from their age, were fittest to add the force of example to the piety of their precepts. And these venerable teachers are described under the image of shepherds and guides; offices, in themselves, low and humble, but sanctified by the use they were to make of them; which was, to secure their followers from error, and lead them into the way of truth; not to blind their eyes and shut out the light of their understandings, and then make them believe that they were in the right path. The Apostles and first preachers undertook a burthen, not an office of power and authority; they were better and poorer than other people, not their lords and masters. The officers which are now supposed necessary to constitute a church, vastly exceed those of the primitive one in number, and fall as much short of them in point of utility.* Nor was the discipline of the church of Christ exercised with any severity. "The delivery of men over to Satan," was by no means a consigning them to the punishment of the damned in the next world, after having tor

* In our common idea of the English Church, the body of the people is hardly included. It is supposed to consist of the King, as supreme head; of Archbishops, Bishops, Priests, Deacons, Deans, Archdeacons, Convocations, Chancellors, Treasurers, Præcentors, Prebendaries, Canons, Petty Canons, Rectors, Vicars, Curates, Chaplains, Choristers, Organists, Parish Clerks, Vergers, Sextons, &c. Vide Robertson's Attempt to explain the Words Reason, Substance, &c., p. 171.

tured them to death in this. Amendment, not their destruction, was the object. It was done, that they "might learn" not "to speak ill” of religion, which was of so holy a nature, as not to admit a bad man into it. And these persons whom the Apostle speaks of, were of the most abandoned cast; apostates; men who had both sacrificed their faith and conscience, and become such a disgrace to their calling, that they were fit only to associate with the profligate and immoral; with those who were "enemies" to the gospel, and its greatest "opposers." "This delivering over to Satan," is very different from delivering over to the civil magistrate and the executioner; and if they had not "made shipwreck of a good conscience,"* as well as their faith," they would not have been treated as bad men, but as mistaken ones. The infliction of tortures, and death in all its hideous forms, for a want of faith in what reason cannot comprehend, or for entertaining a doubt about the authority which imposes such a belief, was a refinement in cruelty reserved for later ages of the church. The Apostles and first Christians had learned a better lesson from their Master, "who came not to destroy men's lives, but to save them." And this he said, when his disciples wanted him "to call down fire from heaven" to consume those dissenters and heretics, the Samaritans he told them, "they knew not what the * 1 Tim. i. 19. + Luke ix. 57. Luke ix. 54.

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true spirit of their religion was;" that it breathed nothing but love and charity, and embraced all mankind as brethren; and that no difference of worship, or of religious opinion, ought to abate their good-will, or lessen their good actions, one towards another.

Having considered the Scripture meaning of the word "church," I shall, secondly, shew, that according to our Saviour's declaration, no "danger" can possibly befal it.

Had all other churches been built with the . same materials with the "church of Christ," there would never have been any complaint about their decay, or apprehensions for their fall. That Jesus was the "Christ," "the son of the living God," was the "rock upon which the church of Christ was built." It has withstood the ravages of time, the violence of the floods, and the fury of the storms that have beaten upon it; and nothing has been able to shake it, for it was founded upon a "rock."* Other churches have since been said to be constructed upon this model; but the danger they are now in, from the decayed state of them, plainly proves that they were built upon a very different foundation. The Apostle tells us, "Other foundation can no man lay than that is laid," which is "Jesus Christ." Now, it is certain, an attempt has been made to lay a very different foundation, and to build upon it. Several other propositions, quite

* Luke iv. 48.

contrary to Christianity, and destructive of it, are deemed its fundamental truths; but as they are neither agreeable to reason, nor the word of God, it cannot be expected they should have his power or sanction to support them. The foundation that is laid by the "apostles and prophets" will remain firm and unmoveable; but "if any man build upon this foundation, wood, hay, stubble, his work shall be made manifest; the day shall declare it, because it shall be revealed by fire, and the fire shall try every man's work of what sort it is.' ""* Wherever the fictions of men shall be substituted for the word of God, or a motley mixture of absurd and unscriptural doctrines shall be superadded to it, it shall plainly appear "whose work it is." Revelation and mystery-light and darkness-are so opposite to each other, that if men are suffered to use their reason and senses, they never can be under a mistake about them; and when once they shall exercise their faculties in the search after truth, and bring their opinions to their only test, the Scriptures-then will come the fiery trial to the hay, wood, and stubble-to the whole fabric of error, which has been building for ages, and will pass away like a vision. Such an antichristian church as this must ever be in danger; and no wonder that the members of it are in such constant alarms about it. If any worldly power could procure it aid, it has every security which that

* 1 Cor. iii. 11-13.

can give. Large revenues are allotted to its defence, and every allurement held out to those who will engage in its service. It is guarded by restrictions, fenced in by pains and penalties, and is by LAW ESTABLISHED. With all these supports, still it is in danger, and ever crying out for help. Sure this betrays some very great weakness within, as it is so well defended from without! Great is the power of the civil magistrate, but no power can make a proposition true, which is in itself false; or maintain, by force, the reasonableness of injudicious laws. He may silence the voice of truth, but is not wholly able to stifle it. He may bribe men to profess the grossest contradiction-but no authority can insist upon their believing it. Most human establishments of religion have been productive of sloth, ignorance, and hypocrisy in its professors-cramping the best faculties of the mind, and enslaving it to priestcraft and folly. The religion of Christ stands in no need of such assistance, and can support itself by its own strength and its own evidences. It not only made its way in the world, at its first promulgation, without the aid of the civil power, but in opposition to it; and this at a time when it was preached by a few poor, friendless, and illiterate fishermen. These first preachers had no rewards to distribute, no honours to bestow; nothing to interest their followers, or retain them in their cause. On the contrary, bonds, imprisonment, and death, were