an institution such as the living ministry?—and which, therefore, without that ministry, would not be attained, even though men possessed every other means? Now, without saying that it is so, and not insisting on the probability of it (arising from the analogy {10} of God’s past dealings with mankind, and from the very nature of our social condition), it is enough to affirm, that it is very _possible_, very conceivable, that an apostolical ministry might have been made by GOD the perpetual channel of a grace to man, which might be conveyed in no other way. And the possibility of this ought for ever to restrain us from the rash conclusion, that Christian blessings may be sufficiently attained by private reading of the Bible.—If any are inclined to such a conclusion, by the consideration that possibly the apostolic ministry had a miraculous blessing which no ministry had after the Apostles’ age; so that language well suited to the first generation of the Christian ministers, may not be suitable now; it might be answer enough to point out, that such a supposition remains to be substantiated, and that it must be hazardous to take up with a theory which incurs the risk of realizing _on principle_ only a defective Christianity. But more than this may be briefly added, viz.: That as miraculous power was no peculiarly apostolical prerogative (for all ranks of Christians had possessed it), so neither can the want of it argue a deficiency in apostolic grace and ministration; That the Apostles associated with themselves Timotheus, Silvanus, Epaphroditus {11} and others, as possessing the same MINISTRY with themselves, though no miraculous gift; and, That if the same ministry be not to continue for ever in the church, then it would follow that “Lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world,” has not been literally fulfilled; That the words of Scripture which relate to the Church’s Ministry, must not be understood by us as they certainly were by the first Christians, and, consequently, the plain sense of the Bible is not our guide, as it was theirs so far as they possessed it. And so, finally, our Christianity may be proved at last to come short of the standard of Scripture, and be fatally different in some important points from that which was originally given to the world.