TO THE RIGHT REVEREND FATHER IN GOD, CHARLES THOMAS, LORD BISHOP OF RIPON, HIS RESPECTED AND ESTEEMED DIOCESAN, AND TO THE REVEREND THE CLERGY WHO ATTENDED THE VISITATION AT LEEDS, THIS SERMON, HONOURED BY THEIR APPROBATION, AND PUBLISHED AT THEIR REQUEST, IS RESPECTFULLY INSCRIBED BY THE AUTHOR. MDCCCXXXVIII. A SERMON, &c. ACTS, VII. 26. SIRS, YE ARE BRETHREN; WHY DO YE WRONG ONE TO It would be a work of supererogation if, in addressing such a congregation as the present, I were to insist on the important duty incumbent upon all who are commissioned to preach the Gospel, and to act as the governors of the Church of Christ, of maintaining the truth and the whole truth as it is in Jesus-of declaring all the counsel of God. By the injunction of this duty, the highest of our mental faculties and the most vigorous of our intellectual energies are all enlisted on the side of religion, and our lifetime is to be employed either in ascertaining the will of the Almighty or in vindicating his ways to man. But so long as differences shall exist in the capabilities and powers of different minds, it will be scarcely within the circle of possibility to avoid, in the discharge of this duty, some diversity of opinion, and, in consequence, occasional discussion and debate; nor has it ever been the wish of the Church to silence such discussion or to proscribe all difference of opinion. Coincidence of opinion, even in points which are not fundamental, is, of course, desirable, but it is not to be laid down as one of the necessary terms of communion. It is to a wish and endeavour to secure a perfect coincidence of opinion that we may trace the formation of many religious sects; and on this account it is, that the persons composing each separate sect are comparatively few in number, while the sects themselves have, like meteors, glared for a time and then sunk into nothingness. The system of the Church has, on the contrary, always been to preserve the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace, by insisting not on an identity of subordinate opinion, but simply on an identity of principle. Within certain prescribed limits she has always permitted a considerable latitude of opinion. Beyond those limits are the regions of heresy ; within them she permits her children piously to inquire and fearlessly to discuss. Unless this latitude were permitted, one of two things would inevitably follow; either all discussion would cease, and the result would be a spiritual stagnation and apathy, than which few things can be more injurious to the cause of truth, or discussion would always lead to a breach of communion and split us into factions and sects. By those who agree in principle, certain data are assumed as indisputable, |