stated to be, "THE ORIGIN AND CLAIMS OF INDEPENDENCY:" and from this mode of stating the subject to be considered, you will perceive, at once, that INDEPENDENCY is selected as the supposed character of the system upon which these churches were formed, as the system by which they were ruled, and as the system in obedience to which they received and participated so much spiritual fellowship and enjoyment. It may be said, "This then is prejudging the question." Had no judgment been previously formed on the question, I should not have presumed to direct your attention to it. I propose, therefore, not to lead you into an inquiry, without knowing at its commencement what judgment I have formed concerning it; but I propose to lead you into the inquiry which I have conducted myself, and which has led to the conclusion which I have adopted, and which is embodied in the manner in which the subject has been announced to you, namely, "The Origin and Claims of Independency."

In looking, therefore, at the passage before us, as the motto of the remarks that I have thus to submit to you-and in regarding the remarks I have to submit, as carrying with them, what appears to me satisfactory evidence, that these churches, thus edified, thus walking in the fear of God and in the comfort of the Holy Ghost, were Independent churches, all Independent churches, and nothing but Independent churches-I shall endeavour, in the first place, to direct your attention to the first part of the subject, namely, the origin of Independency; and, secondly, to the claims of that system upon our obedience and affection.

In the first place, then, let me direct your attention to THE Origin of INDEPENDENCY.

I am quite aware, that many would find the origin of Independency in a recent period of the history of our own country: I am quite aware that the apostolical ages would be passed by in perfect silence upon the subject: I am quite aware that the early circumstances of the Church, before the days of Constantine, would be passed by in silence upon the subject: I am quite aware that the lengthened dominion of popery would be passed by as making no statements on the subject: and I am equally aware, that from the Reformation, a considerable progress would be made into the ages that follow, before it would be admitted that Independency had been detected in its origin. But whilst I am aware that all this is the fact, and whilst I do not intend to begin the inquiry which I mean to conduct with the origin of Independency in this country, but rather with the origin of Independency in the very first creation of the system, I go away from its introduction into this or any other country, and go to its first promulgation, as I think I find it promulgated, in the Gospel itself.

Now, in conducting such an inquiry, the first thing that would very naturally occur to the inquirer-as the question is about churches and church government-the first thing that would occur would be, What are we to understand by this term, "CHURCHES?" Let it not be supposed that the term is distinctly understood because it is commonly used. The terms that are used most commonly amongst us, are, generally, the terms that are least understood-the terms to which we attach the least definite meaning-the terms that are most ikely to be abused-the terms that carry weight and power with them, because they are terms of daily occurrence; but terms that carry, at the same time,

danger with them, because, in consequence of their perpetual occurrence, they are not thoroughly examined.

Now, if I were to ask, in what sense the term "church" is employed in the Word of God, I should certainly be likely to ascertain its legitimate meaning. It would be unnecessary to occupy your time in shewing you how it is employed by mankind generally: this would introduce a great variety of definitions, and shades of sentiment upon the question, which would occupy our time, without leading to any satisfactory conclusion. It is a matter of no moment how the term may be used among the children of men; but it is a matter of very great moment in a question of evidence, how it is used in the Word of God.

I do not propose to direct your attention to every passage in which this, and other terms to which we are accustomed to refer, may be employed. I intend simply to direct your attention to a few passages on each subject, as a specimen of the passages that might be adduced upon the same subject from other quarters, were we not limited in time, and the brevity of a single discourse, which, you will perceive at once, would render such an application of all the passages that it would be desirable to refer to, utterly impossible.

The first meaning, then, to which I would direct your attention, of the word "church," is that of an assembly. The word signifies "a congregation," or an assembly." In Acts xix, you will find it employed in this sense. You will find a multitude collected together at the time that the Apostle was preaching at Ephesus, and you will find that that multitude, when an outcry had been raised on behalf of the worship of the goddess Diana, rushed into the theatre, the place of the ordinary assembly for judicial matters; and hence it was their intention, that a public inquiry should be instituted into the doctrine thus brought to Ephesus by the Apostle and by his friends, and promulgated there-and that judgment should be given concerning it; so that the great goddess Diana should not be offended. The town-clerk of Ephesus, the acting authority on such an occasion, restrains the people who had assembled from committing any violence, by the advice which he tendered to them. When the assembly came together, the outcry having been raised, and collected in the place where judgment was to be given, and whence it was to be decreed, the town-clerk of Ephesus, as we find at the close of the chapter, interferes, and reasons with them; and, after reasoning with them, he tells them, in the thirty-ninth verse, If ye inquire anything concerning other matters, it shall be determined in a lawful assembly. For," says he, "we are in danger to be called in question for this day's uproar, there being no cause whereby we may give an account of this concourse. And when he had thus spoken he dismissed the assembly;" or, in other words, the congregation." The same term is that which is rendered in so many places "the Church." Now, if we regard the multitude that assembled together in the theatre, we shall find that they were nothing more than a congregation of people; and under these circumstances they give us the first idea that we may entertain of the term usually rendered Church" in the New Testament. Therefore it signifies a congregation.

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And were we to go to the etymology of the term, it signified a "congregation called out by authority." It would not militate against this view of the expression to reply, that this passage seems to employ the term, to designate an

uproarious multitude; because they assembled in the place where justice used to be administered, and for the purpose, as they supposed, of also administering it. The agent of the executive government, also, is found interposing to prevent the people from imagining, that this is what they usually designate a law fully convoked assembly. And, consequently, the word is left with its proper and legitimate meaning, to designate an assembly called out, or under authority, an assembly acknowledged by the laws of the land.

If this, then, be the meaning of the expression, let us look at its application. And hence another view I shall take of the term will be found in the epistle to the Ephesians, iii. 21. We find the term signifying, the great body of Christians ; including all, excluding no one. In the twenty-first verse we have this doxology: "Unto him be glory in the Church by Christ Jesus throughout all ages, world without end. Amen." Now, in this passage, it is quite obvious, that the term "Church" signified the whole of the spiritual members of the body of Christ. On this I do not dwell, as the case is clear. In 1 Corinthians, xii. 28, we find the term employed in precisely the same way: "God hath set some in the Church, first apostles, secondarily prophets, thirdly teachers; after that miracles, then gifts of healings, helps, governments, diversities of tongues." All these are said to have been set by God in the Church. Now the meaning of that obviously is, that all these spiritually-gifted men were set in the whole body of the church, and scattered through it amongst all its members, for the purpose of diffusing the knowledge of the Redeemer's name. They belonged to no one particular church; they belonged to no one class of the great community; but were considered as the great moving instruments by which the power of God was applied to the whole. Here again, then, the expression "Church" signifies the great body of Christians.

If we look for another application of it, (as I have stated, I do not give you all the passages in which the term may occur in the sense which I intend; they would be too numerous; you can refer to them at your leisure.) if we take another application of it, we find that it applies to single congregations of Christians. Hence if we look at Romans, xvi. 5, we shall find it applied in this sense: "Likewise," says the Apostle, "greet the church that is in their house;" that is, in the house, as you will find in the third verse, of Priscilla and Aquila, who were his "helpers in Christ Jesus." Now, here it is obvious, that one particular fellowship, meeting in the house of Priscilla and Aquila, is designated a "church ;" and, consequently, no doubt will be entertained, that in this passage it applies to a single church, a single congregation. In 1 Corinthians, xiv. 23, we find the Apostle reasoning thus: "If, therefore, the whole church be come together into one place, and all speak with tongues, and there come in those that are unlearned, or unbelievers, will they not say that ye are mad?” Now, here the church is said to be, an assembly in one place; and, consequently, I need not add, that this must be one congregation, one fellowship, one assembly, meeting together under their proper officers, for the purpose of enjoying the common fellowship, and the maintenance of their common principles.

Another application, however, will be found to be made of the expression. As it is used amongst us, it sometimes denotes a particular church, in a province or a nation. And hence the Galatian church, and the Roman church

extending through all the provinces over which Rome claimed the right to exercise spiritual dominion. The Church of Scotland, the Church of England, and a variety of other churches, are designated national churches. And consequently on looking into the churches that thus "walked in the fear of God, and in the comfort of the Holy Ghost," we endeavour to ascertain whether we find anything of this kind connected, in any instance, with the application of the term "church" in the Word of Truth. Now, here it might be observed, that we can find no instance of any church thus designated. "But," it might be said, "although we allow that the word 'church' signifies an assembly called out-although we allow that the word 'church' signifies a single congregation of faithful and believing men—and surely no one for a moment would question either the meaning of the term in the one case, or its scriptural application in the other; yet it does not follow, that it may not be applicable to a church combining all the communities of spiritual and faithful people in a nation." And it may be said, "the opportunity was not furnished, thus to speak of the provincial or the national churches in these days." Now, if we could not shew, that there was an opportunity furnished of alluding to such churches, had they existed—if we could not shew that there was an opportunity furnished for forming such national fellowships; yet finding that such fellowships do not occur in the Word of God, we should refuse to admit the legal application of the term "church" to them; meaning by its legal application, its application according to the law of Christ, the Word of God. But it does so happen that we find they had various opportunities of speaking of the churches of a province and a nation in this way; and when they had these opportunities, they did not designate them the church of such a country. Hence we are furnished, from the Word of God itself, with a decided evidence, that the spiritual fellowships formed throughout provinces and nations, were never consolidated into anything like a provincial or a national body.

Let us look, for a moment, at some passages on this subject. In the first place, let me direct your attention to Acts, xv. 41: "And he"-that is Paul— "he went through Syria and Cilicia, confirming the churches." Now it does not speak of the church of Syria, nor the church of Cilicia. The passage takes these different single congregations, consisting of apostolical churches, to which I have already directed your attention; it brings them before us in their numbers, as they were multiplied into different communities; and it tells us that the Apostle confirmed not the church of Syria, and the church of Cilicia, but all the churches scattered throughout these different nations and provinces. If we look again at Acts, xvi. 5, we have the same opportunity furnished of speaking of provincial, or united, churches, if they had existed: "And so were the churches established in the faith, and increased in number daily." "The churches," you perceive.

Now, this is not the designation of spiritual fellowship employed by national and provincial churches. The members of these do not speak of the churches of England, or the churches of Scotland; such phraseology is unknown to the adherents of these national or provincial institutions. It is the Church of England, and the Church of Scotland: and when they speak of the churches in Scotland, they always mean the buildings; and when they speak of the churches in England, they always understand the buildings. They never think of ap

plying the term as they applied it in the days when the churches "had rest"when they "walked in the fear of the Lord," and "were edified," and enjoyed "the comfort of the Holy Ghost." That phraseology is utterly abandoned; it would not be understood; nay, would be misunderstood. Under these circumstances, therefore, it does appear, that the opportunity of referring to the provincial fellowship, or the national fellowship, was afforded, had such fellowship existed and the fact, that such fellowships were not referred to, when so clearly an opportunity of reference was furnished, is an evidence to me that they did not exist.

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In 2 Corinthians, viii. 1, we have another allusion to the same subject. You will find the Apostle again furnished with another opportunity of noticing such national or provincial assemblies, had they really existed; and you will find what appears to me another evidence of their non-existence. Moreover, brethren," says the Apostle, "we do you to wit of the grace of God bestowed on the churches of Macedonia." Now, here were the churches of a province; and it does not appear that they formed themselves into any organized fellowship, under the influence of any settled constitution, which was to form the basis of their ecclesiastical administration and government. They are not the church of Macedonia, but the churches of Macedonia. If we take again 1 Corinthians, xvi. 1, we find the same thing brought again before us: "Now concerning the collection for the saints, as I have given order to the churches of Galatia, even so do ye." Now, here is another province, the province of Galatia; but there is nothing about the Galatian Church; nothing about the church of Galatia: but a single congregation (to whom I have endeavoured to shew the term is applied in the Word of God) occurred to the Apostle, under the guidance of inspiration, the moment that he turned his attention and his recollection to Galatia; and he speaks of them all as the churches of Galatia.

If we look again to Galatians, i. 21-(and this is the last that I shall quote in connexion with this part of the subject)—we shall find the same phraseology employed: "Afterwards I," says Paul, "came into the regions of Syria and Cilicia; and was unknown by face unto the churches of Judea which were in Christ." Not the church of Judea. Even where the Apostle so long sojourned-— where the apostles modelled everything for the purpose of directing the institutions of Christ's kingdom-we do not find that a church, a provincial church, existed; but here the different spiritual churches are brought before us, as "the churches of Judea."

Now, taking this view of the application of the term "church," I should say, that if I were to come to the Word of God, and look for a church, I should be able to discover nothing, either in the first meaning of the term, or in its application to the whole spiritual body of Christ-as including a vast congregation of the ransomed of the Lord- -or in its application to single congregations taken separately-or in the distributive way in which it speaks of them in the plural number, when it seems to include them all in a province or a nation—I shall find nothing in any one of these applications of the term that would lead me to take any view of these churches that "walked in the fear of the Lord," and "were edified," and enjoyed "the comfort of the Holy Ghost." I should find nothing, in reference to these churches, thus examining the term,