day the ministers of the Church universal are descended
from the very Apostles. Amid all the changes of this world, the Church
built upon St. Peter and the rest has continued until now in the
unbroken line of the ministry. And to put other considerations out of
sight, the mere fact in itself, that there has been this perpetual
succession, this unforfeited inheritance, is sufficiently remarkable to
attract our attention and excite our reverence. It approves itself to
us as providential, and enlivens our hope and trust, that an ordinance,
thus graciously protected for so many hundred years, will continue unto
the end, and that "the gates of hell shall not prevail against it."

I shall now bring these remarks to an end. And in ending, let me
remind you, my brethren, how nearly the whole doctrine of
ecclesiastical order is connected with personal obedience to God's
will. Obedience to the rule of order is every where enjoined in
Scripture; obedience to it is an act of faith. Were there ten thousand
objections to it, yet, supposing unity were clearly and expressly
enjoined by Christ, faith would obey in spite of them. But in matter
of fact there are no such objections, nor any difficulty of any moment
in the way of observing it. What, then, is to be said to the very
serious circumstance, that, in spite of the absence of such
impediments, vast numbers of men conceive that they may dispense with
it at their good pleasure. In all the controversies of fifteen hundred
years, the duty of continuing in order and in quietness was professed
on all sides, as one of the first principles of the Gospel of Christ.
But now multitudes, both in and without the Church, have set it up on
high as a great discovery, and glory in it as a great principle, that
forms are worth nothing. They allow themselves to wander about from
one communion to another, or from church to meeting-house, and make it
a boast that they belong to no party and are above all parties, and
argue, that provided men agree in some principal doctrines of the
Gospel, it matters little whether they agree in any thing besides.

But those who boast of belonging to no party, and think themselves
enlightened in this same confident boasting, I would, in all charity,
remind that our Saviour Himself constituted what they must, on their
principles, admit to be a party; that the Christian Church is simply
and literally a party or society instituted by Christ. He bade us keep
to