e them at once, and form themselves at their will into a
society for their extension. But for the more momentous truths of
revealed religion, the God, who wrought by human means in their first
introduction, still preserves them by the same. Christ formed a body.
He secured that body from dissolution by the bond of a Sacrament. He
committed the privileges of His spiritual kingdom and the maintenance
of His faith as a legacy to this baptized society; and into it, as a
matter of historical fact, all the nations _have_ flowed. Christianity
has not been spread, as other systems, in an isolated manner, or by
books; but from a centre, by regularly formed bodies, descendants of
the three thousand, who, after St. Peter's preaching on the day of
Pentecost, joined themselves to the Apostles' doctrine and fellowship.

And to this apostolical body we must still look for the elementary gift
of grace. Grace will not baptize us while we sit at home, slighting
the means which God has appointed; but we must "_come_ unto Mount Sion,
and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an
innumerable company of angels, to the general assembly and Church of
the first-born which are written in heaven, and to God the Judge of
all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect, and to Jesus the
mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling that
speaketh better things than that of Abel."

4. And now I will mention one other guarantee, which is especially
suggested by our Lord's words in the text, for the visible unity and
permanence of His Church; and that is the appointment of rulers and
ministers, entrusted with the gifts of grace, and these in succession.
The ministerial orders are the ties which bind together the whole body
of Christians in one; they are its organs, and they are moreover its
moving principle.

Such an institution necessarily implies a succession, unless the
appointment was always to be miraculous; for if men cannot administer
to themselves the rite of regeneration, it is surely as little or much
less reasonable to suppose that they could become Bishops or Priests on
their own ordination. And St. Paul expressly shows his solicitude to
secure such a continuity of clergy for his brethren: "I left thee in
Crete," he says to Titus, "that thou shouldest set in order the things
that are wanting, and _ordain elders_ in every city, as I had appointed
thee[7]." And to Timothy: "The things that tho