shining forth out of this naughty world, she has with her and in her as much of heavenly beauty as can tabernacle upon the Earth not yet renewed, she holds forth the word of life, opening her better treasures than were once offered to her author, the "gold or frankincense or myrrh," she is a stream to gladden the world's dry pasturage, the fold whereunto men enter to be saved, and so long as her members hold the faith she teaches, and thereby strive to live the life she inculcates there shall be no "staggering at her promises through unbelief," no cutting away any of her possessions, as needless or burden

some.

But remember, that a wicked life will always lower men's faith, they will draw down the doctrine to them, if they be not drawn up to the doctrine, and when discipline is very lax, when it is in reality lost and gone, when iniquity is abounding, “the love of many shall wax cold," and that coldness shall cause a paralized shudder which drops some portion of the truth from our hand. I know that in these days faith is taxed as little as may possibly be," hard sayings" are dismissed as though they could not be "true sayings," if we do not quite walk by sight we make our belief keep company with vision as far as we can,—the faith is deprived of its mysteries whenever the thing can be done, stripping and simplifying all Christian doctrines is the favorite process of the age, and such a creed is admired as makes God's promises by no means go beyond their visible fulfilment to unfaithful men! Now I do not wonder at this, Rev. brethren, but I conjure you be not led away in judgment by this aspect of things around you; Catholic views of truth are not as yet held by the majority of pious and religious men, the bulk of worthy and devout members of our church have not recognized as yet and received,

primitive doctrine, but surely you will not conclude from thence, that these must know the way of God perfectly! I might remind you that many differences on many questions must fall out among those, who defer to no interpreter of scripture, save the private judgment of each man, and who had rather take the favorite magazine of yesterday, than the church of the second century for the judge in an appeal; and I might thereupon deprecate our being "moved in spirit by word or writing as from them," as that earlier Christians must be in the wrong, but I would rather suggest the consideration, that if any truth retained in our prayer book, has been lost from the people's faith, we can naturally and easily account for its lack, the history of our church in times past and her passage to her condition at present, giving us an "a priori " probability that the very truths wherein the popular faith is deficient, are those which would have been dropped on the way! It is deemed now, a sign of spirituality to think little of outward ordinances, Christ may have ordained them, the church universal may have used them, an inward grace may be connected with the outward sign, but they who reverence them shall be counted to be "carnal and to walk as men." It would almost seem an act of righteousness to undervalue "the least of Christ's commands," as though that argued a greater concern for the greatest, the God-ordained tithe of mint and anise and cummin, if it be neglected shews better (one would suppose) for "judgment and the weightier matters of the law," as though Christ had not said " these ye ought to have done and not to leave the other undone," and they who can strip the sacraments the barest are deemed the most spiritual men. Now this is to be mourned over, but there is a cause; and he who traces the church from her past Romanism

to her present liberty, and who views withal, her totally undisciplined state, will not wonder if men aim at almost suppressing what the Papacy corrupted and we have profaned. I call it almost suppressing the sacraments to deem them mere signs, to plead for their unimportance, to set up "faith" against them which Christ intended to be helped by them, to labor for their degradation under a shew of their greater purity, to let them have a "name to live and be really dead," and laboriously to explain away every scripture mention of them, which at all makes a show for the maintenance of Catholic doctrine. I have said that the church's past history and her present position both unite in causing and accounting for the prevalence of our popular faith: On the ministry of the church and on her sacraments Rome was superstitious, and by a reaction we are sceptical; she accumulated corruptions, we in return have preferred rather to cast away what she thus encrusted than to cleanse; she held certain portions of the truth in unrighteousness, we for an amendment will not hold them at all; she allowed oral traditions to contradict God's word when plain, we cannot bear written antiquity to interpret it when doubtful; she made "works" a ground of man's justification, we are almost afraid to preach them as necessary to it, and it seems almost now a token of orthodoxy, when we will not hold fast even" that which is good," if it be held also in her hand. I forbear to occupy your time on this consideration; gradually did the Papacy corrupt many truths, and gradually have we since the reformation, abandoned them, the church of early days received not at once either her loathsome garments, or her shivering spoliation, we believe and confess that our godly Bishops and Martyrs did (under God,) restore her the goodly apparel, and prepared her for the king arrayed in the fair

raiment of needlework, we profess that under Henry and Edward and Elizabeth, the errors of Popery were expunged and the Faith catholic restored, that the men who translated the Scriptures and were well acquainted with antiquity, did use these only two guides, for distinguishing the true and false among the tenets then abroad, listening to Scripture only when she spake plainly. and turning to the ages that immediately followed when she held her peace or when they needed an interpreter for her words, deducing from the Scriptures only all that was required of faith for necessity or salvation, but not refusing the voice of antiquity on truths that made for edification, good order, unity and peace: and if in our present day our people generally have departed from their standard, do I not turn you to a sufficient though a remote reason for this, in the known tendency of human nature to leap into extremes, to shun Scylla with an after jeopardy from Charybdis, to accumulate and then to despoil, to load the faith with growing corruptions in one age, and to strip it of its misused truth in another, to let their abhorrence of error on the right hand, drive them into an equal deviation to the left? But Rev. brethren, we need not go far back to discover why the catholic faith as retained in our prayer book, is not fully embraced in the present day,-many of the clergy wish it modified, and more of the people deem its statements too strong, and why? only because our church has lost the godly discipline which is regretted in the Commination service, only because all can see how the services are dishonored, and few care to listen when they are defended and explained.

There always is and must be a tending in our minds to fit the visible result with the doctrinal statement, and when "appearance" is adverse, it is no easy thing to judge "righteous

judgement." If the after conduct of the baptized, did generally shew a death unto sin and a new birth unto righteousness, all objections against that service would die away; if they who believed in God were careful to maintain good works, his promises might be stated and received as fully as He has given them, and it is only to lower the sacraments down to our present faith and practice, that the primitive doctrine is repudiated and condemned. Let "baptism" mean nothing and convey nothing, and the doctrine suits and squares with present appearances, it can offer no difficulty when it is stripped to impotency, it can yield no resistance when you have taken away its life, (only to our clergy is the service an unceasing memento of a better creed;) let the holy eucharist be a bare memorial, and no channel of grace, and then no man's faith can be taxed, or doctrinal notions interfered with, by so harmless a confession, let each man take his Bible and devise his church from it, and liberty more boundless cannot be desired; Oh! the easy simplicity of such a faith, gives to the existing church a self-adjusting power, her congregations will have a doctrine suited to the genius and spirit of the day, unfettered by creeds, the body once orthodox may gently and gradually and without a check glide into palatable error, the mystery of the holy Trinity has been abandoned in many places of worship whose founders were upon that point Catholic men; "the doctrine of baptisms" can be reduced and modified, the doctrine "of laying on hands" given up, the mystery of Christ's body and blood in the Eucharist, clean got rid of,—a lowering down of the truth on these three last doctrines, made not by bad men, at the first, not by men meaning mischief, and saying of such truths designedly "Come let us make havock of them altogether," but by the sincere, who saw the lives of Christians putting "open