the estates of King, Lords, and Commons, this has a long time ago been established, and no one has any doubts upon the subject, and therefore it would be ridiculous to refer to it continually. So it was in the church. The christians had no need to be told how the church ought to be governed, because every member of it knew how it was governed; hence it is the New Testament is not so distinct on the point of government as to satisfy people who are desirous of change; though to me it is amply explicit on the subject. If the evidence of scripture is not so decided as to church government as some people imagine, there is one important matter as to which there is a still more remarkable paucity of evidence, and that is as to the sacrament of the Lord's Supper; and it is a singular fact, that of the apostles who were present at the Last Supper, when it was instituted, not one of them records the command of our Saviour, "This do in remembrance of me." St. Luke who was not of the twelve, is the only evangelist who does so, and St. Paul who was not even a believer at the time, only once in all his epistles quotes these words in the first to the Corinthians. But are we to infer from the silence of all the apostles who were present at the Last Supper, and from the silence of all the apostles in their epistles, save St. Paul, and that only in one instance, that our blessed Lord did not enjoin by a

command the perpetual observance of the Holy Sacrament of his Body and Blood? God forbid. Or shall we doubt, on this account, that the early christians were in the habit of celebrating the eucharist? I have never heard of any christians who have ever done so, or ever urged the want of testimony as an objection. In order to supply the deficiency on this and on other sacred matters, we must have recourse to the evidence of the fathers who flourished nearest to the apostles; a testimony which we cannot with any degree of fairness reject, and which is, indeed, absolutely essential; for it is to them we are indebted for the preservation of the Holy Scriptures; nay more, it is from them we learn what really is the canon of Scripture; for though the acknowledged books of the Old and New Testaments bear ample internal evidence to their inspiration, yet in not one of them is set forth a catalogue of the contents of the Bible, nor is it any where stated in it, that the canon as it now stands contains all the books of inspiration that ever were written. From the same fathers also we derive the practice of infant baptism, for it must be confessed that the positive evidence of Scripture is in favour of adult baptism; indeed, not one instance of infant baptism is directly recorded; it may be inferred, but it cannot be affirmed of a certainty. From them we learn to observe the

first day of the week instead of the seventh; the express command of God was to keep holy the seventh day, yet in opposition to this absolute command, delivered by the Lord Jehovah to Moses, all christians, without any authoritative obligation for so doing, with one consent desecrate the seventh day and keep holy the first day of the week; and wherefore is it that Catholics, Romanists, and Protestants, receive the canon of Scripture, practise infant baptism, and keep the Lord's day? because, on the authority and the alone testimony of the fathers, we believe that the church hath determined the canon and legislated on these other points. What folly, what absurdity,-nay more, does it not savour of something worse? of intentions, to say the least, far from ingenuous, to believe the fathers in these important matters, and yet to reject their authority as to church government and the apostolic succession. A most unrighteous judge would he be, who, in hearing a cause, rejected some parts of the evidence of a credible witness, solely because it was adverse to his views of the case, and received the statements of the same witness when they made for his wishes. If we are to think the fathers guilty of falsehood and wilful imposition as to church government, may we not as well believe that they also have corrupted the scriptures or may we not believe, that if these

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opinions had not been derived from the apostles, that they would have interpolated the scriptures so as to bear them out in what are now by some termed unscriptural doctrines, and made the language of the sacred volume as strong and explicit as their own writings, for the holy scriptures were in their keeping the church was the arcanum of the blessed treaCromwell was not so scrupulous; neither the Socinians, nor the Romanists in their several translations. But the holy and venerable Fathers preserved the original intact. For remember that the bible we now have and believe to be the word of God, was not given by revelation at the reformation, but was handed down from age to age, in the original, by the church, in her greatest purity and in her greatest errors. They indeed act with strange inconsistency who accept, in any one particular, the evidence of men who are not to be credited in many statements they have made. In courts of justice, if a witness has been found guilty of giving false evidence in one or two instances, this is thought sufficient to set aside the whole of his evidence, though true to destroy his credit, and to render him liable to a prosecution for wilful perjury. So with regard to the fathers, we must either accept or reject the whole of their evidence, for we cannot, with any degree of reason or fairness, believe what is agree

able to our own prejudices, and disbelieve what part is obnoxious to them. If bishops of old had unduly exalted the episcopate, and pretended to authority unwarranted by scripture, wherefore was the Carthagenian presbyter, Tertullian, silent? Wherefore did he magnify prelacy at the expense of his own order? Wherefore were all the presbyters of the universal church, from the days of Ignatius to Calvin, silent? Why did they, the degraded presbyters, not oppose the spiritual wickedness in high places, and with one voice exclaim against the usurpations of the tyrannical lordly bishops? Doubtless they had read their bibles, and there seen these words, "resist not evil;" they had found the doctrine of passive obedience there; they would not have shed the blood of the Lord's anointed. How great has been the glory reserved for Geneva, that to it hath been bequeathed the honourable duty of vindicating the rights of the injured presbyters, and resenting the accumulated wrongs of 1500 years!

I have been thus particular as to the credit to be attached to the writings of the fathers, for we accept the whole of their writings, as to historical matters of fact, while presbyterians accept them only in part. As to their private opinions and interpretations of the Holy Scriptures, these must ever be received with caution, and must be judged as we would judge mo