and explains the origin, nature and design, of ecclesiastical societies. They were formed, not to control the churches, and not to become churches; and much less to destroy them: but to afford to the churches, with the advantage of system, and under the cognizance of law, an efficient cooperation.

In their great zeal of good intention, they sometimes indeed proceeded farther and legislated directly for the church; which always created mischief, as the other part of their system, the simple cooperation of ecclesiastical societies with the churches, in the support of religious institutions, always produced a benign effect. No such state of human society, civil, moral, literary and religious, has ever existed to such an extent, and for so long a time, in our world, as has been formed, and continued, by these means in New England: and whoever shakes the corner stone of this system, will bring to the dust, the noblest edifice ever reared by divine and human cooperation; and will transmit to posterity, evidence of preeminent folly, and ceaseless occasion of execration and regret.

2. Every person, believing himself to be the subject of true religion, and able to afford to others, credible evidence of the fact, is bound to confess Christ before men; and to enrol himself as a member of some visible church.

It is the revealed will of God, that his people should exist in a visible organized form: both, for the more advantageous enjoyment of personal privileges, and for their more efficient cooperation in the preservation and extension of the religion of the gospel. Every believer needs the aid of ordinances peculiar to the church; and is not at liberty to neglect the means of his own edification. He owes to his Saviour, the influence of bis example; and has no right to put his light under a bushel. He needs the confidence for action, which the public profession of religion only can inspire; and the facilities and excitements to action, which organized social enterprise alone, can afford. The friends of their country, when she is invaded, may as well refuse to enrol themselves in an army, and trust to individual zeal and prowess; as the friends of Christ may stand alone, in their conflict with principalities and powers, and spiritual wickedness in high places. The Captain of our Salvation has commanded his friends to embody, and to act publicly as the Lord's host. He allows of no exception to this general order. He required an open profession of religion when the loss of property and reputation, were the certain consequences; and death itself stared every man in the face who should confess him before men.

Prevailing doubts, concerning the reality of personal religion, may occasion the delay of a publick profession for a time, but he who believes himself to be a christian, and will not assume the responsibilities, and perform the duties, connected with a public profession; affords fearful evidence, that he is ashamed of Christ, and that Christ in the day of judgment will be ashamed of him.

3. A church of Christ cannot be constituted, or con-r tinued, without personal holiness in the members.

We do not say that every member must be holy; but if none are pious, it cannot be a church of Christ. If a small number only are pious, in alliance with an overwhelming majority, by whom their designs are overruled, and the end of a visible church defeated, they do not so sanctify the visible community, as to constitute it a church of Christ. In such alliance, the pious, instead of acting as pioneers of the cross, will be led as captives in

chains, to grace the triumphs of error—will serve as a decoy of others, to the unhallowed community, and as a quietus to the consciences of worldly men, who will feel safe, as long as pious people dare to continue, and act with them.

Baptism in infancy cannot constitute adult membership in the visible church.

It neither secures, nor evidences, the existence of personal holiness, in those who are baptized, when they come to years of understanding. And we are not at liberty to suppose, that God has required personal holiness as a qualification for membership in his church, and for purposes essential to its existence, and which unholy men never did, and never will accomplish, and then that he has contravened his own appointment, and insured the defeat of his own designs in organizing the church, by admitting the unholy to membership, by means of a right administered in infancy.

The children of the church baptized in infancy are the objects of her peculiar care, and if in any sense church members, they are not in any such sense, as supersedes the necessity of a credible profession of religion, when they come to years of understanding. If they are members of the church at all, it must be on the ground of membership in the family of the faithful, so that when family membership ceases, their connection with the church must cease of course.

I cannot but believe, however, that language more accurate, and less liable to produce mistake and controversy, may be employed, than that which denominates baptized children church members without intending in reality what is included in the term as applied to adult membership. . .

A regularly ordained ministry, an orthodox creed, and devout forms of worship, cannot constitute a church of Christ, without personal holiness in the members. Much less can civil associations of men, though formed for religious purposes.

The attempt which is making to confound the scriptural distinction between the holy and unholy, the righteous and the wicked, and to abolish the revealed terms of membership in the church of God, and to form churches without reference to doctrinal opinion, or experimental religion, is the most pernicious infidelity that was ever broached. It breaks the spring of motion, in the centre of God's extended system of good will to men, and stops the work of salvation.

The church, as a collective body, is the organ of God's moral administration,—a chartered community, "formed for the exclusive purpose of giving efficacy and perpetuity to the revealed laws of the divine government. The Bible, without churches to give efficacy to its precepts and institutions, will no more accomplish the gracious purposes of heaven, than law books will accomplish the ends of civil government, without an organized administration. The concerns of agriculture and commerce, and science, and the arts, may be left to the spontaneous impulse of ambition, interest, and necessity. But not so the concerns of religion. In a world of revolt and alienation from God, no spontaneous care of his cause is to be anticipated; but rather a common, extended, powerful, habitual opposition. To propel such a cause, from the beginning to the end of time, with all its attendant self denials, toils, expenses, and sufferings, against the buffetings of such a stream, requires the steady, vigorous action, of a constantly organized body; animated by a love stronger than death, and which many waters cannot quench.

For this purpose, the Church, composed as far as man can judge, exclusively of the sanctified in Christ Jesus, is organized. But the specific character of her members, is as indispensable to her chartered efficacy, as her organized existence itself. The administration of civil government, may as well be committed to the known enemies of a nation, or the command of her armies, to officers in opposing hostile ranks, as to commit to the hands of unholy men, the great work for which the church of God is instituted. To men withheld from the appropriate duties of their station by aversion, sloth, business, or pleasure, is committed the administration of the divine practical system, for accomplishing the salvation of the world. In such hands the work will stop. The constant energy of love in the heart, quickened daily by new supplies of grace, is scarcely adequate to the impulse required. In the hands then of the unholy the work will not be done. It will be opposed. The faith delivered to the saints will be contended against. The Sabbath will be encroached upon by its unhallowed defenders. The work of rearing pious youth for the sanctuary, will cease: and talents, and science, and taste, will constitute the primary accomplishments of the ministers of Christ. The religious education of children will be neglected: and as to the heathen, the virtuous heathen, they will be left to their almost equal privileges with Christians, to find their way to heaven without the gospel.

The system of action, which would break down the sacred inclosure about the church, and throw the church and world together in one common field; and which to accomplish its purpose, would bring into competition the rights of churches and of congregations; and bv design