minister, and confers validity on his public ministrations. Others suppose it belongs to those who are already in office. Without pretending to determine the question, we shall here give an outline of the arguments on both sides.

people, but in the solemn and public separation to office by prayer; still, however, they think that ordination by either bishops, presbyters, or any superior character, cannot be necessary to make a minister or ordain a pastor in any particular church; for Jesus Christ, say they, would never leave the subsistance of his churches, or the effi

According to the former opinion, it is argued that the word ordain, was originally equal to choose or appoint; so that if twen-cacy of his word and sacraments, to depend ty Christians nominated a man to instruct on the uninterrupted succession of any office them once, the man was appointed or or- or officer; for then it would be impossible dained a preacher for the time. The es- for any church to know whether they ever sence of ordination lies in the voluntary had any authentic minister; for we could nechoice and call of the people, and in thever be assured that such ordinations had been voluntary acceptance of that call, by the rightly transmitted through 1700 years. A person chosen and called; for this affair whole nation might be corrupted, and every must be by mutual consent and agreement,bishop and elder therein might have apostawhich joins them together as pastor and tised from the faith, as it was in England people. And this is to be done among in the days of popery. To say, therefore, themselves: and public ordination, so called, that the right of ordaining lies in men who is no other than a declaration of that. Elec-are already in office, w uld drive us to tion and ordination are spoken of as the hold the above-mentioned untenable position same; the latter is expressed and explain-of uninterrupted succession. ed by the former. It is said of Christ, that On the other side it is observed, that, alhe ordained twelve, Mark iii. 14, that is, though Christians have the liberty of chooshe chose them to the office of apostleship, as ing their own pastor, yet they have no powhe himself explains it, John vi. 70 Paul ander or right to confer the office itself. ScripBarnabas are said to ordain elders in every ture represents ordination to be the setting church, (Acts xiv. 23,) or to choose them; apart of a person to the holy ministry, by that is, they gave orders and directions to the authority of Jesus himself acting by the every church as to the choice of elders || medium of men in office; and this solemn over them for sometimes persons are said investing act is necessary to his being lawto do that which they gave orders and di- tully accounted a minister of Christ. The rections for doing; as Moses and Solomon, original word, Acts vi. 3. is xolastrowμtv, with respect to building the tabernacle and which according to Scapula, and the best temple, though done by others; and Moses writers on the sacred language, signifies to particularly is said to choose the judges, put one in rule, or to give him authority. Exod. xviii. 25. the choice being made un- Now did this power lodge in the people, der his direction and guidance. The word how happens it that in all the epistles, not a that is used in Acts xiv. 23, is translated single word is to be found giving them any chosen in Cor. ii. 8, 19, where the apostle directions about constituting ministers On speaks of a brother, xgorovnes, who the other hand, in the epistles to Timothy was chosen of the churches to travel with and Titus, who were persons in office, we 28, and is so rendered when ascribed to find particular instruction given them to lay God, Acts x. 41. This choice and ordina-hands suddenly on no man, to examine his tion, in primitive times, was made two ways; by casting lots and giving votes, signified by stretching out of hands. Matthias was chosen and ordained to be an apostle in the room of Judas by casting lots: that being an extraordinary office, required an immediate interposition of the Divine Being, a lot being nothing more nor less than an appeal to God for the decision of an affair. But ordinary officers, as elders and pastors of churches, were chosen and ordained by the votes of the people, expressed by stretching out their hands, thus it is said of the apos-quent to it. tles, Acts xiv. 23, When they had ordain- Most of the foregoing remarks apply ed them elders in every church xgorovn-chiefly to the supposition, that a person cartes, by taking the suffrages and votes of the members of the churches, shewn by the stretching out of their hands, as the word signifies; and which they directed them to, and upon it declared the elders duly elected and ordained.

Some, however, on this side of the question, do not go so far as to say, that the essence of ordination lies in the choice of the

qualifications before they ordain him, and to take care that they commit the office only to faithful men, who shall be able to teach others also, Titus i. 5. 2 Tim. iv. 14. Acts xiv. 23.

Besides, it is said, the primitive Christians evidently viewed this matter in the same light. There is scarcely a single ecclesiastical writer that does not expressly mention ordination as the work of the elders, and as being regarded as a distinct thing from the choice of the people, and subse

cannot be ordained in any other way than as a pastor over a church. But hear, also, we find a difference of opinion. On the one side it is said, that there is no scriptue authority whatever for a person being ordained without being chosen or nominated to the office of a minister by a church, Elders and bishops were ordained in every church, not without any church. To ordain a man

66

TION OF HANDS, INDEPENDENTS, and
MINISTERIAL CALL, in this work; James
Owen's Plea for Scripture Ordination.
Doddridge's Tracts, v. ii. page 253-257.
Dr. Owen's True Nature of a Gospel
Church, page 78, 83. Brekell's Essay on
Ordination. Watts' Rational Foundation
of a Christian Church, sec. 3.
Dr. Camp
bell's Lectures on Ecclesiastical History,
vol. i. page 345. Gill's Body of Divinity,
page 246, vol. iii. 8vo. edition. Theological
Magazine for 1802, page 33, 90, 167.
Ewing's Remarks on Dick's Sermon,
reached before the Edingburgh Missionary
Society in 1801.

originally, says Dr. Campbell, was nothing || us." See articles EPISCOPACY, IMPOSI else but in a solemn manner to assign him a pastoral charge To give him no charge, and not to ordain him, were perfectly identical. On the other side it is _contended, || that from these words, “ Go ye into all the|| world, and preach the Gospel to every creature; and, lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world," it, is evident that misionaries and itinerants must be employed in the important work of the ministry; that, as such cannot be ordained over any particular church, there cannot be the least impropriety in ordaining them for the church universal. Allowing that they have all those talents, gifts, and grace, that constitute a minister in the sight of God, who will dare say they should not be designated by their brethren for the administration of those ordinances Christ has appointed in the church-Without allowing this, how many thousands would be destitute of these ordinances? Besides, these are the very men whom God in general honours as the first instruments in raising churches, over which stated pastors are afterwards fixed. The separation of Saul and Barnabas, say they, was an ordination to missionary work, including the administration of sacraments to the converted Heathen, as well as public instruction, Acts xiii 1. 3. So Timothy was ordained, 1 Tim. iv. 14. Acts xvi. 3. and there is equal reason, by analogy, to suppose that Titus and other companions of 1. That there is a pre-existent state of Paul were similarly ordained, without any human souls. For the nature of the soul is of them having a particular church to take such as to make her capable of existing eterunder his pastoral care. So that they ap-nally, backward as well as forward, because pear to have been ordained to the work of the Christian ministry at large.

from his own abyss of being, and as self

grees of happiness. And certainly he, whose overflowing goodness brought them into ex-existent power must needs subject all beings

istence, would not deprive them of their felicity, till by their mutability they rendered themselves less pure in the whole extent of their powers, and became disposed for the susception of such a degree of corporeal life as was exactly answerable to their present disposition of spirit. Hence it was necessary that they should become terrestrial

men.

to itself, the Deity could not but impress upon her intimate natures and substances a central tendency towards himself; an essential principle of re-union to the great original.

6. That the earth after its conflagration shall become habitable again, and be the mansion of men and animals, and that in eternal vicissitudes. For it is thus expres3. That the soul of Christ was united to sed in Isaiah: Behold I make new heavens, the Word before the incarnation. For the and a new earth, &c. and in Heb. i. 10 12. scriptures teach us that the soul of the Thou, Lord, in the beginning hast laid the Messiah was created before the beginning foundations of the earth; as a vesture of the world, Phil ii. 5, 7. This text must shalt thou change them, and they shall be understood of Christ's human soul, be-be changed, &c. Where there is only a cause it is unusual to propound the Deity change the substance is not destroyed, this as an example of humility in scripture. change being only as that of a garment worn Though the humanity of Christ was so God-out and decaying. The fashion of the like, he emptied himself of this fulness of life and glory, to take upon him the form of a servant. It was this Messiah who conversed with the patriarchs under a human form: it was he who appeared to Moses upon the Holy Mount: it was he who spoke to the prophets under a visible appearance: and it is he who will at last come in triumph upon the clouds to restore the uniniverse to its primitive splendour and felicity.

world passes away like a turning scene, to exhibit a fresh and new representation of things; and if only the present dress and appearance of things go off, the substance is supposed to remain entire.

ORIGINAL SIN. See FALL, SIN. ORIGIN OF EVIL. See SIN. ORTHODOXY, soundness of doctrine or opinion in matters of religion. The doctrines which are generally considered as orthodox among us, are such as were generally professed at the time of the reformation, viz. the fall of man, regeneration, atonement, repentance, justification by free grace, &c

4. That at the resurrection of the dead we shall be clothed with ethereal bodies. For the elements of our terrestrial compositions are such as almost fatally entangle Some have thought, that, in order to keep us in vice, passion, and misery. The purer error out of the church, there should be the vehicle the soul is united with, the more some human form as a standard of orthoperfect is her life and operations. Besides, doxy, wherein certain disputed doctrines the Supreme Goodness who made all things, shall be expressed in such determinate assures us he made all things best at phrases as may be directly levelled against first, and therefore his recovery of us to our such errors as shall prevail from time to lost happiness (which is the design of the time, requiring those especially who are to Gospel,) must restore us to our better bo-be public teachers in the church to subscribe dies and happier habitations, which is evident from 1 Cor. xv. 49. 2 Cor. v. 1. and other texts of scripture.

||

or virtually to declare their assent to such formularies. But, as Dr. Doddridge observes, 1 Had this been requisite, it is pro5. That, after long periods of time the bable that the scriptures would have given damned shall be released from their torments us some such formularies as these, or some and restored to a new state of probation directions as to the manner in which they For the Deity has such reserves in his gra- should be drawn up, proposed, and receivcious providence, as will vindicate his sove-ed.-2. It is impossible that weak and pas reign goodness and wisdom from all disparagement. Expiatory pains are a part of his adorable plan; for this sharper kind of favour has a righteous place in such creatures as are by nature mutable. Though sin has extinguished or silenced the divine life, yet it has not destroyed the faculties of reason and understanding, consideration and memory, which will serve the life which is most powerful If, therefore, the vigorous attraction of the sensual nature be abated by a ceaseless pain, these powers may resume the seeds of a better life and nature. As in the material system there is a gravitation of the less bodies towards the greater, there must of necessity be something analogous to this in the intellectual system; and since the spirits created by God are emanations and streams"

sionate men, who have perhaps been heated in the very controversy thus decided, should express themselves with greater propriety than the apostles did.-3. It is plain, in fact, that this practice has been the cause of great contention in the Christian church, and such formularies have been the grand engine of dividing it, in proportion to the degree in which they have been multiplied and urged-4. This is laying a great temptation in the way of such as desire to undertake the office of teachers in the church, and will be most likely to deter and afflict those who have the greatest tenderness of conscience, and therefore (cat. par ) best deserve encouragement.-5. It is not likely to answer the end proposed, viz. the preserving an uniformity of opinion, since per

sons of little integrity may satisfy their the divine law, obtain justification and par consciences, in subscribing what they do don for sinners; neither can we be justinot at all believe as articles of peace, or infied before God, by embracing and applying to ourselves, through faith, the righteousness and obedience of the man Christ. It is only through that eternal and essential righteousness which dwells in Christ, considered as God, and which resides in his divine nature, that is united to the human, that mankind can obtain complete justification.

putting the most unnatural sense on the words. And whereas, in answer to all these inconveniences, it is pleaded, that such forms are necessary to keep the church from heresy, and it is better there should be some hypocrites under such forms of orthodoxy, than that a freedom of debate and opinion should be allowed to all teachers; the answer is plain, that, when any one begins to preach doctrines which appear to those who attend upon him dangerous and subversive of Christianity, it will be time enough to proceed to such animadversion as the nature of his error in their apprehension will require, and his relation to them will admit. See articles ESTABLISHMENT and SUBSCRIPTION. Doddridge's Lectures, lecture 174. Watts' Orthodoxy and Charity United

OSIANDRIANS, a denomination among the Lutherans, which was founded in the year 1550, by Andrew Osiander, a celebrated German divine, whose doctrine amount. ed to the following propositions :

1. That Christ, considered in his human nature only, could not, by his obedience to

2. That man becomes a partaker of this divine righteousness by faith, since it is in consequence of this uniting principle that Christ dwells in the heart of man with his divine righteousness Now, wherever this divine righteousness dwells, there God can behold no sin; therefore, when it is present with Christ in the hearts of the regenerate, they are on its account considered by the Deity as righteous, although they be sinners. Moreover, this divine and justifying righteousness of Christ excites the faithful to the pursuit of holiness, and to the practice of virtue.

OSSENIANS, a denomination, in the first century, which taught that faith may and ought to be dissembled.

P.

publish another edict, revoking all former edicts granted to the Protestants, and ordering them to depart the kingdom in six months, or turn Papists. This edict was followed by more to the same purpose.

people, to keep them in obedience to the civil state. Thus things continued in the Gentile world, until the light of the Gospel was sent among them: the times before were times of ignorance, as the apostle calls Henry IV. coming to the crown, publish- them: they were ignorant of the true God, ed a declaration July 4, 1591, abolishing the and of the worship of him; and of the Mesedicts against the Protestants. This edict siah, and salvation by him. Their state is was verified in the Parliament of Chalons; truly described, Eph. ii. 12. that they were but the troubled, prevented the verification then without Christ; aliens from the com of it in the parliaments of the other provin- monwealth of Israel; strangers from the ces; so that the Protestants had not the free covenants of promise; having no hope, and exercise of their religion in any place but without God in the world; and, consequentwhere they were masters, and had banishedly, their theology was insufficient for salvathe Religion. In April 1598, the king pub-tion. The reader will find some admirable lished a new Edict of Pacification at Nantz, reflections on the growth of heathenism granting the Protestants the free exercise of among modern Christians, in the 3d volume their religion in all places where they had of the Rev. W. Jones's Works. See HEAthe same in 1596 and 1597, and one exercise THENS, IDOLATRY, POLYTHEISM. in each bailiwick.

This Edict of Nantz was confirmed Lewis XIII. in 1610, and by Lewis XIV., 1652. But this latter abolished it entirely in 1685. See HUGUENOTS, and PERSECUTION.

PÆDOBAPTISTS, those who baptize their children. The word comes from wass, infant, and Balismos, baptism. See BAP

TISM.

PAGODA, or PAGOD, a name given by the East Indians to their temples, where they worship their gods.

PALM SUNDAY, the Sunday next before Easter, so called from palm branches being strewed on the road by the multitude, when our Saviour made his triumphal entry into Jerusalem.

PANTHEISM, a philosophical species of PAGANISM, the religious worship and idolatry, leading to atheism, in which the discipline of Pagans, or the adoration of universe was considered as the Supreme idols and false gods. The theology of the God Who was the inventor of this absurd Pagans, according to themselves, as Scævola system, is. perhaps, not known, but it was of and Varro, was of three sorts. The first early origin, and differently modified by difof these may well be called fabulous, as ferent philosophers. Some held the universe treating of the theology and genealogy of to be one immense animal, of which the intheir deities, in which they say such things corporeal soul was properly their god, and as are unworthy of deity; ascribing to them the heavens and the earth the body of that thefts, murders, adulteries, and all manner god; whilst others held but one substance, of crimes; and therefore this kind of theolo-partly active and partly passive, and theregy is condemned by the wiser sort of hea-fore looked upon the visible universe as the thens as nugatory and scandalous: the wri- only Numen. The earliest Grecian pantheist ters of this sort of theology were Sanchonia-of whom we read was Orpheus, who called tho, the Phoenician; and of the Grecian, the world the body of God, and its several Orpheus, Hesiod, Pherecyde, &c. The se- parts of its members, making the whole cond sort, called physic, or natural, was stu- universe one divine animal. According to died and taught by the philosophers, who, Cudworth, Orpheus and his followers berejecting the multiplicity of gods introduced lieved in the immaterial soul of the world: by the poets, brought their theology to a more therein agreeing with Aristotle, who cernatural and rational form, and supposed that tainly held that God and matter are co-eterthere was but one Supreme God, which they nal; and that there is some such union becommonly make to be the sun at least, an tween them, as subsists between the souls and emblem of him, but at to great a distance to bodies of men. An institution, imbibing senmind the affairs of the world, and therefore || timents nearly of this kind, was set on foot devised certain demons, which they consid- about eigthty or ninety years ago, in this kingered as mediators between the Supreme God dom, by a society of philosophical idolaters, and man and the doctrines of these de- who called themselves Pantheists, because mons, to which the apostle is thought to al- they professed the worship of All Nature as lude in 1 Tim. iv. 1. were what the philoso- their deity. They had Mr. John Toland for phers had a concern with, and who treat of their secretary and chaplain. Their liturgy their nature, office, and regard to men; as was in Latin: an English translation was pub did Thales, Pythagorus, Plato, and the Stoics.lished in 1751, from which the following senti The third part, called politic, or civil, was instituted by legislators, statesmen, and politicians: the first among the Romans was Numa Pompilius: this chiefly respected their gods, temples, altars, sacrifices, and rites of worship, and was properly their idolatry, the care of which belonged to the priests; and this was enjoined the common

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