and honor: the Church is now able to say, without any spirit of persecution, assent to my fundamental doctrines, and adhere to my internal regulations, or depart from my communion. However blameworthy I may think your conduct, for such a departure, you are no longer subjected to temporal penalties, and, therefore, as a man not merely of religion but of honor, depart.”*

Our principle is thus reduced within a very narrow compass, intelligible to the least enlightened mind. Every conscientious English Clergyman acts on the principle that while Scripture and Scripture only is his rule of faith, he is, in the interpretation of Scripture, to defer to the Ritual, Liturgy, Articles, and Formularies of the Church of England: he is to promote the glory of God in the highest, peace upon earth and good will among men, but to do so, not in the way which he may imagine to be the wisest, but according to the Regulations, Canons, Rubrics, Customs, of the Church. To these he is bound by vows the most solemn to conform.

And where are we to look for unity and union, if we find it not here? And what terms of reprobation can be sufficiently strong to designate the conduct of those who, by causing discord among brethren who in principle are united, would thereby make music for our enemies? Alas! in every community such persons are found to exist, whose element is strife, who live by faction, who,

* Note K.

mistaking party spirit for Christian zeal, in their contest for what they allege to be truth, forget that Christianity is also a religion of Peace and Love. At the present time such persons are busy among ourselves; they avow their wish to prevent a union among the Clergy; in the bitterness of their spirit they conceive that the cause of Truth can only be supported by the formation of hostile confederacies within the Church; they glory in their unholy endeavours to arm brother against brother, and in the hope of waging a worse than civil war with the deadly weapons of theological hatred. Few in number, they would scarcely be deserving of notice, if, by anonymous misrepresentations which ought never to be credited until they have been fully examined, and by exaggerations which from their very absurdity ought to excite the scepticism of charity, they had not partially succeeded in inflaming the passions and exciting the prejudices of many good and zealous, but ill-judging and mistaken men, who, instead of regarding measures, respect persons; who confound opinions with principles, and, in their attachment to phrases, forget the truth of things.

Now, such being the case, let us rip open the apple of discord which the enemies of peace would throw among us and see what it actually contains ; let us briefly advert to the subjects most freely discussed among us, and sure I am that when we perceive how the case really stands, all moderate men, all who are not far gone in party spleen, will

be ready to admit, that, if in opinion upon several points we may some of us differ, there can be no just ground, I do not say for the rancour which is sometimes exhibited in these discussions, for this can under no circumstances be justifiable,but for the disturbance of that unanimity and christian harmony, by the existence of which we are commanded to give proof that we are the Disciples of the Prince of Peace.

Let us take, in the first place, the subject of Tradition, and only assume in charity that the disputants on both sides are in their intention honest and conscientious Churchmen, men, that is to say, desirous of holding opinions in conformity with the principles of the English Church.

On the two great points which involve our common principle we are all agreed. We all of us hold, on the one hand, “that holy Scripture containeth all things necessary to salvation, so that whatsoever is not read therein, nor may be proved thereby, is not to be required of any man that it should be believed as an article of the faith or be thought requisite or necessary to salvation"; and we all of us hold, on the other hand, that in all cases of difficulty or doubt we are to take for our guide the Ritual, Liturgy, Articles, and Formularies of the Church of England. But here we are met by those who impugn our principle of interpretation, the Dissenters, whether Romish or Protestant, who very fairly demand

Article vi.

why more of deference should be paid to the English Church than to any of their own sects; to the English than to the foreign reformers; to Cranmer, Ridley, and Parker, than to Zuinglius, Calvin, or Beza: to this objection other answers may be given, but I only know of one which is of any weight, and which has always been adduced ever since the Reformation by all the divines who have adhered to the principles of the English reformers.* Looking to the principles upon which the Reformation of the Church of England was conducted, to the strict regard our reformers paid to the voice of antiquity, to their avowed determination to adhere to the unquestioned and unquestionable tradition of doctrine universally received, they contend, and affirm their readiness to prove, that in our Ritual, Liturgy, Articles and Formularies, is embodied all that is essential of the traditional doctrine of the universal Church; and that, therefore, in deferring to them, we defer not to the decision of a few individuals, but to the tradition universally received in those early ages when, on all subjects relating to doctrine or to discipline, a strict correspondence was kept up

To those who are desirous of seeing how invariably this rule has been observed by our great standard writers, I may recommend “The Judgment of the Anglican Church, posterior to the Reformation, on the sufficiency of the Holy Scripture and the authority of the Holy Catholic Church, in matters of faith, by John F. Russell, B.C.L. of St. Peter's College, Cambridge See also the incomparable Appendix to Bishop Jebb's Sermons; Churton's " Church of England a Witness and Keeper of the Catholic Tradition;" Poole's very learned Sermons on the Creed; an admirable Discourse on Tradition, by Mr. Cartwright, Minister of the Jews' Episcopal Chapel; and Keble's Visitation Sermon.

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between all the branches of the Church universal. And this tradition they regard, not as the Romanists regard their falsified traditions, as supplementary to Scripture, as conveying doctrines which are not contained in Scripture (for they subscribe to the 6th of our articles), but merely as confirmatory of the true meaning of Scripture, whenever Scripture is ambiguous or doubtful. Now this is, very possibly, in the minds of some, a bad answer to the Dissenter, an untenable defence, and any one has a perfect right to supply us with a better if he can. But surely there is no ground for division. no ground here for our splitting into parties and factions, no ground for those fears which the wicked would suggest, and by which the weak are irritated. If those who contend for the authority of tradition contend at the same time that all necessary tradition is preserved in our Church, the very summit of their offending, so far as those who are in the Church are concerned, can only be an error in judgment, a mistake in opinion. By all parties within the pale, the same principle is recognized and acted upon; and the real debate is with those who are without the pale, who ridicule, as inconsistent and ridiculous, the deference which all clergymen acknowledge themselves bound to pay to the authoritative documents of the Church of England.

So again with respect to the Sacraments.* On this subject all must admit that the language of the

*Note L.