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blishing rules for Christian discipline, if exercising ecclesiastical censures may be allowed to be sufficient instances of such a power, as sure they must be, since Bishops, as such, claim no more. That the Apostles exercised this power is on all hands owned, and the charge to Titus and Timothy is too plain to be denied. St. Paul charges Timothy to "keep this command❝ment without spot, unrebukable, until the appear❝ing of our Lord Jesus Christ," which was impossible to be done without a continued line of succession, he must, therefore, be presumed to have intended, that he should have such successors, and, in order to it, to have given him power to ordain them.

To conclude. If these things be true--if the Grace that is come by Jesus Christ is not dispensed but by his Church-if there is no entrance into this Church, nor in it any forgiveness of sins, or means of sanctifying Grace, but what is conveyed by their office, to whom by the Holy Spirit is given the ministry of reconciliation-if this ministry none can have but those only that are lawfully sent, and if none have power to send but those that have received it in an uninterrupted succession, from those that had it from Christ himself; and lastly, if none can, justly, lay claim to such a succession but Bishops duly consecrated; if all these things are true, as I see not how any one of them can be disproved; then surely, we have great reason, as many as are of this communion, to bless Almighty God for the assurance we have, that we are in the Covenant of the Gospel, which, certainly, none but those, who are within the pale of the Church, can have. As for those who neither have, nor pretend to, such a succession from the Apostles, whether they are within the Church

or

or without, we judge not, though, indeed, the ancient fathers do, and that on the condemning side; neither presume we to set limits to the extraordinary uncove nanted mercies of God; what they are, or how far they may extend, we know not: but this we are sure of, that the privileges of being within Christ's Holy Ca tholick Church, which only has a right and claim to the promises, are inestimable, or else they had not been purchased for us at so dear a rate, as the "most "precious blood of the eternal Son," and made good and conveyed to us by the Holy Spirit, of God.

To whom, therefore, with the Father and the Holy Spirit, be ascribed all Glory and Praise, all Might, Majesty, and Dominion, both now and for evermore. Amen.

SERMON

SERMON II.

ST. THOMAS'S DAY.

THIS Festival is kept in honor of the memory of St. Thomas, one of our Saviour's twelve Disciples. His lineage and extraction is no where recorded in Scripture; though, it is very probable, he was by nation a Galilean; and it is certain that he was by profession a fisherman, and for some time partner with Peter. (John xxi. 2.) He appeared very zealous in attending on the person of his Master; for when the rest of the Disciples dissuaded our Lord from going again into Judea, lest the Jews should stone him (John xi, 3.) St. Thomas declares his willingness to go and die there. (16.) Indeed his faith was but slow in returning after our Saviour's crucifixion, so that he could not very socn credit the report of His resurrection (xx. 26.) But when our Saviour indulged him the liberty of seeing and handling His yet fresh wounds, which He received upon the cross, he made amends for all by his noble confession, not only of the truth of Christ's resurrection, but of His divinity likewise. (20. 28.) After our Lord's ascension, Thomas's apostleship was exer. cised in preaching the Gospel to the Parthians. He travelled in his preaching as far as India; for St. Chrysostom says, Thomas whitened the Ethiopians. He preached also among the Persians and Medes. His martyrdom is reported to have happened in India, occasioned by the Brahmans, the Indian Priests, who hated him for his preaching the Gospel, and therefore stirred up some of the rabble of soldiers to murder

him.

2 COR. V. 7.

We walk by Faith, not by Sight.

ALL civilized, ingenious people, especially a!!

the Greeks, whom the Apostle comprehends under the title of Corinthians, have made it their constant study to improve themselves in knowlege; and, according to the several ways of their improvements, they divided themselves into several schools, or sects; where they had their peculiar badges, or mottos, to be distinguished by. I know only this, that I know nething at all, was the motto of one school. Where they declare the weakness of man's understanding, and the imperfection of all human knowlege at the best. He has said it, was the motto of another; that is, our great master has averred it for a truth, and what he has averred we will defend: where they resolve their knowlege into belief, and profess to take up their doctrines upon the authority of their

master.

This is what the Apostle seems to allude to in the text, and to join these mottos both together: We "walk by Faith," there is his He has said it; and "not by Sight," there is his I know nothing. By the first clause he shews, what deference we pay to the authority of our Master; and by the second, how little we depend upon ourselves. And therefore, these excellent, expressive, well-chosen words, may well be called the Christian's motto, the universal charac

* Bishop Hickman,

ter

ter of the Gospel, the eternal maxim, that runs through, and governs all the several parts, both of our practice, and our profession:

I shall endeavor to shew;

First, What is here meant by Faith, as it stands in opposition to sight.

Secondly, How reasonable it is, in this opposition, to judge in favor of Faith.

Thirdly, That we must not only judge, but "walk by Faith, and not by sight."

I. The text is not so to be understood, as if our Faith obliged us to deny our sight, or to renounce the evidence of our senses, or to believe, in direct contradiction to what we see.

Sense is the foundation of all knowlege; it is the principle which both our reason and Religion are built upon: and if these guides may deceive us, God and nature have put the deceit upon us, and man is not accountable for his error.

If, therefore, we take away the evidence of sense, it not only destroys our knowlege, but our Faith also will fall with it to the ground. If we take away the foundation, it is impossible for the house to stand.

As Faith does no where contradict plain evident sense, so neither does it debar us from the use of our reason, that faculty within us whereby we judge of things, and compare one thing with another, and by drawing certain inferences from what we see, we rise to the knowlege of things that are out of sight.

For reason is so far from being inconsistent with Religion, that it is the very immediate ground upon which Religion stands. Thus, says St. Paul," the "invisible things of God are seen by those things C " which

VOL. III.

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