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It is a weighty remark of Hooker’s, that ‘religion without the help of a spiritual Ministry is unable to plant itself. Which assertion,’—he says,—‘needs no further confirmation. If it did, I could easily declare, how all things which are of God, he has by wonderful art and wisdom soldered together, as it were, by the glue of mutual assistance, appointing the lowest to receive from the nearest to themselves what the influence of the highest yields. And therefore the church, being the most absolute of all his works, was in reason to be also ordered with similar harmony, that what he works might, no less in grace than in nature, be effected by hands and instruments, duly subordinated to the power of his own Spirit.’ Book v. 76. Mosheim observes to the same purport, that the best system of religion must necessarily either dwindle to nothing, or be egregiously corrupted, if it is not perpetually inculcated and explained by a regular and standing Ministry.’ Eccles. Hist. Cent. i. part. ii. chap. ii. ‘Not even,’—says Calvin,—‘is the light and heat of the sun—not even is meat and drink, so necessary for the support and cherishing of our present life, as the Apostolical and Pastoral Office for the preservation of the church on earth.’ Instit. lib. iv. c. iii. 3.