TO THE REV. THE CLERGY OF THE ARCHDEACONRY OF LONDON, THE FOLLOWING Charge, NOW MADE PUBLIC AT THEIR REQUEST, IS INSCRIBED, WITH EVERY CORDIAL TESTIMONY OF ATTACHMENT AND REGARD, BY THEIR FAITHFUL SERVANT, J. H. POTT. CHARGE, &c. MY REV. BRETHREN, WHEN We are here met within the walls of this sacred structure, set apart and dedicated to the worship of the Lord our God, and for the fellowship and communion of the Christian household, what things can more fitly occupy the mind than those which are most nearly connected with the source and privileges of our Christian calling, and with the special and peculiar obligations which attach to us as partakers of one ministry? In order to reduce these objects to some chief heads or principles, our thoughts are naturally led to regard the Church itself in its complex character; the congregation or collective number in each district of its visible communion; and the consecrated edifices constructed for those joint assemblies. The Church, the congregation, and the courts of worship, are things of different account, if taken severally, but in their joint subsistence the lesser borrows value from the greater, and each stands entitled to our best care and attention as tending to one end, the glory of God and the salvation of the souls of men. It The present call, and the occasions for it, will favour such expressions of our joint concern. appears, I trust, that these objects are placed before us not as speculative matters, but as things brought near to our best feelings; things which are most at heart with us. That such is the case, I can readily collect from the punctual attendance which for some years I have had the happiness to witness in this place; an attendance, though not merely voluntary, yet not commonly enforced by stricter motives than those which are, indeed, the strongest and the best, the sense of duty, and the ready inclination to fulfil it; without which all other ties, though fortified, as in this case, by legal sanctions, would prove weak and ineffectual." Our first reflections on the heads proposed, will lead us at once to perceive, that it would form but a narrow scheme and defective notion of the Christian Church in any land, which should establish its intrinsic character and perpetual claims upon the formularies of its public service, or upon its peculiar standard of confession, in such respects wherein for special reasons, in order to meet emergent errors, or to prevent them from arising, some conclusions of consent and harmony have been so properly adopted. We should render an imperfect and in adequate description of the Church to which we belong, if we did not look to its primary foundations, and pay the first regard to that which is essential to the being of the Church wherever it exists. Thus its union with one Everliving Head, and its undivided fellowship where its congregations are collected, rise at once before us. I shall not dwell long in general statements of the topics I have chosen, for there are peculiar circumstances in each of them, to which I would fain crave your attention. But what is, indeed, of chief moment, shall be touched with a due regard to its importance, which cannot be too highly rated. I shall remind you, then, that the union of the Church, which consists in the relation which its members have to one Head and to each other, is described by our blessed Lord in few words, in which he sets before us this first source of life and privilege. "I am the vine, ye are the branches," said our Redeemer, and we need no further definition of the first essential character of the one Church Catholic, in things by which it has its being, which are not subject to the senses, but are built upon everlasting and unchanging grounds of vital interest. The next step is to the congregation. To that religious fellowship, we trace the joint performance of all common offices and duties, which serve for mutual benefit and are conducive to the welfare of the whole. Without its visible communion, the Church could not flourish, since by such means its |