Episcopalians, or even Presbyterians in disguise. Some indication of this latter motive we think we can perceive in the suggestion made by the writer now before us, that the 'Hyper-Churchmen' are constantly attempting to identify their chief opposers with the Ultra Low-Churchmen.' The fear of this imputation has no doubt led some to take the middle ground of 'non-committal' and to vindicate their Churchmanship, which had been brought into suspicion. through the open recognition of their brethren, by simply refusing to draw inferences respecting them, by saying nothing about them, and making no allusion to them. Among the troops by which the fortress of episcopacy is surrounded, there are some whom a portion of the garrison regard as friends, in arms against the common enemy, while the rest not only reckon them as enemies, but look upon their charitable comrades as unfaithful to their trust, if not as traitors. Tired of this mortifying imputation, a part of those who have hitherto insisted on acknowledging these friends without the walls, begin to hold their peace, and to decline drawing inferences-nothing more. Open hostility they carefully avoid. They never dream of aiming at these friends when they fire. They only fire away, and let their comrades do the same, as if these friends had no existence, or as if they did not see them-that is all. Such opponents are certainly entitled to the praise of being prudent if not 'moderate' belligerents. If, in this discussion, we have done injustice to the motives or the principles of any, none can regret it more sincerely than ourselves. We have felt ourselves called upon to state, in the plainest terms, what we regard as an alarming change in the position taken by many at least of the Low Church party with respect to other churches. If there is no such indisposition to acknowledge other Christian bodies as we have imagined and suggested, it is an error of all others the most easily corrected, by a bare performance of the act in question. If, on the other hand, evangelical Episcopalians are really unwilling to make this acknowledgment, we think it would be easy to satisfy impartial men, that they are greatly in the wrong; that their unwillingness to make such avowals must arise from the same mistaken view of the nature of the church and of the ministry, which lies at the foundation of the system of Puseyism; that it is part of the same leaven which has wrought out the evils they themselves deplore; that such doubt or denial of the validity of Presbyterian orders is contrary to the doctrine of the Church of England, of all her divines for a hundred years after the Reformation, of her authoritative canons and official acts, and of her best men at every period of her history; that by such denial, virtual or actual, they place themselves and Romanists on one side, and all Protestant Christendom on the other; that by so doing they turn their backs on the friends of truth, and give their countenance to its enemies; and finally that they thus commit the very sin which they appear most anxious to avoid, the sin of schism. Episcopalians must see that this is a turning point. Other denominations must, in fidelity to truth and to God, insist that the churches of Christ shall not be disowned, and real fellowship with those who thus disown them must be impossible. We conclude with a summary recapitulation of the points which we have touched and endeavoured to illus trate. 1. The real distinction between High Church and Low Church lies in the recognition or denial of non-episcopal societies as churches. 2. There is reason to fear that the real Low Church party, in this country, has begun to disappear, and that it will be, sooner or later, merged in the High Church. 3. The middle ground, over which the transition is likely to take place, is that of saying nothing,' and declining to 'draw inferences' as to the validity of non-episcopal institutions. 4. The only way in which any men, or class of men, can satisfactorily wash their hands of this defection, is by clear and explicit admission of the fact, which the High Church openly denies, and as to which the High Low Church stands mute. 5. This refusal to acknowledge or deny the character of other churches is, in effect, as exclusive as the High Church doctrine, and in spirit, less magnanimous. 6. Against this spurious and insidious form of Protestant Episcopacy, Presbyterians and other Christians are not only authorized but bound to contend, by exposing its true character and utter inconsistency. 7. To include in this condemnation those, however few, who still maintain the genuine spirit of the Low Church party, and of the Church of England in its best days, or to represent them as less faithful to their own communion than their High Church opponents, is at once a perversion of historical truth and a breach of Christian charity. ART. VI.-1. The Integrity of our National Union vs. Abolitionism. An Argument from the Bible, in proof of the position; that believing masters ought to be honoured and obeyed by their servants, and tolerated in, not excommunicated from, the Church of God, being part of a speech delivered before the Synod of Cincinnati, on the subject of Slavery. September 19th, and 20th, 1843. By Rev. George Junkin, D. D., President of Miami University. Cincinnati: 1843. pp. 79. 2. The Contrast, or the Bible vs. Abolitionism: an Exegetical Argument. By Rev. William Graham, Pastor of the Second Presbyterian church, Oxford, Ohio. 3. A Review of the Rev. Dr. Junkin's Synodical Speech, in defence of American Slavery, with an outline of the Bible argument against Slavery. Cincinnati. 1844. pp. 136. 1844. 4. Line of Demarcation between the Secular and Spiritual Kingdoms. By the Rev. William Wisner, D. D. Ithaca. 1844. pp. 22. USAGE often gives a comprehensive word a limited sense. If, in our day, and in this country, you ask a man whether he is an abolitionist, he will promptly answer no, though, he may believe with Jefferson that slavery is the greatest curse that can be inflicted on a nation; or with Cassius M. Clay, that it is destructive of industry, the mother of ignorance, opposed to literature, antagonist to the fine arts, destructive of mechanical excellence; that it corrupts the people, retards population and wealth, impoverishes the soil, destroys national wealth, and is incompatible with constitutional liberty. A man may believe and say all this, as many of the wisest and best men of the South believe and openly avow, and yet be no abolitionist. If every man who regards slavery as an evil, and wishes to see it abolished, were an abolitionist, then nine tenths of the people in this country would be abolitionists. What then is an abolitionist ? He is a man who holds that slaveholding is a great sin; and consequently that slaveholders should not be admitted to the communion of the church, and that slavery should immediately, under all circumstances and regardless of all consequences, be abolished. "Slaveholding," says the second article of the American Anti-slavery Society, "is a heinous crime in the sight of God" and "ought therefore to be immediately abolished." "The question," says the Reviewer of Dr. Junkin's pamphlet, "now in process of investigation among American churches, is this, and no other: Are the professed Christians in our respective connexions who hold their fellow men as slaves, thereby guilty of a sin which demands the cognizance of the church, and after due admonition, the application of discipline ?" p. 17. This question abolitionists answer in the affirmative; all other men in the negative. Every party has a character as well as a creed. Whatever it is that holds them together as a party, gives them a common spirit, which again leads to characteristic measures and modes of action. If the bond of union is coincidence of opinion on some great principle in politics, religion or morals, then the characteristic spirit of the party will be determined by the nature of that opinion. If we look at the great parties in England, the Tory, Whig and Radical, we shall see they have, each, its own character, arising out of their distinctive principles. The Tory desires to see political power confined to the holders of property; the Whigs to the educated classes; the Radicals would have it extended to the whole population without regard to their intellectual or moral condition; and we see amidst the diversity of individual character, arising from a thousand different sources, a common spirit belonging to these several parties, arising from the distinctive principle of each. The correctness of this remark is still more obvious with regard to religious parties; because religious truth has a more direct and powerful influence on the character of men than mere political opinions. We not only see the great divisions of the Christian world, the evangelical, ritual, and rationalistic, exhibiting strongly marked peculiarities, arising from the radically different views of doctrine which they entertain, but the minute subdivisions of the large classes have each its own distinctive character. It is impossible that the difference between the Calvinist and the evangelical Arminian should not manifest itself both in the state of their hearts and in outward acts. And who can shut his eyes to the influence exerted by the New Divinity, in all its modifications, as it has existed in this country? The spirit of censoriousness, of denunciation, of coarse authoritative dealing, and the whole array of new measures, were the natural fruit of the peculiar doctrines of one class of the advocates of the New Divinity, and especially of their opinion that a change of heart was a change of purpose, which a man could effect as easily as change his route on a journey. If again a party is constituted by a particular opinion on any question of morals, its character will depend upon the nature of that opinion. We may take as an illustration of this point the temperance society. The opinion that the use of spirituous liquors was in this age and country of evil tendency, and ought to be discountenanced by a general determination of the friends of temperance, to abandon such use, had nothing in it anti-scriptural, nothing malevolent. So long therefore, as this opinion continued the bond of union of the associated friends of temperance, their spirit was benevolent, and their measures mild. But as soon as the doctrine was embraced that the use of intoxicating liquors was in itself sinful, then poison was infused into the whole organization. Then every man who drank a glass of wine was a sinner, and was to be made a subject of ecclesiastical discipline. Then the holy scriptures were put to the torture to make them utter the new doctrine; and those to whose ears this utterance was not sufficiently distinct, made bold hypothetically to denounce them, and to blaspheme the Saviour of the world. Then a spirit of censoriousness, of defamation, and of falsehood seized upon those in whom the virus had produced its full effect, making their publications an opprobrium and a nuisance. We have in modern abolitionism another illustration of this same truth. That slavery like despotism, in its very nature, supposes a barbarous or partially civilized condition of at least one portion of society; that it ought not and cannot, without gross injustice, be rendered permanent; that the means of moral and intellectual culture should be extended to slaves, and to the subjects of despotic governments, and the road of improvement be left open before them, is an opinion which any man may hold, and which we believe is in fact held by ninety-nine hundredths of all the intelligent and good men on the face of the earth. And that opinion may and ought to be made the foundation of wise and appropriate measures for carrying it into effect. |