perform the one nor duly appreciate the other, unless you understand the nature, the character, the powers and privileges of the society into which you have entered.

Besides, churches are of many names, and are distinguished from each other not only by peculiarities of doctrine, but more frequently by peculiarities of order and government. In becoming a member of a Congregational church you have shown a preference for the order of these ancient churches of New England. Perhaps you have been led to this preference by the force of education, by the example of your friends, by your own love of simplicity, or by a conviction that this mode of organizing churches, and conducting their affairs, is happily suited to the state of society in such a country as ours, and to the simplicity and spirituality of the christian religion. But ought you not to understand how this ecclesiastical order is to be defended against the claims of other churches, which profess to be eminently and perhaps exclusively apostolic ? You need not become a zealous and polemic sectarian; you ought to guard against every rising of that spirit which would have no communion but with those who can agree to pin every curtain of the tabernacle just as you do. Yet it is not too much to say that if the organization of the church to which you have joined yourself, is, as it is often affirmed to be, at war

with the fabric of the primitive churches, and subversive of apostolic order, you ought to know it, and you ought to testify against it; and on the other hand, if your church is essentially scriptural in its structure, and as such may be clearly vindicated against such charges, so oft repeated, and so solemnly assevered, you ought to know on what grounds its vindication rests.

You are interested, then, not only in the general subject of this book, but in the particular inquiry which I have immediately in view, namely an inquiry concerning the nature, design, and rights of a church, according to the scriptures. I design to answer these three questions. What were the churches established by the apostles, and how were they constituted? What was the object for which they were formed? And what were understood to be their rights and powers?

I. What is a church after the apostolic model? How is it constituted? I answer, it is a local association of believers in Christ, formed by the free consent and mutual agreement of the members.

1. I say it is a local society, because we read in the New Testament, not of a national church, or a provincial church, but only of churches in particular cities and villages. We do not read of such a thing as the church of Galatia, or the church of Syria, or the church of Judea, we read

·I

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of no church that included within its jurisdiction the christians of a nation or a province; but we read of the church at Phillippi, and in the same province and neighborhood we find also the church of the Thessalonians; and we read of one church at Corinth, and of another church some five miles off at Cenchrea. And when the apostles have occasion to speak collectively of the christians in a province or a nation, they speak of churches, "the churches of Galatia," "the churches of Judea," "the churches of Asia ;" they do this with the most accurate uniformity. therefore that a church is a local society. 2. I say it is a society of believers in Christ, or at least of persons who give credible evidence that they have become new creatures in Christ; because we find the apostle Paul calling the church which he organized at Ephesus, a “flock” of which the "Holy Ghost" was guardian," the church of the Lord which he hath purchased with his blood ;" and because we find him addressing" the church of God which is at Corinth," as consisting of persons "called to be saints," and "sanctified in Christ Jesus ;" and because we find him, in all his epistles to the churches, not merely exhorting them to become saints, but appealing to them as having already become so at least by profession. Whom did the apostles and their companions in travel gather into churches? Any, think you, who did not pro

fess to have experienced repentance toward God and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ? Any who did not promise a true obedience to all the principles and requisitions of the gospel? Read the record of their labors-read their epistles to the churches, and you can entertain no question on this point. A church, in the apostolic style, is a society of disciples, persons credibly professing to follow the Savior and to trust in him.

3. I say it is a society formed by the free consent and agreement of its members; because there is obviously no other way in which the primitive churches, organized by the apostles, could possibly have been formed. I think any man might task himself in vain to imagine a way in which the church at Philippi, for example, could have been instituted, but by the converts in that place, under the instruction and counsel of the apostle and his associates, voluntarily agreeing and mutually engaging to walk together as a religious community in obedience to the gospel. A man is subject to the government of the country in which he lives, independently of any consent or covenant on his part; but the churches of the New Testament, were formed on a different principle, no man could become a member of one of them, but by agreeing to become such.

II. What are the objects for which a church is formed? What was the design of the apos

tles in gathering their converts into such associtions?

1. I answer, some such arrangement was obviously essential to the permanent existence of christianity as a system of religion. Unless those who were interested in the gospel, were associated together in some way, there could be no stated public worship, no religious institutions of any kind. Unless those who believed were marshalled together, under some distinctive organization, how was there to be any sufficient and permanent visible profession of discipleship? how were the world to know whom to regard as

christians?

2. In the institution of churches, it was the design of the apostles, and it is God's design, to apply the social principles of human nature to the promotion of religion. In a church there are brought together into a distinct and publicly known society, men "called to be saints," the professed disciples of the Lord Jesus, trusting in his mediation with the Father, and following in his steps, men whose views and feelings and hopes are congenial and at the same time peculiar and distinctive. Why was this done? Evidently, that the power of sympathy, the feeling of brotherhood, the influence of common interests and principles and affections might operate more effectually in each and in all.

3. A leading object in the institution of