ingenious writer, "plead, that what is called the Act of "Toleration has given a sanction to their separation, "and taken away the sin of it. And," at the same time, with respect to the Church of England, "they have ar"gued, that it even ceases to be a Church of Christ, be"cause it acts under the allowance of the civil power. "Yet in their own case, the King and Parliament, by an "act of grace, can make schism to be no schism! The 66 protection we have from the civil government is cast "in our teeth as a disadvantage which extends even to "the unchurching of us, and throwing us out of the "kingdom of Christ: but the same thing (supposing "them to have it) takes away from them the guilt of "their separation! And thus they give to the King and "Parliament the privilege of God himself, who only can "forgive sin; which is more than we ever allowed "them!" Short View of the present State of the Argument between the Church of England and the Dissenters. Scholar Armed, vol. ii. p. 58, 59.

authority merely political for privileges purely spiritual, for a liberty, in short, which he can neither give nor take away?

In fact, Christianity in its essential institutions, as well as in its doctrines, is to us precisely what it was to our forefathers in the primitive ages, and what it will be to our posterity in the remotest generation; it came forth from its Divine Author perfect and immutable, and susceptible of no improvement from the inventions of man. In religion, therefore, the liberty now contended for is absolute licentiousness;-to innovate is to impair; to model anew is to destroy; and legitimate reformation is no more than a recurrence to those original principles, which in the lapse of ages may have suffered from corruption or disuse.

k Bishop Hall speaks thus of the principles on which our own Reformation was conducted:" Be it known "to all the world, that our Church is only reformed or "repaired, not made new: there is not one stone of a "new foundation laid by us; yea, the old walls stand "still; only the overcasting of those ancient stones with "the untempered mortar of new inventions displeases Set aside the corruptions, and the Church is the "same."

us.

D

Another notion highly prevalent at the present day, and it unfortunately prevails among many who are sincerely disposed to piety and religion, is, that provided purity of doctrine1 be preserved, it matters not under what form of Church government it be, or whether under any whatever; in short, that where the Gospel is truly preached, there the Church of Christ is assembled.

"But they consider not," as LeslieTM well remarked, "that the government was or"dained to secure the doctrine; and that "no instance can be given, from Jeroboam downwards, where the change of the go"vernment did not bring along with it a change of doctrine."

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The Church, we are assured by the Apostle, is "the pillar and ground of the "truth";" the pillar necessary to its support, the ground without which it could not stand. If we can doubt this in our own

1 This setting up of purity against discipline bears rather a striking resemblance to the Puritanism which once overthrew both Church and State,

m

731.

Leslie, Dissert. concerning Eccles. Hist. vol. i. P. n 1 Tim. iii. 15.

particular case, if we are unconvinced that it

is to the Church alone that we are indebted for the preservation of sound doctrine, let us but refer to our historical experience. During the temporary extinction of ecclesiastical authority in this country, no less than sixty heresies, some of them of the most monstrous description, are recorded to have arisen; all of which, with the exception of three or four of the most eminent, on the restoration of Episcopacy, instantly disappeared, as mists before the

66

Without making any further appeal to Scripture in the present stage of the argument, suffice it to observe, that submission to spiritual governors is as decidedly enforced in holy writ, as any doctrine or precept that could be named, and that it is in vain to institute an inquiry into the comparative importance of commands emanating from the same divine source, of course requiring the same unqualified obedience. Yea, rather, much worse than in

o Leslie, Dissert. vol. i. p. 732.

P 1 Thess. v. 12. and Heb. xiii. 17.