clothing, and say unto him, Sit thou here in a good place; and say to the poor, Stand thou there, or sit here under my footstool: Are ye not then partial in yourselves, and are become judges of evil thoughts? Hearken, my beloved brethren, Hath not God chosen the poor of this world rich in faith, and heirs of the kingdom which he hath promised to them that love him? But ye have despised the poor. Do not rich men oppress you, and draw you before the judgmentseats? Do not they blaspheme that worthy name by the which ye are called? If ye fulfil the royal law according to the Scripture, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself, ye do well: But if ye have respect to persons, ye commit sin, and are convinced of the law as transgressors. For whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all. For he that said, Do not commit adultery, said also, Do not kill. Now if thou commit no adultery, yet if thou kill, thou art become a transgressor of the law. So speak ye, and so do, as they that shall be judged by the law of liberty. For he shall have judgment without mercy, that hath shewed no mercy; and mercy rejoiceth against judgment." (James ii. 1—13.)

3. This system of seat-renting, or taxing, is detrimental to the cause of the Gospel generally, by placing an impediment in the way of its advancement, and by casting an unjust suspicion upon the gracious benefits of the Redeemer. Why should the perverted ingenuity of man be allowed to step in and invalidate that command of our Lord, "Preach the gospel to every creature," by presenting to the invited world a closed

door, to be opened only by a silver key? This turns the House of God into a house of merchandise, and demands that corresponding means be taken to prevent any delinquent from stealing the bread of life. "Charity suffereth long, and is kind," saith the Apostle (1 Cor. xiii. 4.); but not so when this system prevails: if the unconverted hearer cannot speedily make up his mind to pay for "coming to the light that his deeds may be reproved," this system speedily bars his further attendance at Wisdom's gates, and deprives him of the benefit of those means which tend to conversion. It is a short-sighted policy that, for fancied present gains, cuts off the future enlargement of the Church, and changes the call made to the unconverted, by causing it to be truly with money and with price. It is true that, in some of our Churches, those who cannot pay the tax are accommodated, or rather distinguished, by a degraded separation, and sometimes further insulted by being confined to the most draughty or ill-constructed seats that perverted ingenuity could have suggested. I know, I may be met with the interrogatories, What! must not the place be maintained? would you not support the ministry? And to such I would answer: that these questions imply a considerable want of principle either in the officers of the Churches or in the Church members themselves; which is manifest by the supposed necessity for their recurrence to a mode which is unApostolic. And further, that the inquirers overlook facts now in existence, which demonstrate that there is no necessity to recur to an un-Christian mode

of raising what may be necessary. Many very large societies for religious objects are subsisting around us, supported by means of voluntary contributions far greater than any which our churches need raise for their maintenance; and yet they have no seats to tax.

III. The last instance I shall produce of departure from apostolic rule is this, that the official gifts of the Church for its edification are systematically circumscribed and confined to one person. The temporal matters, the least worthy objects of the Church's attention, are very carefully and very properly committed to a college of deacons; but the spiritual edification of all the members of the Church is provided for in a very different way, but not like those employed by the Apostles, or practised by the Churches under their rule. For if you will turn to your Bible you will find that the Church at Ephesus, had a plurality of bishops (Acts xx. 17-28), so had that at Philippi (Phil. i. 1); so, also, had the Churches of Lystra, Iconium, and Antioch (Acts xiv. 21-23). And the Apostle Paul was so careful to have this secured to the Churches, that he left Titus in the island of Crete to see this adopted in every Church there, young as they were, and, as may be supposed, without the advantage of being able to apply to a neighbouring college for well educated and gifted pastors (Tit. i. 5.). The apostolic directions to Titus form part of our Scriptures given by inspiration, which, together with those written for the then use of Timothy, who was, probably, in similar circumstances, are recorded for our admo

nition and instruction.

There is no evidence to

prove that the Apostle ever considered that one Church should have no more than one minister. When our Lord sent out the Apostles to preach the Gospel, and when the Holy Ghost called upon Churches to send forth missionaries, you find a plurality sent forth together to the same places (Mark vi. 7; Luke x. 1; Acts xiii. 1-3.) In fact, there is not an example in the New Testament of a Christian Church with but one bishop; and what reason have we to warrant the supposition that this order has been divinely rescinded? Has the world become less tempting, and human nature more spiritual, to allow of relaxation in instrumentality? or has the Church become less gifted and less zealous, more lukewarm, and more carnal? That this one-man system of our Churches is not an essential feature of our acknowledged polity, will appear from the following extract taken from the Declaration of Faith, Church Order and Discipline of the Congregational or Independent Dissenters, published 1833. Art. 5 runs thus:

They believe that the only officers placed by the Apostles over individual Churches are bishops and deacons, the number of these being dependent upon the numbers of the Church." Yet, however rich, however numerous, and however zealous our Churches may be, do they not carefully evade, or unthinkingly omit, to have a college of bishops? They will do many good things to forward the interests of religion, but they never seem to think that the apostolic constitution of having several efficient pastors in each

Church, worthy of a moment's consideration as a good plan. They have other plans to which they give the preference. They never regret their inability to have more than one pastor, though they frequently show their regret at his inefficiency, by changing him for one they like better. I have referred to this corruption as deteriorating the interests of the Church, but it equally militates against the character and usefulness of the pastors; and were I to proceed to unmask the complication of errors which lie crouched under the fairest face of this wretched system, the exposure would be deemed invidious, and my strictures severity itself. We may pride ourselves in deriving our polity and order from the New Testament, and happy for us were it altogether so; but is it any recommendation of our intelligence in this matter, that we can cordially uphold the system which is a main stay, the very back-bone of individual Church order in those established by the State? Wherever there is the important one stationed, he is the centre of everything which is valued,-the loadstone by whom and for whom are all things known in their Churches. And this one-man system has so thoroughly penetrated the arrangements of our Churches, that the legal trusts under which the properties of those Churches are held are, in many instances, saturated with this erroneous idea-one Church, one minister-and its concomitant errors. And I have no reason to conclude that these kind of trusts are rare, but every reason to consider them to be a fair sample of the whole. Of course these must present