ANALYSIS OF THE ARGUMENT. SECTION I. PREFATORY CONSIDERATIONS. CONCESSIONS of Ecclesiastical writers, and their effects-how far warranted. The question referred to the Scriptures-difficulties of treating it. Presumptive proofs of the divine constitution of the Christian Church and Ministry. Method of the following Survey. SECTION II. Page 1. ORIGIN AND SUCCESSION OF THE CHRISTIAN MINISTRY. Divine origin asserted and illustrated by the eternal designation and visible appointment of Christ; by the call of the Twelve, and of the Seventy; by the divine preference of Matthias; and by the call of St. Paul. Succession exhibited in the ordination of the seven Deacons, of Timothy and Titus, and of the ministers whom they were respectively appointed to ordain, and by the enumeration of ecclesiastical persons mentioned in the Scriptures. General remarks on the evidence produced. Page 19. SECTION III. DEGREES AND DISTINCTIONS OF THE CHRISTIAN MINISTRY. During the personal administration of the Lord were three distinct orders. Conjectures on his conference with the apostles in the interval between the resurrection and ascension. After his ascension not more than three orders, to which the more numerous designations of ecclesiastical officers are reduced; nor less than three orders. Apostles distinct from Presbyters: the title of Apostles seldom used before, always after, the ascension. There were three orders. Apostles possessing peculiar powers of ruling, judging, ordaining, visiting, and confirming through an extensive district. Presbyters, a continuation of the order UNITY, DIVISION, UNIFORMITY, AND COMMUNION OF THE APO- STOLIC CHURCH, AND PERPETUITY OF THE ORDER ESTA- Unity described. Nature of schism collected from the apostolic writings. Uniform observance of the ordinances Comparison of the Christian ministry with the Jewish To the Romanist to the sectarist: to the laity of the Church of England, including the Legislature: to the Clergy. Promise of an universal Church. Correspondence of the Church of England with foreign countries. Missions to the Heathen unsuccessful: compared with the apostolic A SURVEY OF THE PLATFORM OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. SECTION I. PREFATORY CONSIDERATIONS. IT has been maintained by certain writers on Ecclesiastical History, that the form and model of an Episcopal Church are a work of human invention; that our Lord left no instruction to his Apostles on the subject; that they neither adopted nor prescribed any settled order; that their private ordinances and traditions cannot be understood without a reference to the practice of succeeding ages, which is the only intelligible comment on a secret and mystical text; and that the faint traces of the Christian ministry, which may be discovered in the Scriptures, were adapted to local circumstances and the temporary exigencies of the Church, and not designed for perpetual or universal use. Such opinions have been assumed with avidity by the adversaries of the establishment and constitution of the Church of England. The Romanist has not scrupled to insinuate, that our ecclesiastical polity is the result of recent innovation, B which he justly condemns, or that it rests on the foundation of mere tradition, to which he alone attaches any value; and the Separatist has objected, that we are not possessed of that scriptural authority, which in his judgment is the only and exclusive obligation to religious obedience and conformity. The practical influence of these opinions has been but too extensive; and they have affected the conduct of men, who, satisfied with a general profession of the received faith, have no curiosity to search the Scriptures for themselves, and hold the plausible systems of the theorist, and the partial decisions of the polemic, in equal aversion. Masters in Israel, with a holy jealousy for the truth as it is in Jesus, have disdained to disparage their sacred office by the recommendation of any thing, which has not a clear and unquestionable title to a divine origin and authority; and the people uninstructed in the nature and principles of the Christian Ministry, with doubts strengthened by the silence of their teachers, whether the whole be not entirely of human institution, and consequently variable in accommodation to local circumstances and popular opinions, have formed their own notions of religious communion, and have assumed to themselves a privilege of joining or abandoning any society of Christians, at their own pleasure and discretion, in compliance with early prejudice and prepossession, from their private views of the efficacy and expedience of a peculiar discipline, from a preference of favourite preachers, or from an attachment to cherished doctrine, without the most distant suspicion, that there any form or order of the Church of Christ, which exclusively challenges their respect and obedience. is |