A DISTINCTION OF ORDERS IN THE CHURCH DEFENDED UPON PRINCIPLES OF PUBLIC UTILITY IN A SERMON, PREACHED IN THE CASTLE CHAPEL, DUBLIN, At the Consecration of JOHN LAW, D. D. LORD BISHOP OF CLONFERT AND KILMACDUAGH, September 21, 1782. SERMON III. A DISTINCTION OF ORDERS IN THE CHURCH, DEFENDED UPON PRINCIPLES OF PUBLIC UTILITY. And he gave some, apostles, and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers; for the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ.-Ephes. iv. 11, 12. IN our reasoning and discourses upon the rules and nature of the Christian dispensation, there is no distinction which ought to be preserved with greater care than that which exists between the institution, as it addresses the conscience and regulates the duty of particular Christians, and as it regards the discipline and government of the Christian church. It was our Saviour's design and the first object of his ministry, to afford to a lost and ignorant world such discoveries of their Creator's will, of their own interest, and future destination; such assured principles of faith, and rules of practice; such new motives, terms, and means of obedience, as might enable all, and engage many, to enter upon a course of life, which, by rendering the person who pursued it acceptable to God, would conduct him to happiness, in another stage of his existence. It was a second intention of the Founder of Christianity, but subservient to the former, to associate those who consented to take upon them the profession of his faith and service, into a separate community, for the purpose of united worship and mutual edification, for the better transmission and manifestation of the faith that was delivered to them, but principally to promote the exercise of that fraternal disposition which their new relation to each other, which the visible participation of the same name and hope and calli was calculated to excite. From a view of these distinct parts of t gelic dispensation, we are led to place a real difference, between the religion of particular Christians, and the polity of Christ's church. The one is personal and individual-acknowledges no subjection to human authority-is transacted in the heart-is an account between God and our own consciences alone: the other, appertaining to society (like every thing which relates to the joint interest and requires the co-operation of many persons,) is visible and external-prescribes of common order, for the observation of which, we are responsible not only to God, but to the society of which we are members, or, what is the same thing, to those with whom the public authority of the society is deposited. rules But the difference which I am principally concerned to establish consists in this, that whilst the precepts of Christian morality and the fundamental articles of his faith are, for the most part, precise and absolute, are of perpetual, universal, and unalterable obligation; the laws which respect the discipline, instruction, and government of the community, are delivered in terms so general and indefinite, as to admit of an application adapted to the mutable condition and varying exigencies of the an church. "As my Father hath sent I you."-"Let every thing be done in order."-"Lay hands suddenly "Let him that ruleth do it with diThe things which thou hast heard of he commit thou to faithful men, who le to teach others also."-"For this I thee, that thou shouldest set in order s that are wanting, and ordain elders in ty." are all general directions, supposing, in-. for the saints, the laying by in store upon the first day of the week, to be rules of the society, rather than laws of the religion-recommendations and expedients fitted to the state of the several churches by those who then administered the affairs of them, rather than precepts delivered with a solemn design of fixing a constitution for succeeding ages. The just ends ofreligious as of civil union are eternally the same; but the means by which these ends may be best promoted and secured, will vary with the vicissitudes of time and occasion, will differ according to the local circumstances, the peculiar situation, the improvement, character, or even the prejudices and passions, of the several communities upon whose conduct and edification they are intended to operate. The apostolic directions which are preserved in the writings of the New Testament, seem to exclude no ecclesiastical constitution which the experience and more instructed judgment of future ages might find it expedient to adopt. And this reserve, if we may so call it, in the legislature of the Christian church, was wisely suited to its primitive condition, compared with its expected progress and extent. The circumstances of Christianity in the early period of its propagation were necessarily very unlike those which would take place when it became the established religion of great nations. The rudiments, indeed, of the future plant were involved within the grain of mustard-seed, but still a different treatment was required for its sustentation when the birds of the air lodged amongst its branches. A small select society under the guidance of inspired teachers, without temporal rights, and without property, founded in the midst of enemies, and living in subjection to unbelieving rulers, divided from the rest of the world by many singularities of conduct and persuasion, and adverse to the idolatry which public authority every where supported, differ so much from the Christian church after Chri anity prevailed as the religion of the state; w |