tized; and yet baptism is not, if the cases recorded in Scripture are to rule the point, the first instrument whereby men are made partakers of Christ. Into the exceptional case of Infants, born within the pale of the Church, it does not seem necessary to enter. Independently of the scantiness of the materials which either Scripture or Church History furnishes for our deciding positively on the origin or effects of Infant baptism, it is enough to observe that this case is an exceptional one, and that in our dogmatical conclusions we must be guided by the cases actually recorded in Holy Scriptures. Besides, it must be remembered that nothing less will satisfy the logical requirements of the Sacramental theory than that the first accession of spiritual life should in all cases, that of adults as well as infants, be conveyed through the Sacrament; that this should be the law of the Gospel; and therefore to refute that theory it is only necessary that we be able, as we are, to show that in the instances of baptism recorded in Scripture, this was not the order of things. Under no circumstances, then, can it claim to be considered the universal law of Christianity that baptism is the first instrument of living union with Christ. * * It only remains, on this head, to observe that, as the Romish conception of the Church springs, by necessary consequence, from the two dogmas,—that sacramental union with the Church is the first mean of imparting spiritual life to the soul, and that the sacraments work ex opere operato-so the Protestant is necessarily led to an opposite view, from his insisting upon the order of salvation as laid down in Scripture, and dating the commencement of the life in Christ, in the full sense of the expression, from the regeneration effected by the Word, the effect of which is lively faith in Christ. Holding that, according to the normal, recorded instances, sacramental union with Christ, and with Christ's Church, follows, instead of preceding, that living faith which itself is a divine gift, he cannot otherwise define the Church than as a community of true believers: he cannot, at least, rest satisfied with a definition which makes sanctifying faith a separable accident of true Church membership. The great truth which he thinks he sees everywhere taught in Scripture, and verified in Christian experience-viz. that all grace flows from direct and immediate union with Christ the Head, the primary instrument of that union being, not an act of the Church, but the faith that comes by hearing, makes it impossible for him to adopt so external a conception of the Church as that which pervades the Romish theory. With a visible Church, indeed, men may be in mere external conjunction, but with Christ no such union is possible; a union, that is, which does not imply sanctification by the Spirit of Christ. If such a thing could once exist, as in the case of Judas Iscariot, it cannot do so now that Christ has left the world, and ascended on high in His glorified body: a mere carnal fellowship with the Saviour is no longer possible. "Though we have known Christ after the flesh," is the Apostle's statement, "yet now henceforth know we Him" (after this manner) "no more;" and the conclusion immediately drawn is, "that if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature," or is spiritually quickened from above. Thus the Protestant, holding that union with Christ by faith precedes, in the regular order of things, union with the Church, necessarily contemplates the latter as a community of 2 Cor. v. 16, 17. persons, not who ought to be, but who are, led by the Spirit of Christ; since to be in Christ, in any proper sense of the words, involves participation in His quickening grace. Nor can the Church ever assume, in the eyes of the Protestant, the position which the Romish and the Sacramental theory assigns to it,viz. that of an intervening institution, by visible union. with which access is gained to Christ, and so ultimately to God. For if, as we have seen, spiritual quickening, in the regular course of things, precedes such visible union; and he who has been spiritually quickened must have been brought, inchoatively at least, into union with Christ; it is obvious that visible incorporation in the Church cannot confer that first gift of life which is already possessed; cannot first introduce Him to Christ who has already, by faith, come to the Saviour. The Church thus falls back into its proper place, and its proper function, which is, to administer the means, but not to be either the depository or the giver, of grace.* SECTION III. THE POLITY OF THE CHURCH IN ITS EARLIER STAGES. THAT Christ intended His followers to be collected into visible societies, may be inferred partly from His appointment of the Sacraments, and partly from the power, which He delegated to the Church or Congregation, of binding or loosing; whether by that expression we understand the making of by-laws and regulations, or the exercise of discipline: for it is obvious that functions like these belong, not to a casual assemblage of persons, but to a regularly constituted society, with organs or official representatives. Upon this point no difference of opinion exists between the two great parties which divide Christianity, any more than upon the divine institution of the Sacraments. Moreover, it is hard to conceive that no intimation would be given respecting the particular form of polity which Christian societies were to assume: On this point, see some good remarks in Dr. Hawkins' Sermons on the Church, p. 51, it is not antecedently probable that so important a matter would be left absolutely to the discretion of Christians, or that Christ would send his Apostles forth to found Christian societies throughout the world without affording them sufficient guidance as to the manner in which such societies were to be organised. However true it may be that the special purpose of Christ's mission was, not to establish the Church, but to become the object of her faith, yet, just as He made provision that when the Church should actually come into existence it should not be without the visible symbols of Christian profession, and a governing body to preside over it, so it is reasonable to suppose that, in some way or other, mediately or immediately, by the previous dispensations of His providence as the Eternal Word, or by positive enactments, He would make it clear according to what outward form of polity Christian Societies are to be constituted. To the consideration of this point we now proceed. The decisions of the Council of Trent upon this subject are such as might be expected from the general view which Romanism takes of the Church. As the Sacraments are transformed into legal ordinances, so the polity of the Church assumes the same general character. Taking that polity in the form which it is found to have assumed in the third or fourth centuries, the Council boldly traces it up, in all its constituent parts,-bishops, priests, deacons, subdeacons, acolytes, exorcists, readers, and ostiarii, to the very beginning of Christianity; while to certain portions of it-as the three chief grades of the ministry, and the primacy of the Bishop of Rome - a divine origin is ascribed.* Amongst ourselves, the advocates of the Church system, hesitating as they still do to ascribe a divine authority to its proper his. torical basis, viz. extra-scriptural tradition, are somewhat embarrassed in the management of the proof of their theory from Scripture alone. Equally with the Council of Trent, they affirm of the Cyprianic or episcopal form of polity, that it is of divine institution, and a law made permanently binding upon the Church; and that this form is as indissolubly connected with the inner life of the Church as, in our present state of being, the body is with the soul. When, however, the scriptural proof for this doctrine * "Ab ipso ecclesiæ initio sequentium ordinum nomina, atque uniuscujusque propria ministeria, subdiaconi scilicet, acolyti, exorcista, lectoris, et ostiarii, in usu fuisse cognoscuntur." Sess. 23. c. 2, "Si quis dixerit in ecclesiá catholicâ non esse hierarchicam divina ordinatione institutam, quæ constat ex episcopis, presbyteris, et ministris: anathema sit." Id. Con. 6. + Manning, Unity of the Church, p. 281. comes to be adduced, it is found to be extremely meagre. That the apostles appointed deacons and presbyters, is certain; that the episcopate is of apostolic origin, is in the highest degree probable: but is every appointment which the Apostles can be proved to have made to be deemed, at once, of divine authority, and absolutely immutable? This obvious, but important, question lies at the very threshold of the controversy; yet it is commonly passed over in silence by the parties alluded to, who, when they have offered satisfactory evidence that the episcopal polity is, in the main, of apostolic origin, seem to conceive that nothing more is necessary to prove it to be a divine ordinance. But of this more hereafter. The question now before us is, did Christ himself-the Lawgiver, as He is called, of the New Covenant-deliver this form of ecclesiastical polity as that by which His church was to be distinguished from other religious societies? Difficult of proof as this may appear, it is in the last resort affirmed; and the way in which it is made out is as follows: Christ ordained the twelve (or eleven) Apostles to be governors and teachers of His Church; in their Apostolic commission were comprised three distinct subordinate ones, the commissions of bishop, presbyter, and deacon; so that, in fact, though these offices are not found to have been formally instituted by Christ Himself, or even to have been formally in being, until the Church has existed for some time in the world, yet they were present, implicitly, from the first; each of the Apostles having in himself the polity of the Church, in all its plenitude, and the apostolic college by degrees shedding the three orders, hitherto enveloped in their own persons, as need required: first the Diaconate, then the Presbyterate, and lastly the Episcopate. Several difficulties here present themselves to the mind. In what passage of Scripture is Christ recorded to have delivered to the Apostles three distinct commissions, with different powers attached to each? It will hardly be contended that the sending forth of the twelve, recorded in Matthew xii., was a formal commission to exercise the office of a presbyter; and even if it is to be so regarded, the divine institution of the diaconate remains without proof, no trace whatever of its appointment being found in our Lord's communications with His Apostles. Other commissions, besides the apostolic one itself, are nowhere mentioned as having been conferred by Christ upon the Apostles. That commission indeed was ample enough: the Apostles were to go forth as witnesses of Christ's resurrection, and inspired ministers of the |