prepared also from the beginning, for their confusion and our trial.

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One of the very chiefest of these precautions was His appointing persons in His Church to watch the treasure of Divine Truth, to try and assay, by comparison with it, whatever doctrines from time to time became current, and to give notice, with all authority, wherever they found God's mark wanting. To mention no other places; our LORD Himself, in the text which I considered on St. Matthias' day, expresses Himself in this manner. I ordained you, that you should go and bring forth fruit, and that your fruit should remain." The Apostles were to take precautions, not only that their ministry might be fruitful for the time, but also that it might flourish and abound for ever. Those who work duly under their commission, may in virtue of this promise expect more abiding results from their labours, than any, however zealous, who may venture to take this honour to themselves. Not to forfeit this privilege, the holy Apostles instituted a regular custom, according to which, in all future times the faithful might be warned against heretical doctrines. When any new point arose, regarding which the judgment of the Church was doubtful, reference was made to the chief pastors or Bishops, solemnly assembled, to consider the subject; and they having thoroughly examined it, proclaimed an anathema, i. e. a sentence of excommunication, against the teachers and maintainers of dangerous error. For example; the very first controversy which arose in the Church related to the question whether the whole law of Moses ought to be observed as a condition of the Christian covenant. It was settled by the Apostles' meeting at Jerusalem, as you read in the fifteenth chapter of the Acts. And, being settled, whoever contradicted it, whoever added either Moses' law or any thing else to the terms of salvation by CHRIST, and thereby began to preach a new Gospel, other than that received at first, you hear in the text what St. Paul says of him. "Though we, or an angel from Heaven, preach any other Gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed :" let him be anathema, cut off from the communion of Christian people; not allowed to pray or receive the sacrament, in the assemblies of Christian men. Let him be, to those who obey CHRIST, "as a heathen man and a publican." Thus speaks the Apostle of those who should be

so presumptuous as to teach the Jewish fable of the necessity of circumcision after the decision of the HOLY SPIRIT by the Apostolical Church had been published. For it was published, with the utmost care, by letters and messengers sent to all the Churches; and being so, could not be disobeyed without wilful arrogancy and irreverence. Thus St. Paul and the rest of the Apostles made known to the Church in all ages their right, and the right of the Bishops, their successors, to mark out such heretics as might arise from time to time, and put the faithful on their guard against them. And thus quite down from the time of our LORD, the Apostolical succession of pastors has continued, as a divinely-appointed guard, meant to secure the integrity of Apostolical doctrine.

Let us, as on this day we are bound, consider more especially what we owe to that holy succession, in respect of that on which, as Christians, our all, as we cannot but know, depends: I mean the true doctrine of the Incarnation of our LORD and SAVIOUR. It may be positively said, that under Providence we owe our inheritance of this saving doctrine to the chain of rightly-ordained Bishops, connecting our times with the time of its first promulgation. This will be more clearly seen, if the two following statements are considered; neither of which can be reasonably doubted by any one who has looked much into Church history.

1. In ancient times the system of Apostolical, i. e. of episcopal anathemas, was the Church's main safeguard against the misinterpretations of Scripture, which from time to time threatened to deprive her children of their faith in God the Son, made man for our salvation.

2. Wheresoever, in modern times, the Apostolical succession has been given up, there the true doctrine of our LORD's incarnation has been often corrupted, always in jeopardy.

These propositions are of course too large to be fully made out in the narrow limits of a sermon. But a few instances of each will show what is meant, and will serve to draw serious minds to reverential thought on the whole subject.

I. Even during the Apostolic age, there were many, who under pretence of purer doctrine, refused to confess "JESUS CHRIST Come in the flesh." This we know from the later books of the New Testament; especially from the writings of St. John. And by the records of the two next generations we learn that

the corruptions were of two kinds, apparently opposite. Some, out of pretended reverence for our LORD's Divine nature, refused to own Him made very man for us. They would have it, that His blessed body was no more than a dream or vision, and all that He did here, a scene as it were enacted by the will of the ALMIGHTY to make an impression on our minds. Others, on the contrary, denied His-Divine being: pretending, no doubt, extraordinary reverence towards GOD the FATHER ALMIGHTY, they would not hear the Gospel doctrine that He who is One with the FATHER, had vouchsafed to become one of us.

They would have it that the crucified JESUS was either a mere human saint, or at best a sort of good angel. Against both these blasphemous errors St. John himself had given warning, pronouncing as it were the Church's anathema beforehand. "There are many

deceivers entered into the world, who confess not JESUS CHRIST come into the flesh. This is a deceiver and an anti-Christ. . . . Whosoever transgresseth, and abideth not in the doctrine of CHRIST, hath not God. He that abideth in the doctrine of CHRIST, he hath both the FATHER and the SON. If there come any unto you, and bring not this doctrine, receive him not into your house, neither bid him GoD speed. For he that biddeth him GoD speed is partaker of his evil deeds." However, in the next generation after St. John, this evil leaven was still found working in the Church, and the false teachers of both sorts still had the boldness to plead Scripture, which somehow they contrived to wrest and pervert in their own way. How were they to be answered? How was it to be made manifest that their interpretation of Scripture was wrong? It was done by appealing to that interpretation, which had the warrant of the Apostles themselves. How was that interpretation known? By its preservation in the several Churches which had been founded by the Apostles, Rome, Corinth, Jerusalem, and the rest. How had the right interpretation of Scripture been preserved in each of those places? By the succession of Bishops, each in turn handing over to the Bishop that followed him what he had himself learned of his predecessors. The defenders of Evangelical truth reasoned as follows:

"The tradition of the Apostles, made known in all the world, may be clearly discerned in every Church, by those who are willing to behold things as they are; nay, and we are able to enu

merate those whom the Apostles ordained to be Bishops in the several Churches, along with their successors, even down to our time, none of whom ever taught or imagined any such doctrine as the heretics in their frenzy maintain. If such interpretations had been known to the Apostles, in the manner of hidden mysteries, reserved to be taught apart to the most perfect, surely, of all others, they to whom the Churches themselves were committed would have had these mysteries committed to them also. For it was the Apostles' wish to have their successors, and those entrusted to bear sway in their stead, complete and unblameable in every thing; whose correct demeanour was sure to be the Church's blessing; their fall, her extreme calamity. It were too long, however, at present to enumerate the chains of Bishops in all the Churches. Look at one of the greatest and ancientest, well known to all, the Church founded and established at Rome, by two most glorious Apostles, Peter and Paul. What tradition she received from the Apostles, and what faith, to be preached to all men, we are able to ascertain; the same having come down to us by the unbroken series and succession of her Bishops. And thus we confound all those who in any way draw wrong conclusions, through self-complacency, or vain-glory, or blindness of heart and evil prejudice. For to this Church of Rome, because of the eminent dignity" (of that city), "it cannot be but that other Churches resort, I mean believers, from every quarter; and in the same Church, among those so resorting, the tradition of the Apostles has been preserved entire." Thus speaks the holy Bishop and martyr Irenæus, who lived within twenty years of St. John himself; and to make good his words, he proceeds to reckon up the Bishops of Rome, from the first, appointed by the two great Apostles, to the time of his writing-twelve in number. "By this order and succession," says Irenæus," the tradition inherited by the Church from the Apostles, and the substance of their preaching, has come down safe to our times."

Thus wrote Irenæus, living in Gaul. And in like manner, not long after him, Tertullian, writing against the same heretics in Africa, and defending that doctrine of our LORD's true Incarnation, which is the very life of the world:-"The heretics," says he, "themselves plead Scripture. How are we to know whether theirs is the true sense or ours? to look and see whether either of the two

The natural way is, can be traced back to

the time of the Apostles. What CHRIST revealed to them they preached; what they preached, must be known by the testimony of those Churches which they themselves founded. If there be any heresies claiming Apostolical antiquity, let them give account of the first beginning of their Churches: let them unfold the roll of their Bishops, so continued by succession from the beginning, as that their first Bishop shall have received ordination from some Apostle or disciple of the Apostles; such a disciple, I mean, as went out from them. For thus do the Churches which are truly Apostolical make out, as it were, their genealogical tables: the Church of Smyrna vouching as her first Prelate Polycarp, there established by St. John; the Church of Rome, Clement, in like manner ordained by St. Peter; and the other Churches no less have each some person to name, fixed by the Apostles, as Bishops, in each respectively; through whom each derives the seed of Apostolical communion." Now, as Tertullian goes on to argue, "this unbroken connexion with the Apostles was a strong pledge of their inheriting sound Apostolical doctrine too, except it could be proved that their doctrine had varied at any time. For, as the Apostles must have agreed with each other in their teaching, so neither could Apostolical men have put forth doctrines contrary to the Apostles; except they were such as had revolted from the Apostles, and might be detected by the diversity of their doctrine." And this would hold in each following age, till some actual variation took place. And if it held in respect of any one Church, how much more in respect of the combined evidence of the independent Churches in all parts of the world, each producing their several lines of succession, terminating in several Apostles or Apostolical men, and each agreeing (for all material points) in the same traditionary doctrine and interpretation of the Scriptures! For instance, when on some occasion, as the same Tertullian relates, the Churches of Rome and Africa "interchanged the watch-word," or, as we might say, compared notes;" what an encouragement and confirmation must it not have proved to both, to find themselves mutually agreed, without previous concert, in their views of Scripture truth, and of the system established by the Apostles!

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By such arguments in the first age were the enemies of CHRIST'S Incarnation put to silence. It is plain, so far, how well the