honesty, and gratitude suggest, and we shall not fear the issue. The verdict of truth will be,-" She hath dispersed abroad; she hath given to the poor: her righteousness endureth for ever; her horn shall be exalted with honour."

That verdict may not indeed be given by her present judges. It may be overborne by the louder call of interest or prejudice. For whatever signs of apostolic origin she may lack, she has at least this, that her good is every where evil spoken of; that as with her Lord and His forerunner, so with her, if she prophecy in sackcloth, neither eating nor drinking, men say, "Behold, she hath a devil and is mad,"-if eating and drinking and in festal attire, —“Behold, a gluttonous person and a wine bibber, a friend of publicans and sinners."-But she will be justified before a higher tribunal; and perhaps, as has once already happened in the history of our country, the very jurors who now reject, may, after years of bitter experience, be but too happy to reinstate her, as their best guardian and protectress against their own miserable Dissensions.

LECTURE VIII.

THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND, AS A SPIRITUAL

INSTITUTION.

CHURCH UNION.

ACTS ii. 46, 47.

And they continued daily with one accord in the temple; and, breaking bread from house to house, did eat their meat with gladness and singleness of heart, praising God, and having favour with all the people. And the Lord added to the church daily such as should be saved.

THE distinctive features of the Church of England as a spiritual institution, form the next and most important branch of our present inquiry; most important, because, though we should have fully succeeded in proving the abstract lawfulness and usefulness of a national establishment of religion, and have vindicated from blame the particular mode of its operation amongst us, still if that which is established under the name of religion be

inconsistent with the word of God, our only unerring guide on the nature of the worship He requires, we must renounce it without hesitation, as soon as our consciences, after solemn and prayerful examination, are convinced that such is its true character.

As we claim for the state, for human authority in every form, thus much of reasonable regard, that its patronage shall not be held to make that necessarily wrong which before was right; so we fully allow that it has no infallible power to direct the judgment and conscience, no ability to make that right which is in itself wrong. The public authority has in times past, and may in times present or to come, set up a false worship, or, what is perhaps more dangerous, a specious counterfeit of the true; the image may be of gold, always too attractive a bait to the human heart; it may be decked out with all the grandeur that can cheat the senses or affect the fancy, and the sound of the cornet, flute, harp, sackbut, psaltery and dulcimer, and every instrument of music, every thing that inflames the lusts and passions of our corrupt nature, may invite us to fall down and worship it; numbers may be in its favour; we may be able to pass among the crowd with a very slight compliance, bending the knee like others, but reserving our real sentiments to ourselves; the example of our superiors in age, station, or knowledge, may countenance this conduct; favour and preferment may await compliance; contempt or persecution may furnish disobedience;-still there is no room for a moment's

doubt as to the course to be taken where the glory of God and the soul's salvation are so manifestly at stake-we must yield in no respect; and if questioned by the supreme power as to the cause of our refusal, or threatened on account of it, must answer with the Hebrew worthies before Nebuchadnezzar,-"Our God, whom we serve, is able to deliver us, and He will deliver us: but if not, be it known unto thee, O king, that we will not serve thy gods, nor worship the image which thou hast set up;"-or with the apostles before the Jewish council,-" Whether it be right in the sight of God to hearken unto you more than unto God, judge ye;" and, if any be so unwise as to judge that it is, we must patiently submit to the consequences be they what they may.

I need hardly remark how wide a difference exists between this heroic course, and that of resistance to what is established on every grievance which our own fancies may invent or adopt from others without pause for thought and inquiry; between refusing to bow the knee at man's bidding, when contrary to the command of God, and refusing the like act of compliance, merely because it is enjoined by man, without inquiring into the nature of the thing enjoined; which last, whatever may be thought of earlier separations, is avowed as the grand principle of dissent in the present day.

But, supposing an establishment of religion by the state in itself lawful, supposing the mode of establishment adopted in England admissible, is there, or is there not, in the spiritual claims of the

system established, such disagreement with scripture rule, as to compel those who reverence the paramount authority of the Divine Lawgiver, to reject the provision made for them by public authority, and come out and be separate from the national church.

This, apart from all differences as to state interference, is the question now before us.

In attempting briefly to discuss it, I do not propose to enter into any inquiry respecting the doctrines of the Church of England, but shall take for granted, that they are such, as are held in common with her by the great body of those who are styled orthodox dissenters, and would be cordially expressed by them in the very terms which she uses in her Articles and Liturgy; or that where objections are taken to modes of expression in her formularies and confessions, some of which we shall have occasion to notice, they still admit of so easy explanation, as to satisfy moderate men on either side, of their agreement in substance, though they may differ in opinion as to the propriety of the phrases adopted. Nor shall I inquire into minute objections to our discipline and formularies, the statements and answers of which have filled many volumes of angry controversy, and seem likely (though little is to be expected on this field beyond a repetition of the same unvarying round of attack and repulse) to fill as many more. My purpose is, first, to give an outline of the chief features by which the Church of England is distinguished from other societies of Christians existing among us,