after, being desirous to know what professed subjection to Christ, you are bound to consider yourselves as intrusted with the care of his property, and as accountable to him, for all you have received from him; according to the law relating to fellowship, Lev. vi. 2. Keep therefore his charge constantly in mind, "Occupy till I come;" improving every talent, and devoting every power which you possess to his interest and honour. May every gospel truth, and divine appointment be preserved in its original purity and simplicity, as first delivered to the saints, that you may give up your accounts at last with joy and not with grief! It is your duty, your interest, O that it may be your perpetual resolution, in the strength of grace, to hold fast what you have, that no man take your crown! Consider, brethren, you are not your own, and what you possess is the Redeemer's riches, heaven's precious property, committed to your care, as in fellowship with God. Of these treasures be careful, and about their nature, use, and tendency, continue to commune frequently with him, that you may obtain mercy to be found faithful unto death, and then receive the crown of life. We would now, dear brethren, give you our advice respecting your attendance to this solemn exercise, and point out what we apprehend is necessary to be regard If you are Christians indeed, whether you have all attained to the assurance of hope or not, you know what it is to commune with God upon these and such like subjects. For surely those who are in fellowship with him, not only should, but will, be concerned to know what he has committed to them, requires of them, and ex-ed, in order to your maintaining and pects from them. Remember, brethren, "He that is joined to the Lord is one spirit with him." Consequently they who are thus united to him, will consider his opponents as their enemies, and his friends will be their favourites. What he designs will be their desire; his promises their portion, and his glory their ultimate end. By your carrying on communion with God. First, Deliberately enquire into his true character, and your own real condition. Consider, brethren, "with whom ye have to do"-the King eternal, immortal, the only wise, living and true God. That glorious, holy and dreadful Being, before whom devils tremble, and angels veil their faces, is he with whom you are called to converse. | near, will encourage you to expect The omnipotent, omniscient Jeho- much, though you deserve novah, whose eyes penetrate what thing. his hands support: the author, Secondly, Properly regard what upholder, and governor of univer- he says to you. Mutual attention, sal nature; whom the heaven of you know, is necessary in common heavens cannot contain; he who conversation; and surely much is decked with solemn majesty, more is it needful when communand shines in the full-orbed splen- ing with God. This is often mendor of perfect purity, deigns to tioned in Scripture in a most pacommune with you. Yes, this thetic manner, as what the Lord awful God is yours: and that his requires. "Hearken unto me, O terror might not make you afraid, ye children, attend unto the words he has sovereignly assumed for of my mouth," Prov. vii. 24. your encouragement various en-"Take heed and hearken, O Isdearing characters, each included rael," Deut. xxvii. 9. “Listen, O in his being the God of all grace. Isles unto me and hearken," Isa. You are now called to behold him xlix. i. "Hearken diligently unto as through a new medium, even me-incline your ear-hear and the person of Christ. There tre- your soul shall live," Iv. 2, 3. mendous dignity and tender mercy Misapprehensions are frequently unite their radiant beams! There the effects of inattention, therefore his sovereign love to your persons, Jesus, "when he had called all and his natural hatred to your sins, the people unto him, said unto are wonderfully displayed. O that them, Hearken unto me every one you may have growing acquaint- of you and understand," Mark ance with his essential greatness, vii. 14. God addresses you by and condescending compassion. various providential occurrences. Then your converse with him will" Day unto day uttereth speech." be reverent, humble, solemn and serious; and the more so in proportion to the knowledge you acquire of your condition as sinful dust and ashes. The infinite contrast duly considered, will fill your souls with holy wonder and profound awe. Holy dread accompanies heavenly delight. "How dreadful is this place!" said Jacob, when he communed with his God at Bethel; "this is none other than the house of God and the gate of heaven." The consideration of your natural littleness when compared with God, and of your dependance upon him, and especially of your moral distance from him, and unlikeness to him, will deepen your humility before him; while his gracious character as the "Father of mercies" and "God of all comfort," inviting you to draw Every mercy calls for gratitude; me; shew me wherefore thou con- | with neglect, as an insignificant tendst with me; I am full of confu- being below your notice. Not to sion, therefore see thou mine afflic-believe what he says, be that what tion, for it increaseth," x.2, 15, 16. it may, is an horrid reflection upon The mysterious dispensation was him as a false perfidious being, the subject of much converse and not to be trusted or confided in.* reasoning with God, and at last O, that none of you may ever the cause and the consequences plead for the innocence of unbewere discovered to him, and felt lief! But dread it, watch against by him, to his great satisfaction it, and expose it, as the most deand abundant joy. But, dear bre-testable foe to God and man. If thren, the mind of God is most you would enjoy communion with clearly discovered in the scriptures God, intreat him to increase your of truth. Therein the Spirit faith in him, and unite your hearts speaketh expressly." Therein are to him. For if your attention contained the plain and "true say- and trust decrease, be assured ings of God." Endeavour to un-your communion with him will diderstand his meaning. Take care minish. Therefore "trust in him of wresting his words. Attend to at all times; ye people, pour out the descriptions he therein gives your hearts before him." of men and things. There your hearts are laid open your con (To be continued.) CONDITION OF PROTESTANT DIS SENTERS. scious feelings, whether fears or ORIGIN, PRINCIPLES, AND PRESENT desires, are all described; every painful and pleasing sensation is there distinctly noticed; and ac- IT may be said, without fear of its cording to your internal character being successfully contradicted, and condition, you are distinctly that "the antiquity" of Protestant spoken to, as if by name. Attend Dissenters "is of ancient days." therefore closely to what God the Lord says to you in particular. Whether it be in a way of admonition or encouragement, caution or comfort, regard what he says, and accordingly commune with him. Thirdly, Give full credit to what he says. Treat him as a God of veracity, who cannot lie. Would you choose to converse with men whom you could not credit? Or take delight in communing with those who would not credit you? Remember "he that believeth not God hath made him a liar," 1 John v. 10. How just and awful the charge! "Take heed therefore, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief." For "without faith it is impossible to please him." To be inattentive to what he says, is treating him It is an undeniable fact, supported by the most abundant evidence, that the sentiments held by the primitive believers, and all Christians for the first three centuries, with regard to the constitution of the churches, were similar to those which have always been maintained by them. A few extracts from Lord King's "Constitution of the Primitive Churches," will be sufficient to prove this assertion. Cyrian says of the office of "bishop," or pastor, &c. "in a church might be many presbyters, but only one supreme." Before the time of Constantine, we find from Ignatius, Cyprian, and other bishops, that not the word " diocese," but parish (houses near to each other) is used of the bishop's charge; as, the bishop of the "parish of Alexandria," of the " parish of Ephesus," &c. A bishop had then but one altar, one communion table; and offenders appeared before the whole church. The African Synod (A. D. 258,) held, that the sacerdotal ordinations ought not to be made but with the knowledge of the people who were present, that the people being present, either the enemies of the wicked may be defeated, or the merits of the good declared, and the ordination be just and lawful which shall have been examined by the suffrage and judgment of all. A.D. 252, Cornelius, bishop of Rome, read letters from foreign churches "to his most holy and numerous people." Eusebius calls the meeting-house, "the house of the church ;" i. e. the church-house. A penitent bewailing his fault before the church at Rome, "the church was touched with compassion towards him." When Andreus, bishop of Rome, died, "all the brethren met together in the church, to choose a successor." Eusebius further says, "during the first three centuries there were no dioceses larger than a parish, except A. D. 260, at Alexandria, when numbers who lived at a distance erected houses near their own houses, as daughter churches, with a minister appointed by the bishop of Alexandria, at which last place they occasionally attended." He speaks also of a bishop being chosen, whom the neighbouring bishops ordained. From the authority of Origen, we learn that "deacons” distributed to the poor the church's money, and assisted at the Lord's table. Cyprian says that the African Synod thus speaks of the "independency" of each distinct church or congregation:-" It is decreed by us all, and it is equal and just, that every one's cause shall be heard where the crime was committed; and that a particular portion of Christ's flock shall be assigned to each pastor, which he is to govern, being to give an account of his conduct to the Lord." In the public worship, the lector, clerk, or reader, read the Scriptures, without the people reading with him. They had no musical instruments. After reading, singing, preaching, and praying, they administered the Lord's supper. "This food," says Justin Martyr, "we call the Eucharist, and no one may partake of it but he who believeth those things to be true which we teach, and who has received the remission of sins and the baptism of regeneration, and liveth as Christ commandeth." And in regard to "Baptism," Barnabas, in his Catholic Epistle, says, "We go down into the water full of sin and filth; and we cend, bringing forth fruit in the heart." as Other testimonies might be produced, but these are sufficient to prove that the Christian churches, before the time of Constantine, and when the spirit of the world was not suffered to prevail among professing Christians, were founded and governed in their discipline and worship, upon the same principles as the English Dissenting Baptist churches. At that early period very large churches existed in Britain, which suffered most distressing persecutions from the Roman emperors. Such simple-hearted Christians as we have described in foreign parts were the churches in this country, until the close of the sixth century, when they fell victims to the sectarian zeal, and antichristian | thers of the English church," is a policy and cruelty of Austin, the gross misnomer: they were in no booted apostle, at Bangor, near other sense her fathers but as she is Protestant; certainly not as she Chester. The long dark night of popery is episcopal. They were Dissentwhich was thus introduced into ers from the popish established Britain, continued till the Refor-church, and the churches they mation, which was commenced by formed before the protestant estaWickliffe in the 14th, and was finished in the 16th century. blishment were necessarily congregational, or at most presbyterian. Besides the Reformers in church That there was a congregation at and state at this latter period, of Oxford in 1526, and one in Bowwhom Lord Thomas Cromwell and lane, Cheapside, in the reigns of Archbishop Cranmer were the chief Edward VI. and Queen Mary, and persons, there were those who Queen Elizabeth, may be seen in were reformers as regarded the Fox's Martyrology. These Chriscorrupt principles of popery in re-tians, who were known by the gard to religion simply, irrespec- name of "the congregations," tive of the religion of the church could not at any period of what is as by law established. These were called the Reformation in the that illustrious band of men, con- Church of England, have united sisting of Tyndal, Frith, Barnes, themselves with it, without a vioGarrett, Hierome, and others. lation of the principles by which The first of these worthies having they were distinguished. translated the Scriptures into English, the rest assisted in the distribution of his New Testament, and made it the only standard of their principles, and the only rule of their conduct. By these, and their numerous disciples, the principles of free inquiry were widely propagated; they taught that Christ was the only supreme head of the church on earth, and that his will was to be learned from the Scriptures alone. It is to those Christians, then, who before the Reformation suffered such violent persecutions, because of their having dissented from the popish church-establishment in England, that the genuine Protestant Dissenters trace their origin: from these anti-popish Christians they are the lineal descendants. They were called by way of reproach, before the time of Tyndal, Lollards; and after his time, Gospellers, and Anabaptists! They were the nucleus around which gradually gathered all persons who were dissatisfied either with the constitution, or discipline, The chief thing accomplished by these or doctrines of the established great and good men, was their getting the Scriptures translated by Coverdale; and af- church, and to which they adhered. terwards, prevailing on the king, Henry It follows, therefore, that ProtesVIII, to sanction Tyndal's translation. In tant Dissenters are unjustly called the year 1540, one edition of what was Separatists! How could they separate from a church of which they were never members? It is improper, then, to reproach them, as though they were exclusively sectarians. The church of England is herself sectarian, as well as they, That any writer should have designated these martyrs the "Fa called "the Bible of the larger volume," was printed, as Tyndal had left it, without the Apocryphal books, which had been translated after Tyndal's death by John Rogers, and appended to Tyndal's, called Matthews's Bible. A copy of this very curious edition, (which was "ordered to be read in shurches") is in Sion College Library. |