Jehovah, the King eternal, immortal, invisible: the Fountain of life to all creatures; dispensing, throughout His creation, according to His pleasure, life and breath and all things. This living God, "the holy Church throughout all the world, doth acknowledge." To His name and glory it is consecrated, and to Him it belongs. For no longer limiting his presence to a particular temple, He now inhabits universally the hearts of the faithful: For thus saith the High and Lofty One, that inhabiteth eternity, whose name is holy; I dwell in the high and holy place, with him also that is of a contrite and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble, and to revive the heart of the contrite ones.

How great, then, is the dignity of the Church, and how much do these considerations commend the office of the sacred ministry! Ministers are stewards, to whom God commits the government of his house. And if an earthly steward, placed over a numerous household, is filled with anxiety, lest any thing should suffer by his neglect or unskilfulness, how much more care and diligence should the steward of the house of God exercise! And with what reverence and devotion should every member of it conduct himself, as towards that living God, who is a Spirit, and requires of his worshippers, that they worship him in spirit and in truth!

3. But from the dignity of the Church, we

come to its OFFICE, which is thus expressed, The pillar and ground of the Truth.

It would be affectation to attempt to conceal that this expression has been the subject of much controversy. The Church of Rome has endeavoured to make it subservient to her claims of infallibility and tyranny over the conscience, on the one hand; whilst some pious, and even learned Protestants, have unhappily attempted to evade the fair and natural import of it, on the other. Now, however, that the heat of controversy has subsided, the meaning seems generally allowed to be, that the Church is the pillar and ground (or stay, as our margin renders it) of the truth, MINISTERIALLY, and among men, as it is the appointed means of deriving from Holy Writ the great, obvious, and necessary truths of Revelation, and duly upholding them in the world. The former expressions related to its dignity, and were derived from its union with God: these describe its office, and are drawn from its connection with mankind. The Church is the pillar and ground of the truth-not personally and absolutely; for in this sense Christ alone is the Truth-not authoritatively and infallibly; for thus Sacred Scriptures are the only standard of truth - but INSTRUMENTALLY AND LITURGICALLY—of truth as clearly revealed in the Ora

7 Auтaруixas, sensu ministratorio; vide Suiceri Thes. sub voce Σύλος,

cles of God, and expounded and preached and maintained in a weak and erring world.

Thus this figurative expression is of the same character with those of St. Paul: James, and Cephas, and John, seemed to be pillars-Built on the foundation of the Apostles and Prophets;or with that of our Saviour: Thou art Peter; and on this rock will I build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it 3.

Accordingly, the Church is the means by which God upholds and preserves his truth amongst mankind. It furnishes a succession of men to expound and inculcate the Gospel. It is the voice and trumpet of truth to a careless world. When the Church is silent, truth is in exile; and division, heresy, and sin, desolate the fold. But when the body of the faithful discharge their high and holy function, and appeal to the unerring records of the revealed word for all the tenets they inculcate, then there is a rallying point for the wandering sheep, a solace for the distressed conscience, an interpreter for the inquiring penitent, a pillar on the border of the land unto the Lord. God does not see fit visibly to descend from heaven to maintain his truth, nor does he commission Angels for this lofty

I would apply to this celebrated passage a similar remark to that which I have just made on my text-neither attempting to lessen its fair and obvious meaning, nor yielding to the corrupt glosses of the Popish commentators.

duty; but he deigns to commit to his Church the ministry of reconciliation. This Church he erects as the pillar and stay of the doctrine of the Cross. This is the means of retaining it on earth, and preventing its perishing from the memory of a forgetful world. With respect to them, the Church, in proportion as she is faithful to her trust, sustains the Gospel, celebrates it in her preaching, seals it in her sacraments, preserves it pure and sincere by her confessions, and confirms it, if necessary, by her blood.

For the faith is in this world in the midst of enemies. The fallen heart of man opposes the light and grace and holiness of the doctrine of Christ. In different periods of history, various declensions from the faith have actually prevailed. And possibly future seasons may yet arise, when truth shall appear to have fallen in the streets, and when equity cannot enter. What, then, is to sustain the doctrine of Christ in such conflicts? what to be the Stay in the disastrous retreat? what to be the Pillar in the midst of these ruins? what to be the Ground unmoved in the overthrow? Does not God still maintain the truth in the hearts of his faithful people, however it may be obscured by prevalent error and corruption? Does he not say to them-his witnesses among men-as he said to the ancient Prophet, Behold, I have made thee this day a defenced city, and an iron pillar,

and a brazen wall against the whole land: and they shall fight against thee, but they shall not prevail against thee: for I am with thee to deliver thee, saith the Lord? Here, then, is still the pillar and ground of the Truth. Here, to change the metaphor, the Church, more particularly as the guardian of holy Scripture, still attracts, as a beacon placed upon a hill, the eye of the wandering traveller; or as the friendly fire of the light-house, directs the mariner across the deep.

Even in the most tranquil seasons, when the Church, by her Scriptural Articles, Liturgies, and Confessions, upholds the pure doctrine of Christ; when, by the holy and awakening preaching of the Word, she instructs a guilty world; when, by her faithful custody of the sacred canon, and her translation and circulation of it among the nations, she is the keeper of that Holy Book, which is the ultimate test of all her doctrines; when, by her learned writings, and her sound arguments, she convinces the gainsayer; when, by the catechizing of the young the administration of the sacraments, and the exercise of ecclesiastical discipline, she nourishes the body of Christ; and, above all, when, by the apostolic virtues and graces of her ministers, their vigilance, sobriety, aptness to teach, gravity, simplicity, faith, purity, she is the ensample to the flock-I would ask, whether even then