who listens to the creeds and catechisms explanatory of the Bible. I prefer the fountain to the muddy stream; and, therefore, take the original document, and place my mind directly upon it.

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Along with this precept from Paul I must plead one from Jude: Contend earnestly for the faith once delivered to the saints." Jude wrote his short and comprehensive epistle near the close of the apostolic age. He saw an approaching defection, and enjoined, in these words, an antidote against the early workings of the mystery of iniquity. He saw the efforts to introduce new things by the converted Jews and pagans, incorporated in the Christian family, and in the midst of these efforts wrote his epistle. Such a precept, emanating from such circumstances, is equivalent to a positive prohibition of every thing but the faith, the truth, the identical words commended by apostles and prophets, as the foundation of the Christian temple, and the constitution of the Christian church. The gentleman asks for precepts authorizing the book alone!!

Mr. Rice has told us, indeed, that the confession of faith is not the constitution of the Presbyterian church. But, with its form of discipline and church government, it is the identical constitution of the Presbyterian church. And, with these words before me, allow me to introduce another view of the subject.

In this universe there are numerous and various constitutions, both celestial and terrestrial. But of all these documents and things called constitutions, there are three of which God is himself the author and the finisher. He has bestowed on man, and probably on angels too, the right of making for themselves a sort of by-law constitution, in reference to their social intercommunications. But neither to angel nor to man has he given the liberty of making a constitution for the universe, a constitution for the human body, nor a constitution for the church of God.

Good and valid reasons can be given why man should not have been entrusted with the draft of a constitution for the universe, and why he should not have been permitted to form a constitution for his own body. All will find in his utter incompetency many good reasons why he should not have been entrusted with such an undertaking. To my mind he is just as incompetent to perform the last as either

of the other two. Had any man a tolerably distinct and accurate view of the mystical body of Christ-of that mysterious and sublime institution, the church of the living God, he would feel himself as wholly inadequate to the task of forming for it a constitution as he, physically, intellectually, and morally, is for his own body or the whole universe of God.

The church, the true church of the true Redeemer, is a glorious institution; and hence it was decreed before the Christian age began, and foretold by one of Israel's sweetest and most seraphic bards, the evangelical Isaiah: "Unto us a child is born; unto us a son is given, and the government shall be on his shoulder, and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, the Mighty God, the Founder of the Everlasting Age, the Prince of Peace." He is then the Wonderful Founder of the gospel institution, the Everlasting Age. The noblest and most august titles in the universe surround his mitre and his crown! Among these is one, to us, of ineffable interest, "the AUTHOR and the founder of THE FAITH." "Of man's miraculous mistakes, this bears the palm"-that he should presume to draft a constitution for the church of Jesus Christ! He could as easily make one for the hierarchies of heaven, or for the universe of God.

When the Messiah began to prepare himself for this glorious work divine the Holy Spirit was given to him without measure. All knowledge, wisdom, eloquence, and power, were bestowed upon him as the human and divine head of this mighty assembly of saints. What a community the Christian family is-spread over the whole earth in some periods of its history, and commensurate with all time, embracing all lands, languages, and nations; all ranks and degrees of men-the learned and the rude, the sage and the child; all varieties of man-the noblest and most gifted of earth's mightiest spirits, the giant intellects of humanity! To make for such an association a constitution!-what a task! Had a council of the heavens been called; had Gabriel, Raphael, Uriel, and all the sons of light and celestial fire been convened to deliberate for an age they could not have made a constitution for Christ's church: they could not have sketched a system, even had it been adopted to the letter, that could have united, cemented, coalesced, and harmonized in everlasting peace and amity, a society like that of which we speak. Hence the Lord Messiah was made

"the covenant" and the leader, the lawgiver, the author and the finisher of the Christian constitution. On that, and that alone, can the church be built. Take that constitution, then, and make it the basis, the only basis of a Christian society. Let his oracles, decisions, and government be first, last, and midst-the alpha and the omega; then all Christians of all nations, ages, and conditions, can form one grand, holy, and happy community.

We have made an experiment under circumstances not the most propitious, in the midst of many conflicting and rival institutions, to lay again the same well-tried old corner stone-the primitive confession on which the church was built-the stone which the Master laid at Cæsarea Philippi, on which to build his church, in first commending it to the notice of the world, promising most solemnly to build his church of all nations and ages upon it. The experiment for the time has been most successful. Probably not less than two hundred thousand persons of all the creeds and parties and various associations around us, persons of all sorts and varieties of mind, education, and circumstances in Christendom, as well as those from the ranks of scepticism, in its various forms, have united in making the same confession, and have associated upon the same grand fundamental constitutional principles. They are found too in all the states of this immense union and its territories. They are found in the Canadas and in all northern America. They are found in England, Ireland, Scotland, and Wales; and, without any other bond of union than the new and everlasting constitution, signed, sealed, and delivered by the Lord Jesus, through his holy apostles. United in this, and builded on this foundation, we still maintain unity of spirit in the bonds of peace. Still Mr. Rice expresses his astonishment that we should hang together at all, asking, meantime, how we keep out heretics and offenders! His imagination at one time has us excluding whole masses, at another time not able to induce one to enter. Now, we cannot take in one; again, we cannot exclude one!

And what is the character of all these communities? I presume I will have credit, even with our adversaries themselves, in saying that they are, as congregations, at full par value, in all proper points of comparison, with the same number of persons and communities, whether in London,

Edinburgh, New York, Philadelphia, or in this city. They will compare with other denominations in good sense, in a fair reputation for medium talent and learning; for staid, good habits, and all the social virtues. Now, we argue, that if so many persons of all those varieties before mentioned can meet, unite, and co-operate in faith, hope, and love, on this foundation, under this new constitution, all the world— all who know, believe, and love the same Saviour, might. It is broad enough and strong enough for them all. What other demonstrations of its practicability and adequacy can be demanded? And, if any one ask the reason of all this success and co-operation, I present the charter, the confession of our faith, the creed, the constitution, if you please, under which we are incorporated. The strength, however, of the whole edifice is in its foundation; and the still more interior secret of the strength of our system is that IT IS DIVINE. It is the foundation which God has laid in Zion. It is not both divine and human. It is wholly divine.

Does any one ask me what it is? I wish I had a summer's day and my wonted strength to develop its glorious features to your view. A full revelation of it would disarm our opponents and take from them more than half their arguments. I tell you, my fellow-citizens, the Christian faith is quite a simple but most comprehensive and potent document. The five books of Moses, together with the prophets, compose the Jews' religion, The Christian believes all these too, and studies them well; but Christianity was born after Christ. There were Jews and Gentiles innumerable before Christ was born. But we speak not of the Jewish nor of the patriarchal ages. The Harbinger had done his work; he prepared a people for the Lord, and introduced the sublime and glorious age of Messiah the Prince; but Christianity is more than John preached. The principles of Christianity, like the grand laws of nature, are simple and few, but omnipotent to all the ends of its author. What sublime and awful wonders are revealed in heaven to the eye of the philosopher by the operation of the centripetal and centrifugal forces! Silently and unobtrusively these laws, for ages, have swayed creation's ample bounds, kept the universe to its place, and guided all the mighty masses in their unmeasured circuits of miles unnumbered, through all the fields of occupied space. That regularity, harmony,

beauty, and beneficence spread over those empyreal regions, where the march of revolving worlds overwhelms the adoring saint, and fills his soul with admiration of the Divine author of the universe, all spring from, and are the mysterious result of, the happy combination of these two stupendous principles.

So is it in our most holy faith. There are but two grand principles in Christianity-two laws revealed and developed, whose combination produces similar harmony, beauty, and loveliness in the world of mind as in the world of matter. But, leaving the development of these for the present, I must at once declare the simplicity of this divine constitution of remedial mercy. It has but three grand ideas peculiar to itself, and these all concern the King. I am sorry that this mysterious and sublime simplicity does not appear to those who set about making constitutions for Christ's kingdom. This confession of omnipotent moral power, because the offspring of infinite wisdom and benevolence, must be learned from one passage, Matt. xvi. "Who am 1, do men Say ?" We must advance one step further, Who am I, do you say? Peter, in one momentous period, expressed the whole affair-THOU ART THE MESSIAH, THE SON OF THE LIVING GOD. The two ideas expressed concern the person of the Messiah and his office; the one implied concerns his character; for it was through his character, as developed, that Peter recognized his person and his Messiahship. Now let us take off the shoes from our feet, for we stand on holy ground; and let us hear him unfold to Peter his intentions : "Blessed art thou Simon, son of Jonas! flesh and blood has not revealed this unto thee, but my Father who is in heaven. And I say unto thee, thou art Peter (a stone), and on THIS ROCK I will build MY church, and the gates of hell (hades) shall not prevail against it." It will stand for ever. "I will give unto thee (thyself alone Peter) the keys of the kingdom of heaven. (my church); and whose sins soever you remit, they are remitted; and whose sins soever you retain, they shall be retained." Here, then, is the whole revelation of the mystery of the Christian constitution-the full confession of the Christian faith. All that is peculiar to Christianity is found in these words; not merely in embryo, but in a clearly expressed outline. A clear perception and a cordial