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however, attempt here any detailed account of all those commandments and instructions of Christ or ' anything like a full delineation of all those laws with reference to matters of faith and practice, wor- ship and discipline, by which the affairs of his church are to be thus regulated and which are in- cluded in that order and government which he has thus appointed, and which an exhaustive prosecu- tion of the subject might consequently involve. All that I shall endeavor in the meantime is therefore to make a few plain, descriptive and practical re- marks on the nature, constitution, government and administration of the church of Christ as described in Scripture from which you may be led to see whether or not you yourselves, as a professing body of Christians, are really observing that proper order which Christ himself has thus appointed. And here it will be appropriate for us first to consider what we are to understand by this church itself—of whose order or government out text speaks. Now this team, church, is used in scripture sometimes in a very extensive and at other times in a much more restricted sense.

It signifies in its more extensive application the whole body of true Christian believers, both living and dead, united under Christ their glorious Head, ——all who have been given unto Him to be redeemed and saved by Him—all who have been already re— deemed and saved, or who shall thus hereafter be in like manner gathered along with them into one vast company under Christ Jesus their common

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