occasions as the present-and if, after trial, the accused be found guilty, he may be excommunicated and deposed. But the Church does not permit one preacher to pronounce a judgment, as it were ex cathedrá, on another, to anathematize his opinions when he cannot canonically prove him to be guilty of heresy, or even officially to attempt the refutation of them; for our 53rd Canon enacts, "If any preacher shall, in the pulpit, particularly or namely, of purpose, impugn or confute any doctrine delivered by any other preacher in the same Church, or in any Church near adjoining, before he hath acquainted the bishop of the diocese therewith, and received order from him what to do in that behalf," he shall be liable to suspension ;* a regulation this, obviously just and wise. We may descend from our official situation, and appear in the arena on equal terms as controversialists, if in opinion we unfortunately differ; but in this case, the one controversialist is not more infallible than the other, and if, pendente lite, one party takes upon him officially to give sentence on the other, what is this but a petitio principii as absurd as it is intolerant? In very truth, if each individual preacher were permitted thus to erect himself into an infallible Pope, fulminating his anathemas to the right hand and to the left, we should live for a time in a state of Ishmaelitish discord, when our hand would be against every man, and every man's hand against us, and at last

* Note T.

we should subside into a despotism and tyranny worse than Rome ever invented, or Geneva contemplated.

Needful it is to make these observations, since, as I have hinted before, the worst part of the periodical and (so called) religious press, are by their misrepresentations inflaming the passions of weaker brethren in the ministry, and are calling upon them, under the pretence of speaking out for the truth, to violate the laws of the Church, and by turning it into the platform of angry contention thus to desecrate the pulpit. Remember, brethren, that if the propagation of evangelic truth be one portion of our duty, it is no less our duty, by the sacrifice of all personal considerations, by the humiliation of our proud, the restraint of our angry, the denial of our selfish passions-by the due control even of our better emotions-to preserve the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. Remember, brethren, that our enemies are many and mighty: the two extremes of Romanism and Ultra-Protestantism are banded, together with Infidelity, against us, and if, like Sampson's foxes, they are pulling different ways, the brands which are attached to them have one and the self-same object-our destruction. And is this a time to divide our house, and to form parties and factions? Is this the season for discord? Remember, brethren, the ties, the sacred ties, which bind us to one another: as men, we are all under the same condemnation, we are all heirs of the same corrupted nature, equally one

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and all children of wrath: as Christians, we seek for reconciliation with an offended Maker, through the atoning merits and the all-prevailing intercession of the same crucified, the same glorified Saviour, through the sanctification of the same Blessed Spirit: we worship the same God, the Trinity in Unity. We are brethren of the same household, with one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of us all; ministers of Christ acting under the same apostolical commission, pledged all to walk by the same rule, and to speak the same thing; bound all by the same vows, with interests, and pursuits, and duties, and privileges identical; where, I ask again, can Christian unanimity and harmony be found if we find it not here? Sirs, ye are Brethren,” Oh wrong not one another. Sirs, ye are Brethren, and your Master is praying in heaven that ye may be one even as he is one with the Father; Oh seek not by your passions to frustrate his work! Sirs, ye are Brethren,—as brethren let us act cordially together, and gradually our differences will lessen, our agreements will extend. Then shall we stand, a holy army, closely embodied together, prepared with redoubled vigor to prosecute our warfare against the powers of darkness, and then we shall find how sweeter than the ointment with which Aaron was anointed, how refreshing, as the dews of Hermon, it is for brethren to dwell together in unity-then the peace of God will rest upon us; that peace which the world can neither give nor take away.

APPENDIX.

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NOTE A, page 8.

Although the word Kadoukds properly signifies universal, yet they [the ancient fathers] commonly used it in the same sense as we do the word orthodox, as opposed to an heretic, calling an orthodox man a Catholic, that is a son of the Catholic Church; as taking it for granted, that they, and they only, which constantly adhere to the doctrine of the Catholic or Universal Church, are truly orthodox; which they could not do, unless they had believed the Catholic Church to be so. And besides that, it is part of our very creed, that the Catholic Church is holy, which she could not be, except free from heresy, as directly opposite to true holiness."

Bp. Beveridge. Works ii. 197.

NOTE B, p. 14.

ON DEFERENCE TO

TRADITION AND RESPECT

FOR THE FATHERS.

Since a charge the most preposterous, of deviating from the principles of the Reformation is brought against those of our divines who defer

to tradition, and, in interpreting Scripture, have more respect for the consent of the fathers who lived in and near to the apostolic age, than for such commentators as Henry, Scott, &c. when opposed to the ancient interpretation, it may be well to refer to some other documents in addition to those alluded to in the body of this discourse. Reference is there made to the act of parliament which our reformers* obtained to enable them, with the civil sanction, to condemn, as heretics, those who propounded doctrines contrary to the canonical Scriptures, and to the decisions of the first four general councils. And we find that, on the authority here given, and with express reference to the first four general councils, our Church anathematized Socinianism in the year 1640:

"Whereas, much mischief is already done in the Church of God, by the spreading of the damnable and cursed heresy of Socinianism, as being a complication of many ancient heresies, condemned by the four first general councils, and contrariant to the articles of religion now established in the Church of England- -it is therefore decreed," &c.-Can. iv.

Sparrow's Collection.

How wisely our reformers made use of tradition and the fathers may be seen also by a

When I speak of the English reformers, I mean those great men who were publicly, and by authority, concerned in the Reformation of the Church of England, and not every private Englishman who happened to write against popery in the 16th century.