tion of charity in general, but to that particular conformity in religious sentiment, in points of faith and modes of worship, which must have subsisted between Christ and his disciples during his continuance upon earth. They were his flock, and he the one shepherd. There was no hint of their separating into different and independent companies; of any liberty to choose separate paths for themselves. All our Lord's words pointed to the strictest obedience, to the closest adherence to one uniform rule. "Ye are

my friends, if ye keep whatsoever I have com"manded you." "If ye keep my commandments,

ye shall abide in my love, even as I have kept my father's commandments, and abide in his "love." Will it now be said, that the man who first separated himself from the church, who, upon pretences more or less frivolous, declared himself independent of his brethren, did "abide" in that "love," and "keep those commandments?" Surely not. Must we not rather believe that, when our blessed Lord particularly prayed that his disciples should remain united, in order that the world might believe, that God had sent him, he had in view that very scandal, which our divisions and our contentions have excited; and of which, as I have before mentioned, the adversaries of our faith have so amply availed themselves; and that he was shewing a par

* John xv. 14. 10.

ticular anxiety, that so great a stumbling block should not exist?

To some of my audience I shall, probably, appear as having spent some time, and a great many words, very unnecessarily, in proving that which is so plain, as not to be open to controversy. To others, however, I may appear to have been faulty for a reason almost directly opposite. I shall be thought to have been laying a great deal of stress upon what is, in fact, of no consequence; upon what they conceive to be not even a fair subject for any question Many there are who will be surprised, and who will revolt at any argument which tends to shew, that it is not left to the arbitrary will or caprice of any man to worship God after that mode which is most agreeable to his imagination. They will look upon it as a novelty to be told (what yet is the old and true doctrine) that to that sound part of Christ's church, which is established in the country where he was born, or where the providence of God has fixed him, he is bound to adhere; that to all its ordinances in indifferent matters, all those rules, which it has directed to be observed, for the purpose of edification, it is his duty to conform; that he who separates from such a particular church, does it at his peril; that he is committing an act, for which he must be seriously and deeply accountable at the day of judgment;

that, in short, schism, independently of all considerations of doctrine, though it should be no part of its object to work any express corruption of the truth, is in itself a grievous and a heinous sin; hurtful in the greatest degree to the general interests of Christianity, and big with the most serious consequences to the individual.

1

That, when I affirm this, I am treading upon tender ground; that this is a position which has for some time past, by many persons, been considered as obsolete; and hardly so accredited, as to make it necessary for any sectary to combat, or even to notice it, I am fully aware. But I feel, also, that this only makes it the more incumbent upon those who are the appointed teachers of the word to maintain and enforce it. It is for that very purpose, among others, that a standing ministry was instituted; it was ordained with that very intent, that whatever changes took place in the minds of the great body of Christians, there should be a particular and chosen number, who should be constantly upon the watch, lest either any part of that which is sound and true doctrine should be lost, or any new and unfounded tenet should be introduced. It is also more especially the end for which these and similar lectures have been founded. It was foreseen that, in the variety of changes to which all human affairs are

liable, and by which the opinions, as well as the worldly circumstances of men are so materially affected, it might happen that great and culpable indifference might prevail upon the more important and material points of our religion; and that it might require an extraordinary degree or sort of exertion, either to keep them in remembrance and preserve them in their full vigour ; or, in the case of their being neglected and forgotten, to bring them again into light, and to claim for them their due rank and estimation. And most surely to me, in the present instance, it must be conceded, that when the pious founder of this lecture directed that it might be preached for the confutation of schismatics, as well as of heretics, he did not consider schism as a light and trivial matter; he did not conceive that it was left to the caprice or whim of every man, whether he should join in communion with the national church or no. I may be allowed to conjecture, that perhaps it was the very lukewarmness upon this subject, which he saw creeping as it were over the church, and infecting and neutralizing many of those whose duty it was to be most active in opposing its effects, which caused him to insert this particular direction for its being noted and confuted.

For it is most certain, as I have before declared, that it was not always so. It will be

evident to any man who will look back into history, only so far as the beginning of the last century, that, down to that time, the guilt of schism was considered as so heinous that it was loudly deprecated or disclaimed by all parties. How it has happened that, by degrees, the dread of such an imputation has diminished,' till at last it has dwindled almost into nothing, and has ceased even to be thought of, may also, as I conceive, be tolerably well accounted for by those who will consider the change which has taken place in the situation of the church, and the nature of the adversaries which she has had to contend with, from the period which I have mentioned down to the present moment.

I shall perhaps, before I go farther, be called upon to state what I mean, whether I wouldset up an "absolute" authority in the church;

"Those readers who are conversant with the Bangorian controversy, of which I shall have more to say by and by, will recollecti how much turned upon the use of this same word "absolute," in Bishop Hoadly's famous sermon upon John xviii. 36. As nobody, that is, no protestant claimed, or has ever claimed such an "abso"lute" authority, it was evident that if that was all which the bishop was contending against, he was in fact but fighting a shadow. The supposition was indeed contrary to the general tenour of the sermon, as well as his other writings, and therefore it was more than suspected that it was a mere after-thought of the bishop's, in order to shelter himself from animadversion. William Law in his first letter, plainly shews that the bishop's arguments "conclude as "strongly against all authority as against that which is absolute." It was in fact asserted that the word "absolute" was inserted by the