the Church. So shall they be enabled to "take up the serpents" they will meet with; and "if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them."

Take heed, then, my Brethren, to yourselves, and to the flock over which you are appointed overseers; watch, and remember ever the solemn warnings Paul has given us and may you be enabled, like him, at the close of your ministry, to stand "pure from the blood of all men."

NOTE A. TO PAGE 497.

Many also there are, I am convinced, in this country, and some in the Continental States, by whom the "infallibility of the Church" is understood in the same sense as the constitutional maxim that "the king can do no wrong;" by which every one understands, not that the sovereign is personally exempt from error, but that there is no superior authority on earth to which he is responsible, and to which appeal can be made against any exercise of his lawful prerogative; and that to establish any such authority would be to subvert the Constitution for no object; since it would be, after all, only setting up as supreme one fallible man or Body of men instead of another. In like manner, some probably consider it best that there should be, in religious matters, some one supreme authority on earth, which, though not really infallible, should be treated as if it were so; that is, that its decisions should be final and without appeal, and binding on all Christians. This, they conceive, is better than that interminable controversies, arising out of the differences of men's private judgments, should be suffered to arise, and to continue unchecked. And, no doubt, peace and unanimity might be thus produced, though at the expense of truth, I mean sincere conviction of truth, -and at the price of transferring to fallible man that devotion which is due to God only, if all Christians throughout the world would agree to acquiesce in this feigned infallibility. But, as it is, truth and genuine piety are sacrificed for the sake of an universal peace and agreement, which (as is subsequently pointed out) are not attained after all.

NOTE B. TO PAGE 508.

I am well aware that when the two claims,-that to universality, and that to exemption from dissension and from error,—are brought forward in conjunction, and it is undertaken to reconcile them with each other, it is usual to explain one or both of them in a sense different from the obvious and natural meaning of the words, so as to render the two claims compatible. Then it is that we are told that "Catholic" or "Universal" means only the religion of a considerable majority of professing Christians, or the religion the most widely diffused throughout Christendom: or we are told that the Universal Church means merely that which all professed Christians ought to belong to; and that adults of sound mind who have received Christian baptism, and deliberately profess Christianity, are not necessarily members of the Universal Church, or Christians at all.

And we are also told that exemption from dissension and from error belongs to those only who submit in all points to the decisions of the rulers of the Catholic Church. And doubtless if all mankind, or any number of men, would but come to a perfect agreement in any one religion,—be it true or false, they could not but be exempt from religious dissension, and, if not from error, at least from anything that they themselves would account an error.

But surely this is to "keep the word of promise to the ear, and break it to the hope." It is not in any such sense that the pretensions I have been speaking of are usually put forth, and naturally understood, when taken separately. And it is not under any such explanations as the above, that those pretensions are found so alluring and so satisfactory as, to a great number of persons, they are; but in the natural and ordinary sense of the words. The expression "Catholic," or "Universal," Church is naturally understood to denote that

which comprehends all Christians. And by the word Christians is understood those who acknowledge and professedly embrace the religion founded by Jesus Christ. And those who designate any of these as Heretics are so far from denying them the title of Christians (though unsound and perverted Christians), that they imply it; since Pagans or avowed Atheists are never reckoned Heretics.

I am not, be it observed, defending this use of the word "Christian" as the most advisable to be adopted, if we were framing a new language. It might, we will suppose, have been advisable so to define the term that no two Christian Sects or Churches should apply it to the same persons. I am simply stating a fact as to the actual sense conveyed by the word in our existing language. And that such is the sense conveyed by it, is as much a fact as that we actually call the ninth month of the year September, and the tenth October; though if we were remodelling our language, the impropriety of such names would be obvious.

And again, exemption from dissension and from error naturally conveys the idea, not of these evils being condemned by certain Authorities when they arise, but of their never arising at all.

And it is in these obvious and natural senses of the words that the above pretensions are, in general,—when taken separately, put forth with boastful confidence, and prove so attractive and so consolatory to the minds of many, as to be at once admitted without any close scrutiny as to how far they are well-founded.

But when the two claims are brought into juxta-position, and it is inquired how far they are compatible, then they are explained away in the manner above alluded to. The promise is made in one sense, and kept in the other.

I will take the liberty of subjoining an extract relating to this point from the Appendix to the second Essay on the Kingdom of Christ.

"I have seen reproaches full of scornful exultation cast on Protestants for having recourse, when treating of the subject of Church-government, to reasonings drawn from general views of Human Nature, and to illustrations from secular affairs: and for calculating what are likely to be the decisions of a Synod so and so constituted, without adverting to the promises of Divine presence and protection to the Church, and without expressing confidence of providential interpositions to secure it from discord, error, and other evils.

"This kind of language has, at the first glance, a plausible air; and is well calculated,-one cannot but think, designed, -to impose on pious and well-intentioned, but ignorant, weak, and unreflecting minds among the multitude. But a sober examination will shew it to be either wholly irrelevant to the matter in hand, or else a mere groundless pretence.

6

"It is indeed true that the Lord has promised to be with his People even unto the end of the world,' and that the Gates of Hell' (i. e. Death) shall not prevail against his Church; that is, that Christianity shall never become extinct. And his Spirit which helpeth our infirmities' will doubtless be granted to such as sincerely exert themselves in his cause: though not necessarily so as to crown those exertions with such complete success, as, we know, was not granted to the Apostles themselves. Our efforts, however, in that cause, whether He in his unsearchable wisdom shall see fit to make them a greater or a less benefit to others, will doubtless, as far as regards ourselves, be accepted by him. And a pious confidence in whatever God has really promised, Protestants do not fail to inculcate on suitable occasions.

"But when the question is as to the probable results of such and such a procedure in a Synod, and as to the measures likely to be adopted by a Government so and so constituted, it would manifestly be irrelevant to dwell on those general promises of the divine blessing. If there were a question what means should be used to protect a certain district from