discussion, and may conduct to a comfortable decision, of the great question concerning "the communion of saints." With this view he solicits calm and candid attention, while he endeavours to trace, without disguise, the general course of those reflections and reasonings of which the result has created so much public agitation.

PART I.

The Scriptural Doctrine.

STRANGE as it may appear, it is nevertheless true, that men who have the bible in their hands as their only rule of faith and practice, appeal immediately to its testimony, for their justification, but very rarely for their information. They take for granted that their peculiarities are right, and that the only use of the scripture is to prove them. Much is gained when, instead of putting their language into the mouth of the book of God, the book of God is allowed to sit in judgment upon themselves, and to pronounce its own verdict. This is that course of truth which, however feebly, we shall endeavour to follow. So that our leading inquiry contemplates the direct doctrine of the scripture concerning Christian fellowship. We must go to first principles:

There is no point more fully settled in the scriptures, than this, that

The Church of God is ONE.

It were endless to collect all the proofs. Let one suffice. Paul, or rather the Holy Ghost, who spake by his mouth and wrote with his pen,

lias thus represented it. As the body is ONE, and hath many members; and all the members of that one body, being MANY, are ONE BODY; so also is Christ. For by one Spirit are we ALL baptized into ONE body, whether we be Jews or Gentiles, whether we be bond or free; and have been ALL made to drink into ONE Spirit. For the BODY is not ONE member, but MANY.* This analogy between man's natural body and the spiritual body of Christ, which he elsewhere declares to be the church,† Paul presses at great length, and with unusual minuteness. He does it, as any one who shall seriously peruse the context may see, with the design of reproving, and, if possible, destroying that vain glorious temper which had infected the Corinthian converts; each one arrogating to himself, or to that class with which his gifts more immediately connected him, a peculiar pre-eminence and sanctity; as if he and his associates were the special favourites of God, and enjoyed so exclusively the nobler ministrations of the Spirit, as to justify their contempt of others whom they thought to be less distinguished. In order to demonstrate the unreasonableness and unrighteousness of such conduct, he lays

* 1 Cor. xii. 12--14.

+ Eph. i. 22, 23. iiì. 16. iv. 3-13.

down certain indisputable principles concerning the natural body; ex. gr.

1. That the multitude of its members does not destroy its unity, nor their relation to it as a whole -all the members of that one body, being MANY, are ONE body: v. 12.

2. That their union with the body is the foundation of all the value, beauty, and excellence, of the members in their respective places. v. 15—24.

3. That the efficiency of the members consists intheir mutual co-operation as parts of a common whole-that there should be no scCHISM in the body. v. 25.

4. That from their union with the body, there results, by a divine constitution, a communion of interests; a sympathy of feeling, and a reciprocation of benefits-that the members should have the same care one for another: And whether one member suffer, all the members suffer with it; or one member be honoured, all the members rejoice with it. v. 25, 26.

The use of this similitude Paul declares to be an illustration of the unity of the church, and of the intimate communion of believers. Now ye are the body of Christ, and members in particular. v. 27.

It is true that the Apostle turns his argument directly against the contentions in the Corinthian church about the superiority, or inferiority, of

public offices and spiritual gifts. And God hath set some in the church; first, apostles, secondarily, prophets, &c. v 28-30. But it is also true that the principles of his argument are general; are equally applicable to every thing which tends to cherish among Christians a party feeling, at the expense of weakening the sense of their union, or of interrupting their communion, as members of the body of Christ; and were intended to be so applied: For,

They are part of the Apostle's remonstrance against the schismatic spirit which had split up the church of Corinth into a number of factions: one crying, "I am of Paul;" another, "I am of Apollos;" another, "I am of Cephas ;" and another, more proud and boasting more purity than any of the rest, "I am of Christ." Scandalous, however, as their schisms were, they had not proceeded to separation, nor did they dream of breaking communion. If the Apostle so sternly reprehended their divisions as inconsistent with the unity of the church, although they continued to hold communion together, what would he have said, how would he have thundered forth his indignant rebuke had they carried their contests so far as to burst the bonds of.communion, and, by that fact, virtually to disown each other as members of the body of Christ?