Page:Tracts for the Times Vol 3.djvu/257

Rh a pattern so definite, as to leave little doubt of the intentions of our Divine Master, or of the manner in which those intentions were fulfilled by His immediate and inspired Disciples. Nor will the force of such precedent and example on the practice of succeeding Christians be regarded as trifling by those who consider that it is on such grounds as these that the obligation rests of many observances which are allowed by all parties to be essential; among which may be classed the baptism of infants, the observance of the Lord's Day, and our participation in the Lord's Supper.

But, without entering into the question of the absolute necessity of this rule, and without judging those other national Churches which have departed from it, it is evident that those Churches are most wise and most fortunate, who ha^e continued in the path which and His Apostles have trodden before; and that religious insubordination is then most unreasonable and most dangerous, when exerted against a form of polity which the majority of our fellow-Christians, the wisdom of our civil governors, and the full stream of precedent, from the time of the Apostles themselves, combine to recommend to our reverence.

We find, accordingly, that our Lord, on His own departure from the world, committed, in most solemn terms, the government of His Church to His Apostles. We find these Apostles, in the exercise of the authority thus received, appointing Elders in every city, as dispensers of the word and the sacraments of religion; and we find them also appointing other Ecclesiastical Officers, who were to have the oversight of these Elders themselves; and who, in addition to the powers which they enjoyed in common with them, had the privilege, which the others had not, of admitting, by the imposition of hands, those whom they thought fit to the ministerial office....

And it is not too much to say, that we may challenge those who differ from us, to point out any single period at which the Church has been destitute of such a body of officers, laying claim to an authority derived by the imposition of hands from the Apostles themselves; or any single instance of a Church without tliis form of government, till the Church of Geneva, at first from necessity, and afterwards from a mistaken exposition of Scrip-