world. For in addition to the Apostolic doctrine and government which it possesses in common with other Churches, it has the legal establishment of the country in which it is situated; which, upon the supposition that nothing sinful is commanded, has a claim to the obedience of every subject.

To which consideration must be added, the experience of the dreadful consequences that have followed the destruction of its establishment; toge ther with the testimony which has been borne to the excellency of it, by the most unprejudiced persons. From whence it will follow, that separation from such a Church must, of all separations of the kind, be the most unwarrantable.

To establish the point respecting the testimony of unprejudiced persons, I take leave to remind you of the opinion, which learned foreigners have formed on this subject.

The names of Calvin and Beza have, I think, been already brought forward for this purpose. They declared that those Christians were worthy of every anathema, who separated from such an episcopacy as that of the Church of England; and at certain times, they scrupled not to speak most decidedly and unequivocally upon the excellency of our Church establishment.

The foreign divines at the synod of Dort, in answer to what our English clergy had urged on the necessity of episcopal government in the Church, according to the Apostolic plan, said, "that they had a great honour for the good order and discipline of the Church of England, and heartily wished that they could establish themselves

upon this model, lamenting that they had no prospect of such a happiness; and since the civil government had made their desires impracticable, they hoped God would be merciful to them."

A long and decided quotation to the same point, from the celebrated Monsieur Le Clerc, has been already produced in my book. A short one, from another celebrated foreigner, Monsieur Daille, who engaged in a learned controversy with one of our best divines, and not likely to be biassed by any partiality of judgment, shall be added. "As to

the Church of England, (says he) purged from foreign wicked superstitious worships and errors, either impious or dangerous, by the rule of the Divine scripture, approved of by many and illustrious martyrs, abounding with piety towards God, and charity towards men, and with most frequent examples of good works, flourishing with an increase of most learned and wise men from the beginning of the reformation to this time, I have always had it in true and just esteem, and till I die I shall continue in the same due veneration of it."

The testimony of Melancthon to the excellency of episcopal government, though not directly ap plied to that of the Church of England, may be considered, when we recollect the intimacy that prevailed between him and Cranmer, and the interest he took in the reformation of the English Church, as designed to refer to it; and must, * Collier, v. ii. p. 178. † Hammond.

De Confess adversus H. Hammond, c. i. p. 97, 98.

therefore, on that account, be deemed as valuable as it is strong.

"Would to heaven (says he) that I could not only not enfeeble the power of bishops, but establish their dominion; for I see but too well what sort of a Church we are likely to have, if we demolish ecclesiastical government; I am sure that the tyranny we have escaped (viz. that of Rome) will then be nothing to that which we shall see established."*

How truly this prophecy of Melancthon was verified in the succeeding century in this country, when, as the late amiable and pious Bishop Horne has expressed it, "the little finger of presbytery proved to be thicker than the loins of prelacy," forms too conspicuous a page in our history, to require being pointed out.

There is still one additional testimony, that of the learned Grotius, which I take leave to trouble you with on this occasion; because the celebrity of its author forbids its being passed over unnoticed.

From some passages to be met, with in the letters of that learned person, Henry Newton, ambassador extraordinary from the Queen of Great-Britain to his Royal Highness the Grand Duke of Tuscany, it appears plainly that this great man, Hugo Grotius, had the highest opinion of the Church of England. In a letter to John Clerc, there is the following passage, taken from a letter written by Viscount Scudamore, at that time ambassador from England to France, to Archbishop Laud: "The * Seward's Anecdotes, v. iii. p. 129.

next time I see Ambassador Grotius, I will not fail to perform your commands concerning him. Certainly, my Lord, I am persuaded that he doth unfeignedly and highly love and reverence your person and proceedings. Body and soul, he professeth himself to be for the Church of England; and gives this judgment of it that it is the like liest to last of any Church this day in being." Genoa, 17th of the Kalends of February, MDCCVII.*

To the foregoing extract may be subjoined the character given of this great man by Archbishop Bramhall. "He was a friend, in his affection, to the Church of England, and a true son, in his love for it: he commended it to his wife and other friends, and was the cause of their firmly adhering to it, as far as they had opportunity. I myself, and many others, have seen his wife obeying the commands of her husband, as she openly testified, in coming to our prayers and the celebration of the

sacraments."

To sum up this subject, then, in a few words.

The Church is the body of Christ. He hath purchased it with his blood. All the privileges annexed to it are the consequences of his meritorious sufferings. To partake of the privileges of a society, man must become a member of the society, to which those privileges belong. The Church is a society of Christ's forming: it cannot, therefore, be any thing that men please to make it. But that a man may become member of a society, the society itself must be distinguished, so as to be

* Vide Testimonies subjoined to Clarke's Translation of Hugo Grotius, page 348.

:

known for to call men to become members of an invisible society, seems to be, if not a contradiction, yet an absurdity in terms. The characteristical mark which distinguishes any society, is its appropriate government. The appropriate government of the visible Church is that episcopal form, which was originally established by the Apostles: where that form of government is to be found, there the Church of Christ, as a visible society, exists. From whence it follows, that every Christian must know, if he will but consider, whether he be living in a state of communion with the Church, or in a state of separation from it. If in the former condition, he is in the sure road to salvation; “for He is faithful that promised:"* the consequence of his being in the latter, it is not our business to determine. In this case, as we know only in part, we therefore prophesy only in part. Still we know enough to authorise us to say, that the opinions of men can make no alteration in Divine institutions; and though practice may render sin so familiar, that all sense of it shall be lost, yet no practice can change the nature of it; consequently that heinous sin which schism was pronounced to be in the primitive days of the Church, that sin it must continue to be, so long as the Church endureth.

I have the honour to be,

&c. &c.

*Heb. x. 23.

Vindiciæ, c. iii. p. 197, &c.; and 1 Cor. xiii. 9.