and are palming them on me for the names of heretics. You may just as well fay Ipecacuanhaites.

R. S. No, truly. I own I am in good humour; but I af fure you there are fuch names in the lifts of heretics. They may indeed appear frightful to you at first; but let not that difcourage you. In a little time, you will find them as familiar as the names of the drugs to the keeper of an apo thecary's shop.

D. S. But, in earnest, I fee nothing I could propose by this study, if it were not to make myself a fort of a bully in divinity, to fright poor people with words and names. I'll do better to fteer my courfe by my Bible, and notice the beacons fet up there. And I am fure I fhall have the testimony of every man's confcience who really believes the Bible, that this is the fafeft course.

R. S. But not so easy as the other.

D. S. I like cafe very well; but I fear that study would eafe me of searching the fcriptures, and of dependence on Chrift as his difciple, to bring me under the yoke of human authority, and fubject my faith to the dictates of the clergy about truth and error.

Yet, feeing you have got into an odd humour about words and names, I fhall be content to hear you upon a word you have not yet mentioned, because it is taken to imply fome truth that the profeffor has been saying out of the pulpit we have the impudence to deny.

R. S. Pray what word is that?

D. S. If I mind well, it is specifically, or if I have heard right.

R. S. A very proper word for a profeffor of divinity. But what ufe made he of it, or was he finding fault with us that we did not use that glorious word fpecifically?

D. S. No. He fays we fectarians deny that the church of the Old Teftament was specifically the fame with the NewTeftament church.

7. G. And we may take this as the answer of our exception against the first argument for national covenants.

R. S. Very probably: For fuch of his people as underftand not this mytaphyfical term, will be ready to imagine a fameness of the Old and New Teftament church, when no other argument can evidence it.

D. S. But what means the word fpecifically?

R. S. You must learn your logics and metaphyfics before you fathom the deep fenfe of that mighty word.

J.G.

J. G. You may explain it to him by examples.

R. S. Then I must explain generically and numerically, as well as specifically.

D. S. I pray you, one of thefe terms of the clergy's trade at once. I have no mind to their bufinefs; and I fear I have not head enough for any one of this fort of words. R. S. You have explained it already yourself.

D. S. You are diverting yourself with my ignorance. How have I explained a word I do not understand?

R. S. We deny that the church of the Old Testament was of the fame fort with the New Teftament church; juft as you fay, These peculiar words that you call the terms of the clergy's trade are not of the fame fort with common words. You own them to be generically the fame, as they are words; but you make them Specifically different, when you call them another fort of words.

D. S. And is this the mystery of specifically? Then I have no fear of it: for the fcripture makes not the OldTeftament church and the New of the fame fort. I am fure flesh and fpirit, earthly and heavenly, are not of the fame fort; that is, fay you, not specifically the fame. Is not this the meaning of specifically?

R. S. I think fo. But the profeffor would have you own them to be of the fame fort, and no more different than the church of Antioch and the church of Corinth, two churches of the fame fort. And fo he allows you to deny them to be numerically the fame, but not fpecifically.

D. S. He may fay too, that the church in Corinth differs no more from the church of the first-born, than it does from the church in Antioch.

And if he will have all churches to be of the fame fort, I shall be evens with him for once: I'll fay there is indeed no other church but one; and, if he pleafes, he may call it numerically one.

R. S. And what make you then of the church of the Old Teftament ?

D. S. That church was a fhadow of the only true church to come, whereof Jefus Chrift is the builder; as it is faid, "Mofes verily was faithful in all his houfe, as a fervant, for "a teftimony of those things which were to be spoken after,

but Chrift as a Son, over his own house; whose house are "we, if we hold faft the confidence, and the rejoicing of "the hope firm upto the end * ”.

Heb. iii. 5. 6.

3 H 2

R. S. What

R. S. What fay you then of the Old-Teftament faints ?

D. S. I fay, the faints of the New Testament are now builded together with them, into the only true church, that is" built on the foundation of the apoftles and prophets, "Jefus Chrift himself (the first-begotten of the dead) being "the chief corner-stone *”.

R. S. And what will you make of all the churches you read of in the New Teftament ?

D. S. Each of them is a lively representation of the only true church, as they "alfo are builded together in him for "an habitation of God through the Spirit + ".

R. S. Why then call you them and old Ifrael churches, seeing there is but one true church?

D. S. Even as I call the types of Chrift's facrifice, facrifices; and as I call that bread and cup in the Lord's fupper his body and blood.

R. S. Now I have drawn out your whole error. For thus you deny the Old Testament church and the New to be specifically the fame; and thus you fet afide the Catholic vifible church, which you ought to diftinguifh from the invifible.

D. S. Hear me then. I own that the only true church, and its communion in Chrift, as one body, is vifible in every church of the faints, having communion in that one bread, and that one cup t

I own again, that there is one vifible rule for all churches, in all nations, without difference, viz. the Bible; and the church that comes nearest to that rule, is the most catholic church.

And again, I diftinguish any fuch visible church from the true invifible catholic, as the fign from the thing fignified. Now tell me, if you can, what more the profeffor would have. Would he have me to be a Roman Catholic?

R. S. Say a Scottish Catholic; for that is what he would have. He wants you to own the covenanted church of Scot land to be of the fame fort with the covenanted church of Ifrael.

G. M. But I fear he cannot even grant him that favour, till he fee that the nation of Scotland fprang from a promife of God, as Ifrael from the promise made to Abraham; and till he be fure, that God made a covenant with the nation of

Eph. ii. 19. 20. 21.; Col. i. 18. + Eph. ii. 22. ‡ 1 Cor. x. 16. 17. 18.

Scotland,

Scotland, according to the covenant that he made with
Ifrael, when he took them by the hand to bring them out of
Egypt; yea, till he understand that Chrift is to come of
Scotland, according to the flesh, as he was to come of the
nation of Ifrael.

D. S. That is what I hope I will never fee. But if I owned the covenanted church of Scotland to be of the fame fort with that of Ifrael, I behoved then to deny it to be catholic.

R. S. As how?

D. S. The covenanted church of Ifrael was a nation of this earth, separated from all other nations to God, as his kingdom, and poffeffing a fpot of the earth as their proper inheritance. But a church of the New Teftament is a people whom God takes out of any nation, without difference, for his name, and who fojourn in any country of the world, as ftrangers and pilgrims on the earth. This is catholic. But is there any charm in the word fpecifically, to make this of the fame fort with the national church of Ifrael?

R. S. Still you mistake him. He would have all the nations of the world brought into the folemn league and covenant, and fubjected to the affociated prefbytery that bears teftimony to that covenant. And when that is, there will be a catholic church, Specifically the fame with all the nations of the world, profelyted into the church of Ifrael.

D. S. Say rather, fpecifically the fame with the Jewish notion of the Meffiah's kingdom. Say, fpecifically the fame with the Roman Catholic, which anfwers to the city where our Lord was crucified.

R. S. You may reprefent the profeffor as ridiculous to yourself as you please, and give his church all the ill names that the Revelation gives to Antichrift; but it is far below him to dispute with you.

G. M. And they who believe his judicial testimony will be fure to look on all that speak against his doctrine as 'dogs barking at the moon.

J. C. So much, then, for barking at the moon.

A

430

A SUPPLEMENT to Mr EBENEZER ERSKINE'S Synodical Sermon.

A

[First published in the year 1732.]

Fter many loud complaints of the evils and corruptions of the day we live in, have been made to no purpose; because that which lay at the bottom of them was not found out, and before that no effectual remedy could be proposed; Mr Erfkine has at length made a discovery in his fynodical fermon, that deferves fome confideration from them that are not fatisfied in a zealous indolence, always complaining and doing nothing; but want to be directed into the courfe they ought to take for reforming these evils and corruptions. His words are, Syn. Serm. p. 26. "I am perfua«ded, that carnal notions of the kingdom of Christ, which " is not of this world, lie at the bottom of many of the evils and corruptions of the day we live in." This is but a hint; and it were to be wished, that he himself had taken time to lay open the grounds of his perfuafion, even though he had thereby prevented himself as to fome things that follow in the fermon. But feeing it is not probable, that he will do this fo quickly as the evils and corruptions call for a remedy, it fhould not offend him, that his thought is pursued by another that is of the fame perfuafion with him in this matter. And while this is done, it is neceffary, that the fcope of his fermon should be attended to as far as is confiftent with the proposition that is proposed to be illustrated.

It comes in upon the reafons he gives, why the Jewish builders rejected Chrift, p. 25. 26. where he fays, 1. "This "fatal error of theirs proceeded from their ignorance of "Chrift in the excellency of his perfon, and of the glorious "mystery of redemption and falvation through him, Acts iii.

17. 1 Cor. ii. 7. 8. They were men of no defpicable parts, "capable enough to tofs an argument; they thought them"felves the only feers in Ifrael in their day; Are we blind "alfo? Yet Chrift declares them blind like moles in things "relating to his kingdom. The least of Chrift's babes, whom "they reckoned among the accurfed mob, had more of the "faving knowledge of God, and of the things of God, than

“they ;