While external circumstances are thus gathering force to put to trial the fortitude and fidelity of the Church, it is plainly most desirable that her energies should not be paralyzed by any inward weakness or disorder. The abstract idea which has been presented of the Church, and which it should be the object of our wishes our prayers and our efforts that our own Church may realize, is that of a spiritual society, united by the ties of a common faith, maintaining the cause of her God against a formidable combination of the world, the flesh, and the devil. It is plain that, according to the general appointment of Providence, the great secret of strength is union; and many of the appointments of Providence God has been pleased to sanctify to the uses of grace, and to adopt them into its economy. He has done so most visibly and remarkably, in transferring into the constitution of his Church that principle of union which is, in things temporal, the source of power; making it, indeed, the sustaining and consolidating principle of the body, whereof he himself vouchsafes to be the head. The unity which we should seek after, and which we must attain if we would escape the ruin denounced against a divided kingdom, is not that forced submission to a strange and illegal power, accompanied by a surrender of all freedom of will and judgment, which was a yoke too grievous for us or for our fathers to bear. The unanimity which God approves is the agreement of minds and understandings, which with sobriety, in unfeigned distrust of themselves, in dependance upon God, and under a deep conviction of their responsibility to him

for whatever judgment they may form, having proved all things as they are authorized by Him to do, have rested in that form of doctrine, and under that order of discipline in the Church, which approves itself to them as having the sanction of the Scripture, and of the practise of the apostolic age. If there be no such primary form of doctrine or discipline, according to and under which it was the divine purpose that his Church should be founded and maintained, then we can be under no religious obligation to search it out, or to adhere to any form with preference. But it is impossible to think that the language of the Scriptures should be so indirect as not to mean what it so evidently implies; or that the Church which conversed with the apostles, should from the outset have so mistaken their intention. There was undoubtedly a form of Church membership set up, which, as we believe we have received it in its primitive integrity, it is our duty to propose to mankind; exhorting them to judge for themselves, according to the light and evidence they have, and to remember the mischief which must befal the Church, and the condemnation which they may themselves incur, if through pride or self-will, prejudice or inattention, they come to a wrong conclusion. It is, therefore, impossible to dissemble that there is very great danger in allowing to mankind a liberty of this nature. But we cannot unite with those who would make the acknowledged possibility of the danger the ground for extinguishing the liberty. This cannot be conformable to the course of God's government; for he grants the se of many privileges which it must have been fore

seen many would misemploy. There was no security but that men would judge amiss as to the claim of Jesus to be the Messiah; yet God did not on that account withhold from them the opportunity of judging; and the Church must not shrink from an ordeal to which her Master and Lord submitted. Yet let me charge you to have always impressed upon your memories that your responsibility before God in this as in every instance, is proportionable to the liberty he has granted you. Beware that you use it not for a cloke of maliciousness by yielding to a fondness for innovations, and encouraging in the Church a spirit of needless separation, which must disorder its constitution, impair its stability, and limit its powers of usefulness. It is proverbial that the corruption of the best things is ever the worst; and this is verified by observing, that while the Reformation is in itself the most blessed and glorious event since the first preaching of the Gospel, the abuse of that freedom of enquiry which it awakened and secured, has brought and is bringing into question, and into jeopardy, the cause of the Reformation itself; and must, if universally prevalent, overspread the Church with errors and disorders more fatal even than those against which the Reformation was directed. "O Lord God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Israel our fathers, keep this for ever in the imagination of the thoughts of the heart of thy people, and prepare their heart unto thee."*

Finally we are most deeply concerned to bear in

1 Chron. xxix., 18.

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mind, that as there is no creature that is not manifest in his sight, our Lord Jesus Christ discerns to what extent the Church which he has planted fulfils the purposes which he had in raising her up; "I know thy works. There is great consolation in reflecting, that if by his appointment the Church of which we are members should be swept this instant from the earth, still there would be among her works known unto God, one at least which should be had in everlasting remembrance: that is the exalted and enduring monument of piety which she has raised in her translation of the Holy Scriptures. At this time, when another century is within a few days of closing since the appearance of our first English version, our thoughts are naturally directed to the contemplation of that unrivalled work, which, to adopt the language of the Translators in their address to the Sovereign on its completion, "is that inestimable treasure which excelleth all the riches of the earth; because the fruit thereof extendeth itself not only to the time spent in this transitory world, but directeth and disposeth men unto that eternal happiness which is above in heaven." It is next to miraculous how far this undertaking has been blessed beyond the purpose and expectation of those pious labourers by whom it was conceived, attempted, improved, and finally it may be said carried nigh to perfection. Our language which was then confined within comparatively narrow bounds, has since, by the mysterious workings of Providence, been extended over the earth; so that there is no longer a quarter of the globe, nor a sea,

nor a shore, where men do not hear and declare in our tongue the wonderful works of God. And let me mention this very striking fact; that from the rising of the sun unto the going down of the same, wherever the English language is spoken, there is not a congregation or family, of whatever sect or denomination of Protestants, which can assemble in public or private to worship God, and to hear his word, but is and must be indebted to the Church of England for ability to do so. Often has it occurred to me to question whether this work of ours, which is surely known to God, is also known to and considered as it deserves to be by men: whether many who pursue our Church with reproach and menace have duly laid to heart this undeniable proof of their eternal obligation to her, which in separating themselves from our assemblies, they could not but bear away with them. Their Bible is our gift! And when we hear Protestant dissenters exclaiming against the hardship and injustice of their upholding an establishment from which they derive no benefit, may we not ask them whether, if there were no other, this single boon would not be a full equivalent for any compensation which they are required to pay. They have partaken, and can never cease to partake of our spiritual things, and therefore, when some among them, like the children of Edom in the day of Jerusalem, forgetting their common parentage, lift up their voices with, "rase it, rase it even to the foundation thereof," could they deny the pertinence, or resist the force of the appeal if we should say to them, "thou shouldest