in England and America, which have ever followed them in Italy and Spain, in Asia and in Africa. And if we will not sacrifice every thing that is pure in the truth-precious in the promises-spiritual in the ordinances ennobling in the precepts and free, elevating, and refining in the spirit-of the gospel; we must stand fast in the liberty of apostolic christianity against all the innovations and the self-originated policy of ancient and modern church principles.1 Their views, these writers inform us, and those understood by the term evangelical, are as wide apart as socinianism and popery.2 Further, we remark, that we are summoned to this enterprise by the claims of charity and peace.3 To oppose prelacy is not, we again repeat, to oppose episcopacy; neither is it to impugn the character, standing, or piety of evangelical episcopal churches. In entering our protest against the anathematizing, excommunicating spirit of highchurch principles, we consider prelatists as they present themselves, in their self-chosen garb, "stripped of those better parts of their system"-those common principles of christianity, "which are our inheritance as well as theirs ;" and so contemplating them, in that aspect by which they are distinguished, as prelatists, it is surely for the interests of peace and charity, that their unscriptural and unchristian dogmas should be exposed. A defensive war, when made necessary by the aggression of others, can never be wrong in principle, however it may be tarnished by the spirit in which it is conducted. On the contrary, it is only by such a war, vigorously and successfully prosecuted, that peace can ever be restored, and prosperity enjoyed. There is, in such circumstances, no alternative between war and liberty; or submission and enslavement. The question before us is, conformity to prelacy, or the justification of our claims to that inheritance in which we glory. To this image we must bow down and worship; or boldly avouch the Lord to be our God, and Jesus Christ, our Redeemer. While prelacy goes forth in her present crusade against the immunities and privileges of all other denominations, there is, and there can be, neither peace nor charity. By demanding uniformity, prelacy destroys and prevents unity. By branding as aliens from the christian commonwealth, all who worship God in a manner different from her-prelacy opposes what she miscalls schism, by what the Bible pronounces to be truly schism; for 1) See Anc't Christ'y, passim. 3) See note D. LECT. I.] PRELACY SCHISMATICAL. 19 illiberality, bigotry, intolerance; what are these but the very essence of schism? The rebuke given by Campbell to the fanaticism of Dodwell, who makes the very existence of christianity to depend on prelacy, is surely not too strong. "Arrogant and vain man! what are you, who so boldly and avowedly presume to foist into God's covenant, articles of your own devising, neither expressed nor implied in his words? Do YOU venture, a worm of the earth? Can you think yourself warranted to stint what God hath not stinted, and, following the dictates of your own contracted spirit, enviously to limit the bounty of the Universal Parent, that you may confine to a party what Christ hath freely published for the benefit of all? Is your eye evil because he is good? Shall I then believe that God, like deceitful man, speaketh equivocally, and with mental reservations? Shall I take his declaration in the extent wherein he hath expressly given it; or as you, for your own purpose, have new vamped, and corrected it? 'Let God be true, and every man a liar.' You would pervert the plainest declarations of the oracles of truth, and, instead of representing Christ as the author of a divine and spiritual religion, as the great benefactor of human kind, exhibit him as the head of a faction-your party." "Who, then, is the true sectarian? but he who thus denounces all, as sectaries, who are not of his sect? Who is the fanatic? if not he, who sees fanaticism every where, but in his own party spirit? Who is the enthusiast? but the man who makes a God of externals and non-essentials-while he finds enthusiasm in those only, who are in earnest respecting the grand objects of religion? Where is the schismatic? if not among those who term every thing schism, which does not accord with their own opinions ?"2 How, then, can there prevail peace and charity, while it is still a question whether God or man is to be the Lord of conscience and the principle is still undetermined, whether man can impose as a fundamental doctrine of christianity, what Christ has not instituted or revealed as such? How can christians walk together in unity of heart, or of profession, while differing on these first elements of all church principles? There must be controversy, so long as these primal and momentous questions are matters of dispute. They affect the very being, and much more, the well-being, of the church. They involve, in their decision, the whole doctrine of charity. Their determination makes peace a duty, which must be ful1) Lect. on Eccl. Hist., vol. i., 2) See Schism, p. 341. p. 90, 01. filled, "as far as lieth in us," or separation and withdrawment, and avowed opposition, as imperative on all who would faithfully contend for Christ's kingly prerogative and crown. NEVER, while these church principles of prelatical usurpation are current, can the prayer of Christ be visibly fulfilled, when all his churches and people shall be seen and known to be ONE, being of one mind and of one heart, and preserving amid their differences of views, the unity of the Spirit in the bonds of peace. Such claims were rejected by the English reformers-by all the reformed churches-and by the greatest divines of all ages. They are in violent opposition to the spirit and principles of the gospel. "Let us," then, as said the Bishop of Norwich, in his late charge to his clergy, "let us abide by the faith of our protestant ancestors, whose object it was to proclaim that there was a deeper and more scriptural unity, than the unity of ecclesiastical organization, or of ecclesiastical detail, I mean the unity of christian principle, the unity of the Spirit."1 Then would the church of God have rest and be edified; displaying on the banners of the various divisions of her one sacramental host, the glorious motto of her own glorious Augustine, "In things essential, unity-in things not essential, liberty and in all things, charity." Till that happy period arrive, which may God in his mercy hasten, forget not the admonition of the apostle-and stand fast in that liberty wherewith Christ has made you free. Finally, brethren, we would remark, that to this defensive warfare for the maintenance and preservation of our spiritual rights, we are imperatively summoned by the memory of our fathers. "It is no new thing, brethren, that has happened unto us," as wrote the imprisoned martyr Ridley to his brother Bradford; "for this was always the clamor of the wicked bishops and priests, against God's true prophets; the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord." There has thus, as it plainly appears, ever been a spiritual aristocracy, which would make a monopoly of salvation, confining it to its own orders, succession and gifts, as the only and exclusive fountain whence it might be obtained. Now, to that form of government, in which this spirit inheres, WE may be said to possess a hereditary antipathy. The history of presbyterianism, whether we look to its ancient defenders, 1) Charge of 1838, p. 22, &c. dubiis libertas, in omnibus caritas. 3) Letters of the Martyrs, p. 48. LECT. I.] THE MEMORY OF OUR FATHERS. 21 the Culdees, or the Waldenses; or to the churches of the reformation, which, with the single exception of the English, re-adopted these primitive and apostolical principles; or to its more modern defenders in Ireland and in Scotland, yea, and in this country prior to the revolution;-presents a series of struggles, of unexampled severity and suffering, to preserve the church, on the one hand, from the grasp of Erastianism, and on the other, from the domineering rule of spiritual tyranny. To surrender the church to the one, or to the other, and to give it up a prey either to the civil, or to the ecclesiastical powers, was regarded by them as nothing short of treason to their Head and King. Acknowledging no man, as master on earth, and recognizing no temporal head or fountain of supremacy, they placed the crown upon the brow of Him who is alone worthy to wear it. "For Christ's crown and covenants,"-for his word and worship, for his ordinances in their entireness and in their purity; -these were the stirring watchwords by which they were rallied around the standard of the truth;-by which they were bound together in one heart and in one mind-and by which they were sustained in the loss of property, of liberty, and of life itself. The headship of Christ, and the liberty and spiritual independence of the church of Christ, these were the high principles, for the maintenance of which they endured a great fight of afflictions; counted not their lives dear unto them; and poured out their blood like water. And having, at a cost so priceless-even ages of endurance, ignominy, oppression, penury and danger-secured to us the enjoyment of this great inheritance—are we not called upon, against all who would attempt to bring us into bondage, to contend earnestly for that liberty wherewith Christ has made us free and wherein we stand and rejoice. "And because the world, as I perceive, brethren," again to use the words of Ridley, "ceaseth not to play his pageant, and to conspire against Christ our Saviour with all possible force," eloquence, learning and power, "exalting high things against this knowledge of God and this liberty of Christ, let us join hands together in Christ; and if we cannot overthrow, yet, to our power, and as much as in us lieth, let us shake those high things, not with carnal, but with spiritual weapons.' And now to conclude.-We find ourselves, providentially, by birth, education, or from conviction, in the bosom of the pres 1 Letters of Martyrs, p. 33. byterian communion-a body identified with civil and religious freedom. Many of us hope that we have been here spiritually born-that from this alma mater we have drawn spiritual nourishment, and on her lap been nurtured in piety. With her, too, are associated all our hopes for the everlansting happiness of the loved and the gone. Under the shadow of her sanctuaries lie the buried forms of our venerated sires, and our beloved offspring, whose resurrection to glory and honor must stand or fall with the standing or falling of presbyterianism. It is no slight or trivial interest, therefore, which demands our contemplation. And what we say to you is, Abide where you are, neither be ye moved or shaken, until our opponents have shown cause why we should escape for our lives, as from a tottering building whose foundation is on the sand. Till then, we would desire to help you to a more perfect understanding of the sure foundation upon which our church is built, as on a rock, against which the gates of hell shall not prevail; and to show you its immovable strength by an exhibition of the utter weakness of the forces with which her overthrow is attempted. By so doing, we expect to brighten hope, and to gild the pages of memory;-to inspirit the heart of the onward pilgrim-and to hallow the memories of the departed spirits of the sainted dead. You will be emboldened, we trust, to venture more largely for a church so adorned with all the graces of heaven; and so capable of enriching you with all spiritual blessings in Christ Jesus. You will bless God for having led you into her sacred temple, and to tread her heavenly courts. You will hold more assured communion with the church of the first-born-the spirits of just men made perfect, as knowing, that among that bright and shining throng, there are many who here mingled their voices in our earthly worship. And you will more tranquilly approach the hour when, leaving all you love below, you will KNOW that you are not therefore hurrying to the doom of the schismatic, or to the purgatorial limbo which may be provided by God's uncovenanted mercy, but are hastening to join the ransomed throng of the church triumphant, in that temple not made wth hands, whose Builder and Maker is God.1 1) See Note E. |