of their shifting so perpetually, that in the issue, we gain the approbation of all parties to some one or other, of the prominent articles of our faith. The more orthodox concurring with us, in the weightier, and the residue only increasing the ratio of their respective distances, in proportion to the sum total of their multiplied errours and divisions, until at length they dwindle down, and imperceptibly blend with the friends and retainers of infidelity.

For do we require the co-operation of others, in support of an holy, blessed, and glorious Trinity, three persons and one God? We obtain the suffrages of the great body of that vast variety of small and discordant sects, which have sprung up, and gradually estranged themselves from the first presbyterian schism. Do we need assistance in defence of sprinkling and infant baptism? Our auxiliaries are equally numerous, and unite their voices in opposition to a few baptists. Do we need additional strength in favour of the two sacraments of the gospel? The baptist himself becomes our advocate, and fewer still are found to confide, in the disconnected inward excitements and spiritual repasts of the quaker. Do we insist upon the eternity of future punishments? The quaker, in his turn, will not refuse us the authority of his creed, in exposing the dreamy confidence of the universalist. Do we uphold the doctrine of a vicarious sacrifice and atonement for sin? We perceive the universalist, not merely joining our ranks; but so fondly anxious for the salvation of good and bad, penitent and impenitent, as to exalt the divine oblation and propitiation of Christ, to a height, at yet greater variance with the low estimation, in which he is held by the unitarian. Do we adhere to the authenticity and inspiration of the generally received canon of scripture? Unitarians, for the most part, combine in aiding us to drive the infidel, from his puny shifts and miserable evasions. Do we believe in God the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible?' Even the wretched infidel is here ready to tender us his ungracious hand, and assist in demolishing the baseless fabrick of atheism, if atheism there be.

6

How evident then, when we examine the Church on the one hand, and the seceders in a body on the other; how evident, that these last are so exceedingly rent and divided in their opposition, that the aggregate of their testimony, upon every controverted doctrine, not peculiar to episcopalians, is deci dedly in favour of the faith, we have so long and so religiously maintained. And what are the fair inferences to be gained from this brief review? Before they can justly charge us with errours, they should first cultivate harmony in their own ranks; they should first agree as to the nature of those errours, and cease to vibrate among themselves, one moment for us, and another against us, as our several principles and institutions become the successive objects of inquiry. Before they can justify their rejection of a valid episcopacy, and precomposed forms of prayer; they should submit some system better adapted to preserve Christians from the endless divisions and heresies, to which their rejection has given birth. Before they can call upon us to renounce these two apostolick institutions, still retained by nineteen twentieths of the Christian world; they should present us with unquestionable evidence, that their own renunciation has been greatly countenanced and blessed, by our Father in heaven.

Such evidence can never be gathered from the sacred vol ume. Their disjointed opposition, and the invisible Church for which they contend, as I have already reminded you, are far too obnoxious to this argument of our blessed Lord,' every kingdom divided against itself is brought to DESOLATION; and every city or house divided against itself SHALL NOT STAND.' Nor can it be obtained from the records of ecclesiastical history. The posterity of all those, who, at the period of the continental reformation, failed to reform in the visible Church; who discarded the wheat with the tares, episcopacy and forms of prayer with the inventions of men, have almost invariably declined from the true faith of Christ; and every subsequent schism has either followed the example, or is at this moment furnishing strong indications of being finally overwhelmed, in the same heretical vortex.

As the subject possesses a melancholy interest, and is worthy of our most serious consideration, I shall proceed to as brief an examination as is practicable. You must be sensible, that our Christian brethren are constantly adverting to their religious prosperity, as infallible proof of the divine blessing being poured out, upon their various Churches. The argument is plausible, and if limited to what may be discerned, at a given place and a given period, it would probably prove unanswerable. But I would take a more enlarged view. I would not deny, but that many persons have been individually blessed, in a state of schism continued in through ignorance. Our Sav iour accounts for it, where he says, he that is not against us is for us.' Paul also observed, 'some indeed preach Christ even of ENVY AND STRIFE, and some also of good will.' He could not therefore have refrained from condemning the conduct of the former, and yet his conclusion is, notwithstanding, every way, whether in PR ETENCE, or in truth; CHRIST IS PREACHED ; and I therein do rejoice, yea, and will rejoice.' If envious and contentious preachers then were instrumental in doing some good, in the days of Paul, we need not be surprised at the successful preaching of some modern schismaticks; we need not wonder, but have reason, after the manner of Paul, to rejoice in the certainty, that there are numbers of pious believers attending upon their ministry, who upon full conviction of being separated from Christ's mystical body, would gladly repair to it, and renounce all their prior prepossessions. Christians like these would therefore give to any society, call it by what name you please, a religious character, and so long as they survived, or their successors retained their principles, the Almighty would not fail to bless their personal efforts to run, in the way of his commandments. Little however does this avail to convince me, that he has ever bestowed his bless ing upon the cause of schism, as distinct from the individuals, who have undesignedly fallen into its embraces. It would be contrary to his word declaring, that there should be no schism in the body.'

It would convert him into the God of disorder

instead of order, and including all the sectaries, of strife and hatred, of errour and every evil work, instead of peace and love, of truth and holiness.

I shall therefore endeavour to persuade you, that this apparent religious prosperity, on the part of some of our seceding Churches, is not to be regarded, in the light of a permanent blessing from heaven. For this purpose, let us recur to the past, and connect it with the present, premising that I am not arguing with protestants generally, but with those of them, who are disposed to entertain the same sentiments with us, upon the prominent doctrines of the cross. Where then, I ask, was episcopacy first abandoned? You have heard, that it was in Germany and Switzerland, and will remember, that the deviation was justified by the leading reformers, on the sole ground of necessity. And what have been the effects? What great and glorious advantages have resulted to the present inhabitants of those countries, so distinguished in the annals of the protestant faith?

I am content, brethren, to submit their actual condition to the most orthodox of our opposers, and when it is known, you must be satisfied, that they would fain destroy this page, in the history of their Church. The anti-catholick part of Germany is, at this moment, completely subdued to the UNITARIAN faith. There it is, that the presbyterian societies have yielded to what their brethren, in this country, would denounce as a most detestable heresy. There it is, that the most eminent divines of that school have had their origin; and from thence it is, that their works have been dispersed throughout the protestant world, enjoying the highest reputation with all, for their critical acumen, and with many, for their liberal theology. It reminds me of the declaration of Melancthon, before quoted, I would to God it lay in me to restore the government of bishops. For I see what manner of Church we shall have, the ecclesiastical polity being dissolved.' He anticipated tyranny, but it has eventuated, in what he would have considered infinitely worse than tyranny.

And do not the same principles triumph, in Switzerland? Where are the presbyterian Churches founded by Calvin, at Geneva? Nearly all with their branches have become unitarian. Scarcely one of them has escaped the infection. Long ago, Rousseau triumphantly remarked, The pastors of Geneva are asked if Jesus Christ is God: they dare not answer. They are asked what mysteries they admit: they dare not answer. A philosopher casts upon them a haughty glance; he sees through them; he discovers them to be Arians, Socinians; he proclaims it, and thinks that he does them HONOUR. ately alarmed, terrified, they assemble, they consult, they are agitated; they know not what saint to call upon; and after manifold consultations, deliberations, conferences, the whole terminates in a nonplus, in which is neither said, YES, nor no.'

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But Rousseau, like Voltaire, who bore similar testimony, was an arch-infidel, whose malignant exultation requires to be corroborated by unexceptionable evidence; and unhappily we have it, in the person of dr Raffles, a very distinguished dissenting clergyman of England, who visited Geneva, in the year eighteen hundred and seventeen. Speaking of this city, he says, 'The shortness of our stay did not allow us, indeed, to see any of its society; and the information, I had previously obtained of the state of religion, was not such as to excite my mind very exalted expectations of pleasure from that Few of the doctrines, and little of the spirit, which once rendered it the glory of the protestant world now remain: and that truth, which was asserted and maintained by Calvin, a name to which the city of Geneva is more indebted for its celebrity than to the grandeur of its scenery, the beauties of its lake, or the stern character of its ancient independence, has scarcely an asylum within its walls. The pastors of its Churches are ALMOST TO A MAN, Arians, or Socinians. A few, perhaps, may cherish the genuine principles of the reformation, and feel their influence. I know, indeed, that this is the case, but they bear no proportion to the majority, who are sunk in infidelity and skepticism, and can do but little towards