Indeed, among many evasions of these truths, it is hard to find a man stoutly denying them.

We sometimes meet with the assertion, that the evidence is not so complete as might be desired, and that probably no modern churches have adopted the exact discipline of the early Christians. We take high ground, which we hope to maintain, when we reply, that there is no part of doctrine or discipline controverted among Protestants, respecting which the opinions of the first Christians were so unanimous, and their practice so uniform, as those which related to the constitution of their churches, and the election of their ministers.

We are more frequently told, that the practice of inspired men is not recorded as a precedent to be observed in every age; but that church government is a sort of non-essential in religion, which may be varied by circumstances, that is, which must yield to the convenience or pleasure of any party.

Here, it is enough to ask, who gave us licence to depart from the apostolic model? What authority have we to change any part of the religion of Christ? Why is Christian discipline non-essential rather than Christian doctrine? Who dare thus distinguish, when both are taught in the same revelation, and sanctioned by the same authority? Have we any where in Scripture the slightest intimation, than it is less criminal to refuse the institutes, than it is to reject the doctrines of Christ? Is not our commission thus expressed," teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you?" Is the doctrine of non-essentials taught, or a permission to depart from apostolic regulations granted, in the solemn address of Paul to Timo

thy-" I charge thee before God, and the Lord Jesus Christ, and the elect angels, that thou observe these things, without preferring one before another, doing nothing by partiality?"

We dare not make treasonable surrender of our allegiance to Christ. He is the King in Zion, and we must submit to his laws. When we say, that our churches are independent, we mean independent of each other, and of all human authority. They are not without law to Christ. The Lord Jesus is our blessed and only potentate. In his institutions, we dare not make the slightest alteration. We rest the defence of our independency, not upon any notions of liberty and right, however well-founded; but upon the authority of Christ, and the example of apostolic churches.

Let us now ascertain the discipline established by the apostles, and observed by the first Christians.

The disciples, who, after the ascension, assembled in an upper room at Jerusalem, and the number of whose names was about one hundred and twenty, may be considered as the first, though before the descent of the Spirit, a very imperfectly organized Christian church. The only act of this society, which the inspired writer has recorded, is the appointment of Matthias to the apostolic office. On that occasion the proceedings were exactly those of a voluntary society.* Peter, as any member might have done, made a proposal, and offered good reasons for receiving it. It does not appear that he assumed any authority, though if he had it would have been by virtue of his apostleship. They appointed two; they prayed and said; they gave forth

*Acts i. 15-26.

their lots; who but the hundred and twenty brethren, the only persons mentioned in the narraiu tive?

This passage gives us an opportunity to introduce some remarks upon Mr. Bingham's account of the appointment to office in the primitive church. This learned defender of Episcopacy says, "in the apostolical and following ages, there were four several ways of designing persons to the ministry. The first of which was by casting lots; the second by making choice of the first fruits of the Gentile converts; the third by particular direction and inspiration of the Holy Ghost; and the last in the common and ordinary way of examination and election." Amidst all this parade of four several ways of designing to the ministry, Bingham virtually concedes that the pastors of the primitive churches were designated to office on the election of the people. He might as well have said clearly, and in a few words, what is evident from his own statements, that unless there was some especial direction from God, it was the universal rule and practice of the first Christians to elect their own pastors.

As to the first mode, by casting lots, we are referred to the appointment of Matthias. But certainly this was no designation to the ministerial office. Matthias was neither pastor nor deacon of the church at Jerusalem. He was admitted to an order of which every other member had been expressly and immediately appointed by our Lord himself. Thus granting that Matthias was appointed by lot, (which is not quite certain, as we shall hereafter show,) it was unfair to introduce this as an instance of designation to the ministry.

Bingham further introduces, to show that this was not the only

instance of deciding by lot, a canon of the council of Barcelona, appointing, in Spain, a designation to office, very like the proceedings on the ordination of Matthias. But this canon is too far from the apostolic age, to be of any moment in our inquiry. It is dated A. D. 599. In the corrupt state of the church, at the close of the sixth century, many irregularities in the appointment of its officers, may be easily detected. Yet even in this very decree, we find the appointment determined, partly by the election of the people,_and partly by an appeal to the Lord Jesus. It enjoins two or three to be elected by the consent of the clergy and people, who shall present to the metropolitan and his fellow-bishops; and they, having first fasted, shall cast lots, leav ing the determination to Christ the Lord. “Duobus aut tribus, quos ante consensus cleri et plebis elegerit, Metropolitani judicio ejus co-episcopis præsentatis, quem sors, præunte jegunio, Christo Domino terminante, monstraverit, Benedicto Consecrationis accumulet."— Concil. Barcinon. c. 3. Tom. 5. p. 1606.

Thus, as we intend to show more fully, it was not till the rise of many abominations; not till the multiplication of gorgeous rites by Gregory, and other pontiffs; not till the canonization of the mass, the aggrandizement of the clergy, and the swarms of monks throughout Christendom, numerous enough to furnish immense armies, that the independency of the churches was completely destroyed, and their right of electing their own bishops entirely abolished. We wish it to be observed, that the appointment to office for any other reason than the choice of the people, was one of the latest, as well as one of the worst corruptions of the church.

"The second method of desig

nation," says Bingham, was by making choice of the first fruits of the Gentile converts. But we ask, who made choice of these men? If the people, this is only an instance of the general rule, the priority of conversion being considered a reason for election to office. If by appointment of the Holy Ghost, it is no exception to the rule we have noticed. In all the citations on this subject, such an appointment is referred to apostolic authority, which, as the apostles acted by inspiration, is equivalent to the designation of the Spirit. The principal, and indeed only valuable citation, is from Clemens Romanus, and satisfactorily explains the apostolic practice. κατα χωρας και πολεις κηρυσσοντες, καθίσανοι τας ἀπαρχας ἀντων, δοκιμαζοντες τω πνευματι, εἰς ἐπισκοπες και διακονες των μελλοντων πιςεύειν. Clem. Rom. ad Cor. Ep. i. § 42.* Here the persons were approved by the Spirit; the language of Clemens is in accordance with that of the New Testament, intimating that two, not three orders, were appointed by the apostles: and the persons were appointed before churches were constituted, with a reference to future believers, TWV μελλοντων πιςεύειν. In organized churches, as we shall hereafter see, even under apostolic superintendence, the right of election was in the people.

timations of the Spirit only directed, but did not supersede the suffrages of the people. In fact, on these occasions, as well on others, the decision was with the laity. Their assent must have been gained. Thus, according to Eusebius, when the election of a bishop at Rome was turned in favour of Fabian, by a dove settling upon his head, it was the people, who, with one accord, cried out, He is worthy, and placed him in the bishop's chair. See Eus. Eccl. His. lib. vi. ch. 29. So at the election of Martin, Bishop of Tours, some expressions in the Psalm, on which a reader accidentally opened, being taken for a divine intimation, the people gave a shout, and carried his election by acclamation. Severus. Vita S. Martin. Such instances, as they are not the most ancient that might be selected, teach us how corrupt the church had grown before the people lost the sacred and indisputable right of electing their own pastors;-a right of which Episcopalians, Presbyterians, and Methodists, conspire to deprive them.

The fourth and last way of designation, says Bingham, was by the ordinary course of sufferage and election in the church. We have already seen, notwithstanding his evasions, that this was the invariable rule and uniform practice of the primitive church. Here we pause, and hereafter resume our inquiries into the independence of the first Christian churches.

will bear the test of severe inquiry; and that the supposed in

We hope to consider more attentively this section, as well as the curious note on it by Fell, and the still more curious one by Cotelerius.

SCRIPT DIARY OF A NONCON-
FORMIST LADY.

IN the troublous times of our forefathers, when duty and safety alike warned them to retire from the stormy scenes and pestilential at

mosphere of great cities, Diaries were in vogue. They furnished amusement and correction to their authors, and many of them have come down to our own times, bringing with them facts and illustrations of the manners and events of that period, such as history, amidst its pompous detail of wars and dynasties, deigns not to communicate.

The memoirs of Hutchinson, Baxter, Evelyn, Pepys, and Hyde, afford abundant evidence of the value of this now-neglected practice; and from such stores the impartial historian, now the heat of party violence has subsided, collects materials to illustrate the peculiarities of the age, " and with blunt truth acquaints us what they were." They have, however, generally been employed as powerful moral instruments intended for selfcorrection, and have been so recommended. "Add, says a devout writer of the last century, a Diary, or the account you keep of the state of your own souls. In your offices or shops you have the state of your trade in journals, ledgers, and other books of accounts: in your oratories, have spiritual account books, several reckonings stated and recorded between God and you."

Such a record, it has been well observed, might have the title of Marcus Antoninus's celebrated work, τῶν εις εαυτόν, "himself to himself," or, more literally, "the things which concern himself." Mr. D'Israeli mentions, in his Curiosities of Literature, the Diary of a Colonel Harwood, in the reign of Charles the First, entitled," Slips, Infirmities, and Passages of Providence." And such a title might be given to the curious manuscript before me. It is a thin quarto volume, com

Bennet's Christian Oratory.

prizing about two hundred pages, written in a plain female hand, and characterized by the negligent orthography of the times.

Though without a name, yet it commends itself to the confidence of the reader, by the simplicity and piety which mark every page; and though it does not possess historical opulence, yet it is rich in those details of Christian experience, which have made the Diary of Mr. Joseph Williams, and the Memoirs of Mrs. Graham, deserved favourites with serious persons of every communion. I propose, therefore, to select some of those passages which appear calculated to interest your readers, and on which I shall presume to make occasional remarks. The volume commences with the following reflections;

The

"I doe thinke it my duty before it shall please the Lorde to take me to himselfe, to leave behinde me a true and faithfull accounte of God's mercys to me, and the manner of the spirits working upon my soul. Spirit of God had begune his worke in the early days of my childhoode, and I have found great experiences of the Lord's tender love to me in Christ Jesus. O what fatherly care had the Lord over me in my maiden estate, and how has he kept me till now! Yet I must own never creatture has more distrusted a good God than I have done. O how hard a thinge have I found it to believe what I had through the riches of grace experienced. O the feares and doubts that have bene in my spirit aboute my eternell estate; lying down and rising up, my feares here continued with me. Still I must confesse for the magnifying and extoling of the free and undeserved grace of God to me, that I have often experienced his great goodness in vanishing my

feares and causing me to hope for his free mercie through Christ. But as soon as the warme beams of God's love have bene withdrawn, my feares have retourned, and I have bene led to question whether all be not a delusion. Indeede, when I considered how fast other Christians grow in grace, and thought that I could not tell whether I grew at all, I was greatly troubled. It was then given me to consider that the way to have more grace is to improve what I have received of the Lord. This stirred up a resolution in me to consider and looke backe upon God's past kindness to me, and tell to others what he hath done for my soule. I now implore, through the gracious promise of my Lorde, the assisting grace of the Spirit, that he may bring all things to my remembrance, and that bye his helpe I may declare what the Lord hath done for my soule."

The narrative of her early religious history succeeds. The following account of her early loss, child-like reflections thereon, and extraordinary recovery from sickness, will be read with interest.

my

"It pleased the Lorde to laye much sicknes and weakness upon me from my mother's breast, and my being so sicklie endeared me the more to my mother than any other of her children. About the age of 10 yeares, it pleased the Lorde to take my mother from me by death, and though I was but young, I had a great sense of losse, which did cause many thoughts to arise in my minde. Fearing, now I had lost my mother, that no one else cared for mee, I thought in myselfe that if God would visibly owne me as one of his people, that my father would love me more than he did. These desires were surely the motions of God's Spirit in me, therefore did No. 37. N. S.

the Lorde take notice of mee, and did visibly own such a poore silley worm to be one of his deare children. O, I can say, when I was forsaken of my mother, then the Lorde tooke me up."

"The following accounte of the maner how I was taken was firste written by my father, and now written by myselfe, that I may declare God's goodness amongst his servants, in answering the requests which were then put up to the Lorde on my behalfe.

"On Wensday, July 13th, 1649, about fore of the clock in the afternoone, my daughter Elenor, of the age of aboute 13 yeares, was taken suddenly very sick, and grew light-headed, and within the space of one houre begane to have an inwarde and great conflict with Sattan, and being as it were in a trance, she prayed much, uttering such words as she usually did in her prayers.

"Then she uttered these and many such-like words

O, who would have thought in the morning that I should have died before night.

'I am going into hell, where all drunkards, blasphemers, and liars are.'

I have bene a liar-I have

bene proude. O take warning by me, and do not sinne against your good God! O the devil will carey me away. But Christ is stronger than the devil. Canst not thou, O Lorde Jesus, gett me out of his power? I know thou wilt! Why dost thou delay? Why, Lord, dost thou not come and deliver me?'

O lay my head upon the stone where thou layest Jacob's head, and blesse me as thou didst blesse Jacob. I will not lett thee goe till thou hast blessed me.'

"After she lay still some time, she raised herselfe on the bed, and with a smyling countenance ut

D