shame" upon the doctrines of Christ, baptism profaned and the supper neglected, and who painfully enquired Is there any blessing connected by Christ with these sacraments," when the comers thereunto shew no fruits of such in their lives ?I say, Rev. brethren, that the want of discipline in any church must tend to produce a stumbling at her doctrine in proportion as that is pure and apostolical; that as touching our baptismal service, only a few can compare it with the primitive faith, but all can contrast it with the lives of the baptized, and that men will be perplexed, and in the general will turn the way to which appearances lead them, when the decision of the truth lies be tween the Scriptural Endowment given by the rich goodness of God, and the realized attainment of it, by the faithlessness of man! Men, in the main except they be well taught (and few now will submit to teaching) will ever get their doctrines of baptisms" from the aspect of their parish, and not from the New Testament, they cannot bear perhaps the name of “regeneration" therewith coupled, they cannot endure the use of the sacred water for the "mystical washing away of sin," the notion and the very phrases are out of Scripture, in its unforced and obvious meaning, they were the common speech of the church in the next age to the apostolic; you may quote St. Pauls' mention to Titus of the "washing of regeneration," or his doctrine to the Ephesians that Christ saved his church, "sanctified and cleansed it by the washing of water by the word," or the words which invited him to his own baptism. "Arise and be baptized and wash away thy sins, calling on the name of the Lord," you may pleads that such words connect somehow the washing with the remission, though it is the blood of Christ alone which meritoriously and actually cleanses from all sin; you may urge the uncontroverted views of the

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early church, on this subject, but no-these texts will be interpreted by the living commentary of bad men baptized, and wrongfully but surely, will both the sacraments be estimated, not by their primitive endowment, but by their modern display of it, and faith gives way with many, when the dog is seen returned to his vomit again "and the sow that was washed to her wallowing in the mire."

Rev. brethren, your path is not smooth, though I think it is evident, in these critical times: as to doctrine, your honest conviction of our prayer book declarations, that they are sound and true, will compel you to maintain what is disliked by many (and those not the worst among your parishioners,) as well as the saving verities which they love and approve; you have to bear up against a pressure which is not unnatural though it is much to be lamented; you have to buoy up primitive faith against the opposition it encounters through unprimitive practice, you have to expect the charge of being bigotted when you are only firm and faithful; you have to endure being called favorers of Popery perhaps, though you abhor the cruelty, intolerance, and corruptions of the lord of the triple crown, you have to count the cost of many hard words from some who misunderstand and others who dislike you, and if you be faithful you shall in your spirit endure some share of hardship as good soldiers of Jesus Christ: You cannot be deemed liberalminded by many, except your ordination faith is clean forgotten, or in reality recanted, your heart may be towards all good men, but your opinions must be opposed to them, you may covet the honor of being one whom all Christians applaud but “the Lord hath kept you back from (that) honor," and in meekness, humility, and faithful affection must you be content to be somewhat lonely for the present in the truth you are called to maintain.

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If the prayer book be according to God's word let it be among us a bond of union, and let us cling to and not be ashamed of it, if any thing therein contained is false doctrine, let us pray, and cry out, and petition, and give our rulers no rest until it is again reformed. There is no comfort and no respectability in suppressing any thing which we have solemnly confessed to be true, the doctrines to which we have set our seal are not hidden from the world, "this thing was not done in a corner,' let the clergy of this generation be content that they are meek and faithful, and their successors bearing the same truths shall be better received. I say let our common ordination, work for brotherly union among all of us who are honest, and faithful in wishing to execute our stewardship according to the will of God. It is vain to expect union between men who care about their ministry and men who do not, but united as we are under one Bishop who under Christ is our head, surely it is grievous when names and opinions divide those, who would gain mutually profit, and promote mutually esteem, were they more thrown together as men of one common sacred order. And with all due honor to our secular rulers, and devoted to allegiance to our temporal head, let us ever remember that we are not a "state church" but only a portion of Christ's church of which the statesmen are members, and protectors, that our Bishops derive their Commission only from Christ, through other Bishops, their temporalities, being all that kings or governments can either give or take away, let us distinguish between the apostleship which Paul received of Jesus, and the citizenship which Rome conferred, (useful as this was to shield him once from the torture and make the magistrates tremble who had scourged him,) let us call to mind the comforting and moral conviction we have that the church

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with her ministry and sacraments has realized the promise of her master, who endowed her with perpetuity to the end of the world, that kings may be nursing fathers, and queens nursing mothers, of a church by them adopted but not of blood begotten, nor the will of man, that we lean upon thy rod and staff, O! blessed Jesus for our church's prop, and do not rest on Pharaoh's reed or trust in any earthly power for chariots and horsemen, and that in a day whose movement political I will not now characterize, we can recal our source of safety, and that should perilous times come, should men in power roll down mitres, they cannot unconsecrate the heads that wear them; should they deprive our Bishops of their unalienable authority over their own clergy, so far as acts of parliament give it them, this shall be only throwing their claims to obedience the more upon the consciences of those whom they ordain, that as touching the reality of their spi ritual trust, it is vital, rulers act as they may, though power is tied down as was his, who persecuted the perfect man of Uz: all that they have can be touched but not their life, and whilst the awful and reverend trusteeship of God's treasure to them committed for his church's good, is beyond man's power to meddle with, their temporalities are the only things whereon can be placed "the image and superscription" of Cæsar! And oh! if it should please God in his good time to relieve the church of the only unbearable weight that is upon her, if the hand of our nursing parent which presses heavily were (gently though it be and gradually) removed, if the power of self government and discipline were once again ours, if the liberty granted to the Universities, and to every other religious body, were accorded to the church catholic in this land, if since the state now recognizes for her offices no par

ticular creed, her acts would become consistent, and the decent and public provision for her citizens burial, would allow the right of Excommunication to our Bishops, (meaning thereby only what in primitive days constituted all its force, exclusion from our Communion and no penal visitation from the nation's laws,) so that our holy office which befits them who" die in the Lord" were not used indiscriminately for the righteous and the wicked, then indeed would the Church's lustre brightly appear, then would she radiate in all the vigour (now oppressed) with which Christ endowed her, and would awaken as one out of sleep and like a giant refreshed with wine! I know we have a penal excommunication, which for the church's true interest would be bad if largely we could use it, and is nominal because we cannot; our whole land empties the vilest because almost the whole of her population into graves whose silence is hallowed by the sacred words which belong to God's children, and we are speechless, if any man enquires of us, "Ought these things so to be"? By baptism they obtained the right to such burial, but they ought to have been deprived of it, the right of the church and her duty to put away from her every openly scandalous and wicked person, is as plain and imperative as the commission to baptize them; and I know and am persuaded of the Lord Jesus, that this fault and reproach upon us works more deadly than any other, to strip the church of her spiritual character and glory, and to "lay her honor in the dust." Men do point to the votaries of every lust of the flesh, and the workers of every work of the devil, and do take up a taunting proverb against the church catholic among us, when her children's meat is taken and cast to them for whom it was not designed, and although it is certainly easier to see this