The from contamination, from error and infidelity. It is, brethren, in favour of a Church such as this, sound in her principles, and venerable from her history and associations, that we desire to enlist your affections. Her excellences are too little felt by her laity; her trials and dangers are by them too little regarded. Identify yourselves with her interest; profit by the advantages she extends to you, and rally round her in her hours of necessity. time may soon arrive, when our Zion will require of her people to do something more than to enjoy the privileges they possess in a connection with her. They may yet be called on to contend for them. The struggle which is at present going on between light and darkness, may yet affect the very existence of our church; the war of opinion which threatens to convulse the empire may fight its most important, perhaps its fiercest battle upon the question of the protection or the abolition of an established religion. Let the children of our Zion" be prepared. Let them appreciate and teach themselves to feel the value of the object, and then gird themselves to a faithful performance of their duty. Let them not accumulate upon their own consciences the materials of unavailing regret, that they saw the Ark in the fore-front of the conflict, and came not out to its help against the mighty. APPENDIX. SERMON II. A. p. 41. "We are ready to concede almost all," &c. The argument of our opponents on the subject of episcopacy has always rested upon words. It passes over the facts of the New Testament and the writings of the early fathers, and relies upon the title given to ministers in the Acts and the Epistles. Their chief argument is this, that the terms " Presbyter" and "Bishop" are indiscriminately applied to the same individuals, and that therefore they are but different names for the same office. There is truth in this, but it is not the whole truth; and consequently the inference that is drawn from this proposition, viz. that the New Testament bishop (wherever the word occurs) is nothing more than a presbyter, will be found to be wrong. The fact will be found to be that there was in the apostolic and primitive Church an officer totally distinct from the presbyter, and that that officer is known by the name of bishop. It may be necessary to explain how a title which once belonged to ministers generally, became appropriated to one order in the ministry. "The word episcopus" (or bishop), literally signifies an overseer, and so it is rendered in Acts xx. 28. The flock over which the Holy Ghost hath made you overseers." In this passage it is given to ordinary pastors. It was a title suggested by an employment. That employment was superintendence. But ministerial superintendence is of two kinds : First, of a flock or congregation, and secondly, of a body of ministers. In the first of these senses every minister is an episcopus, he oversees his flock; in the second, only those ministers who are exalted above their brethren, and occupy over them a situation of authority and control. In the history of Christianity the flock was first to be collected. That was her first effort, and it was achieved by the missionary preaching of the Gospel. Then, to a flock so collected, a pastor was appointed. Then, if it increased so as to be beyond the energies of one pastor, or was spread over a large district of country, more ministers were appointed to it. Then, that there should be no ministerial collision, no diversity of practice or doctrine among those pastors, an individual was added to the Church whose business it was to superintend and regulate it, ministers as well as congregations. (1 Tim. i. 3. Titus i. 5.) This is the |