Writers su

rally with

recording

some

without any thought of what might be necessary information for persons at a distance and in afterages; but we cannot, of course, attribute to any such causes omissions in the inspired Writers. The Sacred On no supposition whatever can we acpernatu- count for the omission, by all of them, held from of many points which they do omit, and things. of their scanty and slight mention of others, except by considering them as withheld by the express design and will (whether communicated to each of them or not) of their Heavenly Master, restraining them from committing to writing many things which, naturally, some or other of them, at least, would not have failed so to record.

I have set forth accordingly, in a distinct treatise, these views respecting the Omissions in the Sacred Books of the New Testament, and the important inferences thence to be deduced. We seek in vain there for many things which, humanly speaking, we should have most surely calculated on finding. "No such thing is to be found in our Scriptures as a Catechism, or regular Elementary Introduction to the Christian Religion; nor do they furnish us with any thing of the nature of a Systematic Creed, set of Articles, Confession of Faith, or by whatever other name one may designate a regular, complete Compendium of Christian doctrines: nor, again,

* Essay VI., First Series. See Appendix, Note (D.)

do they supply us with a Liturgy for ordinary Public Worship, or with Forms for administering the Sacraments, or for conferring Holy Orders; nor do they even give any precise directions as to these and other ecclesiastical matters; any thing that at all corresponds to a Rubric, or set of Canons."

Now these omissions present,-as I have, in that Treatise, endeavoured to show,-a complete moral demonstration that the Apostles and their followers must have been supernaturally withheld from recording great part of the institutions, instructions, and regulations, which must, in point of fact, have proceeded from them ;—withheld, on purpose that other Churches, in other Ages and Regions, might not be led to consider themselves bound to adhere to several formularies, customs, and rules, that were of local and temporary appointment; but might be left to their own discretion in matters in which it seemed best to Divine wisdom that they should be so left."

Christian Churches

from Syna

$9. With respect to one class of those points that have been alluded to, it derived is probable that one cause-humanly gogues. speaking-why we find in the Sacred Books less information concerning the Christian Min

y See Appendix, Note (D.)

istry and the Constitution of Church-Governments than we otherwise might have found, is that these institutions had less of novelty than some would at first sight suppose, and that many portions of them did not wholly originate with the Apostles. It appears highly probable -I might say morally certain that wherever a Jewish Synagogue existed that was brought,— the whole or the chief part of it,—to embrace the Gospel, the Apostles did not, there, so much form a Christian Church, (or Congregation ;a Ecclesia,) as make an existing Congregation Christian; by introducing the Christian Sacraments and Worship, and establishing whatever regulations were requisite for the newly-adopted Faith; leaving the machinery (if I may so speak) of government, unchanged; the "Rulers of Synagogues, Elders, and other Officers (whether spiritual or ecclesiastical, or both) being already provided in the existing institutions. And it is likely that several of the earliest Christian Churches did originate in this way; that is, that they were converted Synagogues; which became

See Lightfoot, Appendix, Note (C.)

a The word "Congregation," as it stands in our Version of the Old Testament, (and it is one of very frequent occurrence in the Books of Moses,) is found to correspond, in the Septuagint, which was familiar to the New-Testament Writers, to Ecclesia; the word which, in our Version of these last, is always rendered-not" Congregation," but " Church." This, or its equivalent " Kirk," is pro bably no other than "circle;" i. e. Assembly, Ecclesia.

Christian Churches as soon as the members, or the main part of the members, acknowledged Jesus as the Messiah.

allowed to

The attempt to effect this conversion Precedence of a Jewish Synagogue into a Christian the Jews. Church, seems always to have been made, in the first instance, in every place where there was an opening for it. Even after the call of the idolatrous Gentiles, it appears plainly to have been the practice of the Apostles Paul and Barnabas, when they came to any city in which there was a Synagogue, to go thither first and deliver their sacred message to the Jews and "devout (or proselyte) Gentiles ;"— according to their own expression, (Acts xiii. 16,) to the "men of Israel and those that feared

b

b These seem to be the first who are employed in converting the idolatrous Gentiles to Christianity,* and their first considerable harvest among these seems to have been at Antioch in Pisidia, as may be seen by any one who attentively reads the 13th Chapter of Acts. Peter was sent to Cornelius, a " devout" Gentile ;-one of those who had renounced idolatry and frequented the Synagogues. And these seem to have been regarded by him as in an especial manner his particular charge. His Epistles appear to have been addressed to them; as may be seen both by the general tenor of his expression, and especially in the opening address which is not (as would appear from our Version) to the dispersed Jews, but to the “Sojourners of the dispersion,” πaρɛidńμovs diaoropas, i.e. the devout Gentiles living among the "Dispersion."

* See Barrington's Miscellanea Sacra.

t See Hinds's History, vol. ii.

God" adding, that "it was necessary that the Word of God should first be preached to them."

And when they founded a Church in any of those cities in which (and such were, probably, a very large majority) there was no Jewish Synagogue that received the Gospel, it is likely they would still conform, in a great measure, to the same model.

New directions need

converted

Synagogues.

But though, as has been said, the ed even for circumstance just mentioned was probably the cause-humanly speaking— why some particulars are not recorded in our existing Sacred Books, which otherwise we might have found there, still, it does seem to me perfectly incredible on any supposition but that of supernatural interference, that neither the Apostles nor any of their many followers should have committed to writing any of the multitude of particulars which we do not find in Scripture, and concerning which we are perfectly certain the Apostles did give instructions, relative to Church-Government, the Christian Ministry, and Public- Worship. When we consider how large a proportion of the Churches and of the ministers were Gentiles and strangers to the constitution of Jewish Synagogues, and also how much was introduced that was new and strange, even to Jewish Christians (as well as highly important)-the Christian Sacraments being wholly new, and the Prayers