found without its presiding bishop.* Every record procured by the industry of modern research confirms the same verdict,† and tends to substantiate the opinion we have this day endeavoured to maintain. And now, beloved brethren, let us not withdraw from these walls without taking with us the material for some profitable reflection connected with our subject. In the first place, let us learn to love our Church with more constancy and truth than ever we have yet done. In these days of attack upon every thing that is established, her enemies have not been sparing of their scorn and condemnation. Both have been poured upon her with a willing and a liberal hand, and even by her own children has her course of forbearance been mistaken for the silence of conscious guilt; and in proportion as the slander has been credited, our confidence in her has been weakened. Brethren, let us shake off such impressions, if they have ever rested on our minds. Our Church is scriptural in her constitution, and can claim kindred with the oldest and purest communities in the peculiarities of her government. Let this tend to tie our affections to our apostolic and time-honored Zion. As we pursue our inquiries, we shall, we * See Appendix, G. trust, be able to prove that in other matters, also, things have been laid to her charge which she knows not. So far as we have gone, however, let us feel that the ecclesiastical structure of our Church bears the impress of the ordinance of God. Secondly. Let us learn to discriminate between connection with a church however scriptural in its constitutions, and connection with the Spiritual Church of the Redeemer. The error which kept the house of Judah blinded to the last was built upon an undue value of external privileges. Their boast was, we have Abraham to our Father." Their glory was in the carnal relationship, while they possessed not the spirit of their ancestor. On their features they bore the lines which attested their descent from the father of believers, while the traces of his faith was not discernible in their conduct. 66 They which are of faith, the same are the children of Abraham." My brethren, build not upon the privilege you possess of visible connection with an orthodox church. If her doctrines be not savingly wrought into your hearts, and the spirit of faith which glowed so brightly in many of her martyrs, has not descended upon you, your baptismal enrolment amongst her children will profit you nothing. He was not a Jew which was one outwardly; nor is he a heaven-born Christian who possesses but the privilege of professional church-membership. God can write folly upon the charter of the most glorious privileges, if they lead not to sanctification. He can cast the unfruitful trees out of the richest vineyard, and out of its stones raise up children to Abraham. SERMON III. THE LAWFULNESS AND EXPEDIENCY OF PRECOMPOSED FORMS OF PRAYER. 2 TIMOTHY I. 13. HOLD FAST THE FORM OF SOUND Words. On the last two occasions on which I addressed you, my brethren, from this place, the objects I had in view were to direct your thoughts to the consideration of the character and privileges of the Church of Christ, and to demonstrate that the branch of it to which we are united could safely appeal, for support of its orders and government, to the concurrent testimony of Scripture and antiquity. Upon the first of these occasions I viewed the Church at large simply in her spiritual aspect—as a holy community elected from the mass of the ungodly by the mercy of her Lord, endowed by him with peculiar advantages, and strengthened by his pledged and unceasing protection. On the last, I viewed the Church of which we are members as an Ecclesiastical structure, and sought to ascertain (as far as the topic under consideration permitted us) the soundness of the building. The subject before us this day carries us into a different department of the same general inquiry. We have “ gone round Zion," and seen the variety of her resources, and tested the strength of her securities. We have examined the constitution of our own Zion, and tried her government and orders by reference to the highest authorities to to which the point could be submitted. We now step within the walls of the temple, and subject to a similar scrutiny the Church's internal arrangements, the nature and peculiarities of her worship. On this point, as upon the question of government, a difference arises between us and the members of dissenting communities. United as we are in the recognition of what constitutes acceptable service, we disagree upon the subject of the mode of public worship. We of the Established Church of this kingdom cling with feelings of preference to a precomposed and well-known form of prayer. They on the contrary glory in the liberty which is found, or supposed to be found, in extemporaneous services. This, we hesitate not to say, is a difference of practice which should never have led to divisions of feeling. The point controverted between the respective bodies is not one involving a difference in matters of faith; it is one altogether of discipline and arrangement. Upon it Ephraim never should have vexed Judah; for upon it, |