*It will be said', perhaps, that it is a very different thing to acknowledge the necessity of what Christ has done for us, and to believe that any thing further has been left for men to do for us: and so undoubtedly it is; the one belief may be true, and the other false but the question here is, whether the one proves the other to be false; whether the spirit and tenor of Christianity, which insists throughout on the insufficiency of human dispositions, [are] irreconcilable with the claims of the Christian Priesthood, simply because these insist on the necessity of something else besides such dispositions.*

But again another ground is taken; it is objected that the supposed necessity of an earthly Priesthood implies insufficiency in what has been effected for us by Christ. Now here it is obvious to answer, that this objection assumes the institution of this earthly Priesthood to be no part of what was effected for us by Christ, which is the very point under dispute. If the earthly Priesthood can be shown not to have been set up by Christ, no reasonable man will maintain its necessity; but, on the other hand, if it has been set up by Him, it is part of what He has effected for us, just as much as the descent of the promised Comforter is part of this; and to object to it as implying insufficiency in the other parts of what Christ has effected for us, is no better argument than it would be to object to the doctrine of spiritual assistance, for the same reason.

1 [The passages between asterisks are erased in the original.]

*The fact is, that throughout Scripture the scheme for effecting man's salvation is represented as consisting of many parts, any one of which may, for aught we can see, be as indispensably necessary as any other to such a degree that no wise man will suppose he sees the full meaning of any one part of it, or all its relations to other parts; but will be contented to believe whatever appears to be revealed, without requiring that it should accord with his deductions from other revelations.

If indeed any principle has certainly been laid down in one part of Revelation, no fact that militates against it can possibly have been revealed in any other part, and no appearances of such a revelation can be trusted. But if the principle in question is merely a human deduction from one class of revealed facts, then, unless it accords with every other revealed fact, it must be delusion; and the slightest appearance that any fact not in accordance with it has been revealed, should teach us to distrust it. In all cases, the greatest possible distinction must be observed between human theories respecting the spirit of Christianity, and revealed declarations about it. For as in physical science nothing has so much obstructed men's progress, as the disposition to theorize on insufficient data, and then to make these theories the test of facts, instead of trying them by facts; so the same observation seems to extend to religion with still greater force, though mankind are not so ready to admit of it. Christianity, as well as Natural Philosophy, is a

system of facts, and, as such, can only be made known to us either by Experience or Testimony: Experience is out of the question, so that Testimony is the only evidence of which the case admits. And hence, in the case of Christianity to disregard Testimony, is exactly the same solecism as it is to disregard experiment in Natural Philosophy: in either case it is to disregard the only evidence which can by any possibility be afforded us. Neither is it in any degree more reasonable, to disbelieve some facts which appear to be revealed, because they do not accord with theories which we have formed, about other facts admitted to be revealed, than it would be to discredit any new discovery of Science, because it proved that we had drawn wrong inferences from former discoveries.*

§6. The proof of the Ecclesiastical System not inadequate because doubtful.

The Ecclesiastical System, founded on a belief in the Apostolical Priesthood, has not been as explicitly revealed as many other parts of Christianity. In the Holy Scriptures it is only intimated, not inculcated; and were it not from the reflected light thrown on these intimations, by our knowledge how they were interpreted in the Primitive Church, probably we should have attained only to a partial knowledge of their drift. This is admitted by all Churchmen, and this admission their opponents turn into a positive argument against them, on the

assumption, that were the Ecclesiastical System true, it would not be left to subsist upon doubtful evidence.

The process, by which doubtful proof is thus turned into refutation, is founded on the two following canons :—

1. That God cannot be believed to have made any revelation to man, without causing it to be embodied in writing by inspired persons.

2. That in the writings of inspired persons, nothing can have been intended to be revealed, except what is fully, clearly, and unequivocally revealed, so that he who runs may read. And that whatever besides may be elicited from these writings in the way of intimation and allusion, interesting though it may be to the Theologian, can constitute no part of what it was God's purpose to communicate.

Now, if these two canons are admitted, the Ecclesiastical System, and perhaps other parts of Christianity, must fall to the ground. I believe, however, that they will not be found to stand the test of examination. For,

1. Neither of them are self-evident axioms, nor yet deducible from any principles of mere Reason: as will be admitted by all who acquiesce in the following remarks of Bishop Butler :

"We are wholly ignorant what degree of new knowledge it were to be expected God would give mankind by Revelation, on the supposition of His affording one; or how far, or in what way, He

would interpose miraculously, to qualify them to whom He should originally make the revelation for communicating the knowledge given by it; and to secure their doing it to the age in which they should live; and to secure its being transmitted to posterity. We are equally ignorant whether the evidence of it would be certain, or highly probable, or doubtful; or whether all who should have any degree of instruction from it, and any degree of evidence of its truth, would have the same; or whether the scheme would be revealed at once, or unfolded gradually. Nay, we are not in any sort able to judge, whether it were to have been expected that the revelation should have been committed to writing, or left to be handed down, and consequently corrupted, by verbal tradition, and at length sunk under it, if mankind so pleased, and during such a time as they are permitted, in the degree they evidently are, to act as they will.

"But it may be said that a revelation, in some of the above mentioned circumstances, one for instance which was not committed to writing, and thus secured against danger of corruption, would not have answered its purpose.' I ask, what purpose? It would not have answered all the purposes which it has now answered, and in the same degree; but it would have answered others, or the same in different degrees. And which of these were the purposes of God, and best fell in with His general government, we could not have determined beforehand.