may be found in the end and purpose which the Bible teaches us to propose to ourselves as incorporate members of the Church of Christ. This end is twofold. First, that “ we may glorify God with one mind and one mouth" (Rom. xv. 6); secondly, that we may promote the edification of each other in the true faith and worship of God. (Rom. xiv. 19.) Now neither of these things can we properly do-that is, we can neither edify one another, nor give to God such glory as He requires at our hands, but rather we shall be in danger of doing what is most contrary to both, of dishonouring God and of placing stumblingblocks in each other's way-if instead of worshipping and communicating together, we separate into rival and discordant sects. And the case will appear still stronger and still more painful if we carry on our views to the extension of Christ's Kingdom upon earth, and the propagation of the Gospel into Heathen lands. We have abundant testimony from all parts of the globe that nothing stands in the way of that blessed work more than the differences which exist among the Missionaries themselves, and which, they being sent out by different denominations at home, hold themselves bound to exhibit, to maintain, and to propagate among the Heathen as part and parcel of the Gospel of Peace and Love. It was, we may conclude, as foreseeing these impediments that our Blessed Lord, on the eve of His crucifixion, offered that solemn Prayer for the Unity of His Church in all future time-a unity which He desired to be so strict and holy that He compares it to His own oneness with the Father. And to what end? "That the world might believe in Him," as its Lord and Saviour; in other words, might be converted to the Christian faith. (St. John xvii. 21.) Shall we by our divisions obstruct and neutralize this prayer? or shall we not rather do what we can to render it effectual for the blessing not only of ourselves, but of all mankind?

But to proceed. Having shewn that Christian Unity is required to be a unity not only of spirit but of form and body, and that the notion of Christians belonging to more than one body, or to no one body in particular, is not a scriptural one, we come next to the great and far more difficult question, whether exceptions to this rule may not arise; whether offence may not be given by a branch of the one Church, such as not only to justify but to require separation from it, on the part of those who love the Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity. To determine this question we must look again still more closely to the written Word for the guidance which we need, and we must look to that Word simply and exclusively. The case, as generally regarded, is supposed to be one of comparative obligation. It is admitted that we are bound, in all ordi nary circumstances, to maintain unity; but in circumstances not ordinary-in circumstances involving a supposed compliance with what

is sinful-it is held that we are bound still more, in order that we may not become partakers of the sin, to separate from the body which contracts the guilt. Is this opinion a sound one? Is it capable of being justified by the Word of God?

In endeavouring to give an answer to these enquiries, it will be necessary for me to enter into some detail.

First we are called upon to examine any examples that may be found under the elder dispensation. That the Church of the Jews was often in a very sinful condition, both on other accounts and especially by reason of the iniquity of its rulers, we know too well. Not to insist upon the earlier examples, such as were exhibited in the sons of Eli, or even in Aaron himself, when upon one well known occasion (Exod. xxxii.) he became the chief agent in idolatry which it was his duty to have suppressed—to pass over these every possible corruption that could vitiate a priesthood, or do dishonour to true religion, is charged against the clergy of Judah and of Israel by the prophets whom God raised up and sent to recall them, if it might be, to a sense of their duty and of the danger they incurred while they continued to neglect it. Need I remind you how they are characterised as men who "taught for hire;" who "handled the law, yet knew not God;" who "had become brutish;" who "erred through wine, and through strong drink were out of the way;" who were as Sodom and Gomorrah;" who “dealt falsely, violating God's law, profaning His holy things, shewing no difference between the clean and the unclean, hiding their eyes from His Sabbaths;" who "prophesied by Baal;" "who caused many to stumble at the Law, and had corrupted the Covenant of Levi ”—in a word, who "had destroyed God's vineyard, and trodden His portion under foot." Such is the testimony* of the Lord's Prophets, of Isaiah, of Micah, of Jeremiah, of Ezekiel, of Malachi, against the authorities of the Jewish Church during a long series of years; but gross and grievous as those corruptions were corruptions, you will observe, arising not from misconduct only both personal and official, but from errors of doctrine and from misbelief-we do not find that any one prophet was commissioned to lift up his voice, and cry to the true servants of God, who were subject to such unworthy ministers, " Come out from among them and be ye separate." No, and more than this, the Prophets themselves did not separate in their own persons. As the great St. Augustine has remarked, "Toleraverunt Prophetæ contra quos tanta dicebant, nec communionem sacramentorum illius Populi relinqebant.’ "The Prophets tolerated those against whom they uttered such fearful things, nor did they cease to communicate in the Sacraments of that People." (Ep. xciii. Vol II., p. 354.)

Compare Knox's Exhortation to England (1552), Works, Vol. V., p. 509.

Pass we on now to the New Testament; and first let us examine the conduct of our Blessed Lord Himself. Here, again, I need scarcely remind you how in the Gospels, the then existing guides and ministers of the people are spoken of by Christ as "blind leaders of the blind;" as men who "took away the key of knowledge, and neither entered themselves into the kingdom of heaven, nor would suffer others to enter in ;" who transgressed the commandment of God and made it of none effect by their traditions; who worshipped God in vain, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men; who had converted the temple of God into a den of thieves ;-nay, worse than all this, who made a decree that if any man should confess that Jesus was the Christ, he should be excommunicated. And how did our Lord act under circumstances such as these? Did He form a private conventicle ? Did He secede to Mount Gerizim ? Far otherwise. Not only did He frequent the Temple, and teach in the chair of the Synagogue, but He stated plainly the principle upon which He did so, and He enjoined upon His followers the observance of the same principle. "The Scribes and Pharisees (He said) sit in Moses' seat "-often intruded there, we may believe, in a lawless and injurious way, as we know the High Priests themselves were often intruded into the seat of Aaron from mercenary and political motives—" The Scribes and Pharisees sit in Moses' seat ; all therefore whatsoever" (so sitting and teaching from the law of Moses) "they bid you observe, that observe and do." (S. Matt. xxiii. 2, 3.) It is with reference to this text that S. Chrysostom, the greatest preacher of the Ancient Church, observed, "Christ hath cut off all excuse from him that is under rule.' And again, in another place, "If the throne of Moses was of such reverence that for his sake they who sat on it were to be heard, much more the throne of Christ. That throne by succession we (S. Chrysostom speaks as a Bishop) have received. From that we teach."+ It cannot be supposed, without blasphemy, that our Lord was not zealous, far more zealous than we can be, for the purity of God's worship, and for the utmost edification of His faithful followers. But He gave no encouragement whatever to pretences of this kind as a ground for separation from the existing Church, however impure the worship which it offered and however unedifying the doctrine which it taught. It would seem, I think, as if He felt, and desired to make us feel, that however bad the existing state of a Church may be, separation can only render it still worse; and this we are not at liberty to do, for His sake and for our brethren's sake. Nor will such a course be found to tend (however at first we may imagine otherwise) to our own real improvement, to our own eventual

* On 1 Thess. v. 12, Vol. XI., p. 575; see also on Gal. i. 7, Vol X., p. 794.

+On Colos. i. 20, Vol. XI., p. 403.

good. As regards the Church itself, the reason of the principle upon which He has commanded us to act, may be discovered in the illustration which He Himself made use of in another case- "If a kingdom" --and is not the Church in a more especial sense His own kingdom? "If a kingdom be divided against itself that kingdom cannot stand." And if a house--and is not the Church the House of the living God ?"if a house be divided against itself, that house cannot stand."

In proceeding now from the gospels, our next step is to examine the evidence afforded in the later portions of the New Testament. When He who was the Truth had been put to death by the false teachers whom He reproved, but from whose communion He had never separated, what was the course which His chosen followers pursued, acting, as we know they did, under the immediate guidance of the Spirit of God? Did they separate themselves from the Jewish priests? In crucifying Jesus those wicked and unbelieving men had slain, as the Apostles would feel, not only their friend and their master, but their King and their God. They had therefore now this additional plea-is it possible to conceive a stronger?-for renouncing all communion with the rulers of a Church so fallen through their iniquity, so abandoned to its doom. Did they renounce it? This is a question of some difficulty, but its great interest and importance fully justify the attention which it will be necessary to give to it, in order that we may arrive at its true solution. And I shall endeavour to handle the question the more carefully, because in Scotland, at the time of the Disruption in 1843, much misconception prevailed respecting it, and, I am afraid, prevails still.

We must begin by distinguishing between the claims which the Jewish Church had upon Christian believers in Gentile lands, and the claims which it had upon them in Judea and Jerusalem. In Gentile lands it had no mission from God, and consequently no claims whatever, or at least none that could fairly come into competition with those of the Christian Church, which had expressly received such a mission from its Divine Founder. Accordingly, St. Paul and his companions when, through the persecution which they met with in their missionary travels at the hands of their fellow-countrymen, they were compelled to abandon the Jewish synagogues, made no scruple of forming separatist congregations for the preaching of the Gospel; as they did, for instance, at Iconium, at Thessalonica, at Corinth, and particularly at Ephesus; where, when “divers (of the Jews) were hardened and believed not,” the Apostles "departed from them and separated the Disciples, disputing daily in the School of one Tyrannus." (Acts xix. 17.) But it was not so at Jerusalem, although at Jerusalem Christians had received (if possible) still worse treatment. There the Jewish Church had a Divine mission. There, though doomed, it was not yet extinct. There, con

sequently, the Apostles had to balance their conduct between what was due, on the one hand, to the divine though decaying authority of the Law; and, on the other hand, to the no less divine and new-born authority of the Gospel. And so they did. In matters in which the faith of the Gospel was concerned they gave no countenance to the blindness and obstinacy of the unbelieving Jews. They knew that their commission was designed ere long to supersede that of Aaron; as the Gospel itself was designed at once to fulfil and supersede the Law. They had seen the veil of the temple rent in twain from the top to the bottom. They knew that the seventy weeks of the Prophet Daniel were complete; that the daily sacrifice of the Law had been taken away by the one full, perfect, and all-sufficient sacrifice of the cross; and that the unction with which the Most Holy had been anointed had come down even upon themselves. From the first, therefore, they did not scruple to meet, and to invite their disciples to meet for prayers, and more especially for "the breaking of the bread." They did not scruple to organize in Jerusalem a ministry parallelled in its three orders to the Levitical ministry—a ministry in which St. James, "the Lord's brother," occupied the office of Bishop, corresponding to that of the High Priest. They did not scruple to hold, at least on one occasion, a solemn synod under his superintendence. But, notwithstanding all this, nothing meanwhile could be more considerate, nothing more charitable, nothing more alien from the spirit of separation, than the conduct which the Apostles pursued towards their misguided brethren of the elder Church. We know, for instance, how after the day of Pentecost, they still continued daily with one accord in the Temple ;" while, at the same time, they broke the Bread, not in separate conventicles, but "from house to house." (Acts ii. 46; see also iii. 1, v. 42.) In like manner we know how St. Paul, when raised to the Apostleship, did not cease to frequent the Temple, especially at the great festivals, to "walk orderly," as he himself describes it, and "to keep the Law" (Acts xxi. 24); we know that it was while worshipping in the Temple that he was finally apprehended; and that when carried to Rome he avowed to his fellowcountrymen there that he had committed nothing against the customs of their fathers. (Acts xxviii. 17.) You will remember, too, the deferential manner in which he expressed himself towards the High Priest Ananias, notwithstanding the lawless provocation to which he had been subjected. (Acts xxiii. 5.) And so it was with all the Apostles. While they reserved the obedience which was due to God, they never sought to withhold the honour which was due to the authorities whom He had constituted, still less to set themselves up in opposition to those authorities, or to usurp their place. No. They left it dutifully to God Himself to determine the time and the season, when, as Christ had foretold, He should come and destroy those wicked husbandmen, and give