infinitely greater need of every aid which can be afforded from the common principles of human association against the common enemies of our faith, to refuse the benefit of combined operation, and determine that we can only act as Christians when we act independently and alone.' 1 See Appendix, Note K. LECTURE X. THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND, AS A SPIRITUAL INSTITUTION. CHURCH OFFICERS. 2 TIM. ii. 2. The things that thou hast heard of me among many witnesses, the same commit thou to faithful men, who shall be able to teach others also. NEXT to the constitution of the English church, and the nature of the authority which it claims as a spiritual society, our attention is claimed by the officers to whom the administration of its affairs is committed. There are the three gradations of bishops, priests, and deacons, constituted, as we believe, by apostolic authority in the church of Christ, and transmitted in a regular course of succession from age to age, in compliance with the injunction of the text. On the two former of these, I shall offer some remarks, introductory to the defence of its episcopal order, which forms one of the most distinguishing features of the Church of England. We hear much indeed of our unscriptural multiplication of officers, and a formidable array is readily produced of archbishops, archdeacons, deans, chancellors, prebendaries, canons, and the like, whose titles being of ancient and foreign origin, and conveying to English ears no precise conception of the duties to which they refer, serve with the uninquiring to convict us at once of a most awful deviation from scriptural simplicity; and are used for this uncandid purpose by some who cannot but be better informed, or if they be not, have barred themselves from every apology which ignorance might plead, by gratuitously undertaking the office of guides. As justly however might the same charge be brought against the dissenting body, since in matters more or less connected with the affairs of their churches, we continually hear of committees, managers, trustees, congregational unions, boards of deputies or delegates of the leading denominations, presidents, treasurers, librarians, secretaries, registrars of these boards, principals of congregational colleges, doctors, tutors, and professors of theology, nay even of classical literature and philosophy, for whose titles and offices it would be at least as difficult to produce scripture precedent, as for any of those which give so high offence in the Church of England. The natural answer to such a charge would be, that these offices, though convenient in certain circumstances of their existence, were by no means essential to the existence of congregational churches, or necessarily connected with them; and that though not expressly named in scripture, there was nothing in scripture to forbid such a distribution of trust among members of their several societies, or the affixing of official names to the depositaries of such trusts, which might make them known among their brethren, and save much mistake and confusion. And exactly the same may be said of these offensive offices and titles in the Church of England. It has been found convenient, and was so long before the church had any connexion with the state, that in certain districts one bishop should act as president over his brethren, whom therefore we call the archbishop, the chief or presiding bishop. The same convenience has suggested, that while the bishop is occupied in the general superintendance of the diocese, there should be an officer, now called the dean but anciently the archpresbyter, to preside over the college of clergy connected with the cathedral, usually styled canons or prebendaries, as well as to attend to the fabric itself, and the due maintenance of divine service within its walls;-that where dioceses are large, the bishop should be assisted in his work of inspection, especially in relation to temporal matters such as the state of parish churches and parsonage houses the appointment and conduct of churchwardens and the like, by one of the clergy, who from the matters which fall within his province rather than his personal rank in the church, is called the archdeacon or chief deacon;-that in like manner the judicial authority committed to the bishop, and extending by our national usages to many things not directly of a spiritual character, should be chiefly entrusted to an ecclesiastical judge acting in his name, and called the chancellor of the diocese, whose functions requiring the possession of much legal information which does not ordinarily fall within the course of clerical study, are sometimes exercised by a layman, the personal inspection of the clergy being still reserved to the bishop, and provision made that no sentence shall be passed on one of that body, except by himself, assisted by the representatives of the presbytery his ancient council. But all these offices, how convenient soever, might be utterly abolished, without affecting in the slightest degree a single essential feature of the Church of England as a spiritual society: and as to the latter, I suppose no true friend to her cause would object to such a separation of what is extraneous from what is essential to spiritual jurisdiction, and such a revision of the whole ecclesiastical code, as might give to her spiritual courts a more strictly spiritual character, and, without removing the just guards to innocence, render her discipline less liable to be crippled and defeated by legal technicalities or legal costs and delays. The question therefore, as to these as well as the former list of officers, is not whether they are to be found in very form and phrase in holy writ, but whether there be any thing in scripture to forbid such a |