A Distinction of Orders in the Church defended upon Principles BY WILLIAM PALEY, A. M. ARCHDEACON OF CARLISLE. LONDON: PRINTED FOR ROBERT FAULDER, No. 42, NEW BOND-STREET. A SERMO N, &c. EPHESIANS, IV. 11, 12. AND HE GAVE SOME, APOSTLES; AND SOME, PROPHETS; AND SOME, EVANGELISTS; AND SOME, PASTORS AND TEACHERS; FOR THE PERFECTING OF THE SAINTS, FOR THE WORK OF THE MINISTRY, FOR THE EDİFYING OF THE BODY OF CHRIST. IN our reafoning and difcourfes upon the rules and nature of the Christian dispensation, there is no diftinction which ought to be preserved with greater care, than that, which exists between the inftitution, as it addrèffes the confcience and regulates the duty of particular Christians, and as it regards the difcipline and government of the Christian church. It was our Saviour's defign and the first object of his ministry, to afford to a loft and ignorant world fuch discoveries of their Creator's will, of their own interest, and future destination; fuch affured principles of faith, and rules of practice; fuch new motives, terms, and means of obedience, as might enable all, and engage many, to enter upon a course of life, which by rendering the person who purfued pursued it acceptable to God, would conduct him to happinefs, in another ftage of his existence. It was a second intention of the founder of Christianity, but fubfervient to the former, to affociate those who confented to take upon them the profeffion of his faith and service, into a feparate community, for the purpose of united worship and mutual edification, for the better tranfmiffion and manifestation of the faith that was delivered to them, but principally, to promote the exercife of that fraternal disposition which their new relation to each other, which the visible participation of the fame name and hope and calling, was calculated to excite. FROM a view of these distinct parts of the evangelic difpenfation, we are led to place a real difference, between the religion of particular Chriftians, and the polity of Chrift's church. The one is perfonal and individual-acknowledges no fubjection to human authority-is tranfacted in the heart-is an account between God and our own confciences alone: the other, appertaining to fociety (like every thing which relates to the joint intereft and requires the co-operation of many perfons) is visible and external-prescribes rules of common order, for the obfervation of which, we are responsible not only to God, but to the fociety of which we are members, or what is the fame thing, to those with whom the public authority of the fociety is depofited. BUT the difference which I am principally concerned to establish confifts in this, that whilft the precepts of Christian morality and the fundamental articles of its faith are, for the the most part, precife and abfolute, are of perpetual, univerfal, and unalterable obligation; the laws which refpect the discipline, inftruction, and government of the community, are delivered in terms fo general and indefinite as to admit of an application adapted to the mutable condition and varying exigencies of the Chriftian church. "As my Father hath fent me, fo fend I you." be done decently and in order." "Let every thing Lay hands fuddenly on no man." "Let him that ruleth do it with diligence." "The things which thou haft heard of me, the fame commit thou to faithful men, who fhall be able to teach others alfo." "For this caufe left I thee that thou shouldest fet in order the things that are wanting, and ordain elders in every city." THESE are all general directions, fuppofing indeed the existence of a regular ministry in the church, but defcribing no specific order of pre-eminence or diftribution of office and authority. If any other inftances can be adduced more circumftantial than these, they will be found like the appointment of the feven deacons, the collections for the faints, the laying by in store upon the first day of the week, to be rules of the society rather than laws of the religion— recommendations and expedients fitted to the ftate of the feveral churches by those who then administered the affairs of them, rather than precepts delivered with a folemn design of fixing a constitution for fucceeding ages. The just ends of religious as of civil union are eternally the fame; but the means, by which these ends may be best promoted and fecured, will vary with the viciffitudes of time and occafion, will differ according to the local circumstances, the peculiar fituation, |