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dents, but precedents however, which are law only to such as are in circumstances similar to those of the persons mentioned by the historians. The third class may be called expository of the christian doctrine, as the Epistle to the Hebrews written for the Jews, and the Epistles to the Romans, Ephesians, Galatians, and others, written for the Gentiles, or, to speak more properly, for societies composed of both Jews and Gentiles. Discipline here is an occasional subject, and it is chiefly applicable to the then state of the societies. In a similar state christians may adopt these prudential maxims, the end of all which is peace, peace. The last class consists of moral precepts adapted to the conditions of individuals. Is Timothy an overseer? He must be blameless. Is Paul aged? His advice ought to be respected. Are you a husband ? Be kind. Are you a master? Be just and humane. Are you a servant? Be content with providence, diligent in business, and reverence your master. tian body of believers? and love your brethren. called a christian ritual; and advice to a church, like advice to a wife, presupposes a state regulated by rules not mentioned by the adviser; and indeed the Apostles no more drew up a discipline, than they did a ritual for the hiring of servants, or the celebration of marriage.

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What then! Did Jesus leave this important article unsettled? No. On the contrary, he finished it by an effort of wisdom truly divine. The Christian discipline rose of itself out of that condition of equality, into which Jesus put his disciples. He took twelve men of even rank, and perhaps with little dissimilitude of age and ability, and constituted them a family of love, or, if you will, a circle of friends. They were his whole church. Here was no master,

no servant; no priest, no people; no prince, no subject; no father, no son. It was not the union of a literal family like that of the temple; or of a district like that of the synagogue; or of a vague multitude like that which attended the preaching of Christ; or of an universal body under the direction of universal itinerants, immediately inspired, as the churches were after his decease in the times of the Apostles; but it was a state of the perfect equality of minds united by mutual benevolence.

What is discipline? Order. What was primitive discipline? Order without government, and above the want of it. In this exuberant soil of peace and freedom the human understanding unfolds itself in free inquiry, free from the frost of nipping penalties. The heart mellows into ripeness. Fear of God and love of his creatures, reverence for the first great cause and attachment to his image, meekness, gentleness, goodness, and devotion, form a fragrant compound of delicious taste; or, to use the language of

Solomon, it is the sweetness of friendship, which, like ointment and perfume, rejoices the heart. It is not the fabric, however ornamented, it is this moral excellence, that excites the exclamations of christians; and this in many a mean place hath impelled them to look upward and sing; Lord, I love the habitation of thine house, the place where thine honour dwelleth.

Jesus left civil society untouched, and there rank and government are necessary; but it is a fact that primitive christian societies were small, independent bodies of equals. Many ecclesiastical historians have observed this, and have remarked that the first christians never elected officers because they had no right to teach or to baptize, but because they had not all either ability or opportunity to officiate. Even women taught and baptized, but order required them to officiate only to their own sex, and therefore the first churches appointed them deaconesses. In large churches they were numerous; they sat in public in a seat by themselves, and they were distinguished in the middle age by a small, grave ornament on the neck. The form of ordaining these female officers may be seen in the menologies of the Greek church. In the primitive church, order required a society of friends to visit and relieve each other, and, expedition being necessary in many cases, it was found advisable to elect a few to receive and distribute relief, to comfort the sick, to inspect the condition of prisoners, to try to procure their enlargement, and, in

brief, to manage their secular affairs, as well as to wait on the rest at the administration of the Lord's supper and baptism. In our small societies deacons execute these friendly offices without neglect to their worldly employments; but in large primitive churches, as the office took up the whole time of a deacon, justice required an indemnity, not to say a reward, and the church wholly supported their deacons.

Hence in time, in declining churches, when the teachers had risen into a priesthood, they associated deacons into their order. In the middle of the third century, it should seem, by comparing a letter of Cyprian with another of Cornelius of Rome, and a passage in Optatus, there were in Rome at that time forty-four christian congregations in the Catholic connexion; and in these churches there were on the list no less than fifteen hundred widows, sick, poor, and other objects of charity, wholly dependant on the liberality of the church. To the honour of the church, they were all supported; and deacons, who had so much employment, were honourably maintained as justice required. Such equity ought to prevail in all our modern offices; and a church that requires the whole time of an officer, deacon, or teacher, ought to support him; and an election to such an office, not including an election to a maintenance, is not just.

THE

SPIRIT OF GOD

THE GUIDE OF GOOD MEN.

FROM THE VILLAGE DISCOURSES.

[To understand the force and appropriateness of many parts of Robinson's Village Discourses and Morning Exercises, it is necessary to keep in mind, that they were delivered in different places, sometimes in a private dwelling, an open field, or an orchard; and,also, at different times of the day, sometimes early in the morning, and at others in the evening. It seems to have been the speaker's chief purpose to render his discourses simple and perspicuous, and adapted to the uncultivated minds of his hearers, who were labourers, living at a distance from the stated place of worship, and indifferently instructed in religion. Occasional omissions in the articles selected from the Discourses and Exercises are indicated by asterisks.]

As many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God. Romans, viii. 14.

THE old prophets had a spirit of prophecy, and a spirit of holiness; that is, they had the Spirit of God; they knew a little of those future events, which God

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