n what relates to particular faults,
may be with most propriety dwelt on by those who have no direct
connexion with the congregation which they are addressing.

In the first place, then, whenever we think of the state and prospects
of Christ's church, whether for good or for evil, it is most desirable
that we should rightly understand our own relations to it. "The vineyard
of the Lord of hosts is the house of Israel;" or, in the language of the
New Testament, "Christ is the vine, and we are the branches." Men
continually seem to forget that they are members of the church;
citizens, to use St. Paul's expression, of Christ's kingdom, as much as
ever they are citizens of their earthly country. But they speak of the
church as they might speak of any useful institution or society in their
neighbourhood, whose object they approved of, and which they were glad
to encourage, but without becoming members of it, or identifying
themselves with its success or failure. For example, they speak of the
church as they might speak of the universities, which indeed are
institutions of great importance to the whole country, but yet they are
manifestly distinct from the mass of the community: they have their own
members, their own laws, and their own government, with which, people in
general have nothing to do. And so many persons speak and feel of the
church, regarding it evidently as consisting only of the clergy: our
common language, no doubt, helping this confusion, because we often
speak of a man's going into the church when he enters into holy orders,
just as if ordination were the admission into the church, and not
baptism. Now, if the clergy did indeed constitute the church, then it
would very much resemble the condition of the universities: for it would
then be indeed a society very important to the welfare of the whole
country, but yet one that was completely distinct, and which had its
members, laws, and government quite apart: for men in general do not
belong to the clergy, nor are they concerned directly in such canons as
relate to the peculiar business of the clergy, nor does the bishop's
superintendence, as commonly exercised, extend at all to them. But God
designed for his church far more than that it should contain one order
of men only, or that it should comprise commonly but one single
individual in a parish, preaching to and teaching the rest of the
inhabitants, like a missionary amongst a population of heathens. Look at