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spheres, act out of character, and contribute greatly toward the production or promotion of schism in the church of Christ.

As you would not chuse that church officers make encroachments upon your privileges, be exhorted to guard against ufurping to yourselves any part of that province, which Jesus Christ hath rendered peculiar to them.

The beautiful order of each member, in the natural body, is not more necessary for the various purposes of life; than your keeping by your own spheres, in the body ecclesiastic, is for the purposes of edification.

Though you have no right to teach, no right to rule in the church; you should not peevishly undervalue the place you fill, as if your spheres of action were chimeras in themselves, and of no importance to the church at all. For, in the language of the apostle, " If the foot shall say, because "I am not the hand, I am not of the body; -Is it,

therefore, not of the body? And if the ear "shall say, because I am not the eye, I am not of "the body;--- Is it, therefore, not of the body?" Cor. xii. 15, 16.

If, according to our former reasoning, you were all to act in the teaching and ruling capacities, then, you could no more be a church constituted according to the doctrine of the New Testament; than a number of hands or feet, ears or eyes, joined together, without other members, could constitute a proper human body. The former would be equally monstrous in the moral, as the latter would be in the natural world. For, " if the whole body were an eye, "where were the hearing? If the whole body were " hearing, where were the smelling?" verf. 17.

But if you should imagine, that it is competent for you, as church-members, to bring the decisi.

ons of your fuperiors under your own review, as the dernier refort;--the wildest anarchy, the most abfolute confusion behoved to follow; and you could cut no better figure, in your church capacity, than a human body would cut, with it's various members totally inverted.

But, my dear friends, when the principle, from whence such notions proceed, is traced to it's original; it will probably appear to be nothing else than a love of power, -the very crime with which others are fometimes so illiberally charged.

Where, for instance, men, uncalled, unqualified, and without authority, take upon them to teach and govern in the church; do they not difcover an aversion at the thought of being taught and governed-where they allow themselves to fee nothing but blemishes in the administration of others; does it not infinuate an apprehenfion, that they themselves could fill fuch places of trust with greater honour and advantage?-And, where their not being acknowleged, in particular decisions, stimulates prejudices against them; does it not display the haughty idea they entertain of their own wif. dom and importance?

Let none, therefore, deliberately steer upon the very rocks, against which, it is alledged, regular office-bearers in the church usually dash. Though they should, in reality, or in your apprehenfion only, fall into one extreme, by an abuse of power; fee, that you do not flide into another, by thinking that no executive power is lodged in particular officers at all.

Rather, my brethren, be exhorted, to mark the propriety, expediency, and necessity of a scriptural fubjection to your lawful fuperiors in the Lord. And though you should find yourselves obliged to decline the jurifdiction of one church, from an apprehenfion prehenfion that Christ's laws are not executed in her; ---rather than prefume, at your own hands, to act as executors of them, -be exhorted to join yourselves to fuch other duly organized church as may be taught and governed more agreeably to your views of scripture authority.

At the same time, may not church officers, notwithstanding of all the truft which is reposed in them, be faid to go from their own spheres; act out of character; and contribute likewise toward the production and promotion of schism,-in as far as they discourage the exercise of private judgment, in matters of doctrine and duty;-deprive the difciples of Christian freedom, in the choice of teachers and rulers; or, any how, render the brethren's right of private judgment and free election obsolete and ineffectual?

Where liberty is the distinguishing badge of a people, every encroachment upon it must be deeply affecting.

If the brethren, as men, have a natural right to judge, with whom they would entrust the care of their health and estates;-and if they may lawfully ehuse and employ, accordingly, for themselves :--with what propriety can they, as Christians, be rob. bed of the more interefting privilege of judging and chufing, in concerns of a spiritual nature ?

If disgust, dissension, or even rebellion itself, might necessarily flow from men's having their natural privileges wrefted our of their hands;-Can approbation, unanimity, and obedience be expected, if their Christian privileges should be wantonly extorted from them.

Such oppression may, indeed, be sometimes warranted by particular laws; but, if those laws were made only to keep oppressors in countenance, (especially if previous and approved statutes are thereby, abrogated,

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abrogated, or rendered useless)- so far from prevent ing, would they not rather stimulate the breach?

Or, for argument's fake, though oppressive meafures were fupported by ancient, as well as modern, civil as well as ecclesiastic laws; if they were justified by no part of that pattern shewn in the scriptures, could remonftrance, and secession, on the part of the disciples, be thought, in the least surprizing?

And, to whatever cause prejudice may usually ascribe it, when church decrees have not the fame effect upon Christians now, that the decrees of the apostles and elders had upon the multitude at Antioch ;-Is it not more than probable, -That they have not feemed good to the Holy Ghost ?

But, if they should, in fact, be contrary to the "more fure word of prophecy",-however good they might seem to men of every order, could it be reasonably imagined, that the multitude of believers would have freedom to acquiefce in them?Upon one supposition only,-" That Christians

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might warrantably hearken unto men, rather"than to God."

These being the principles from whence lawful, or even laudible dissentions might be accounted for, the constituent members of this Provincial Synod will bear with me, while at your own command, I now "stir up your pure minds, by way of remem" brance."

That, to deprive all of every apology for diffenfion, You would attend to the expediency, as well as justice, of fecuring the disciples, under your infpection, in the whole rights transferred to them by Jesus Chrift.

Though church officers of other communions should hold their people in the most fovereign contempt; (by lording over their confciences, -count

ing them equally unfit, to judge what doctrines they should receive, as illiterate patients, what medicines they should apply, and reckoning it no more competent for them, to chuse their own pa. stors, than it is for children, to pitch upon pedagogues for themselves :) without pretending, at farther length, to determine the boundaries of their privileges, let our people have unceasing proofs of the most tender concern for their peace and edification.

Though we give them leave to diftinguish, ac cording to the scriptures and our own standards, between truth and error; though we permit them to judge what ministerial gifts are most adapted to their capacities; though we hear fuch remonstrances as are founded upon just claims of right; and though we grant fuch redress of grievances as is competent for us, and confiftent with our cha racter and duty; do we any more, than" be"come all things to all men ?"

Let the clergy of other churches be determined, if they will, in their decisions, by the wisdom of this world, the opinions and commandments of men; ---by attachment to party, love of politics, defire of gain, or uniformity of conduct, without regard to divine authority at all; but, let us,-regardless of every other consideration, of every lower motive, ---let us make confcience of squaring all our decisions by "the law and the teftimony."

While their statutes are founded upon-" Thus " faith the wisdom of human legislatures; - Thus " faith the councils of the fathers; - Thus faith "the Pope, or the People;"-let us glory in founding ours upon-"THUS SAITH THE "LORD."

Nay, to whatever discoveries other ecclesiastics may pretend,---until we fee, from our bibles, that disappointing

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