judicially blinded, so that it cannot perceive Christ dwelling in his Church, while she grows to the measure of the stature of the perfect man, and making her members and ministers His organs—who would think of joining to it a living Church? Have we gone through so much experience in vain? Have we seen it develop into Socinianism at Geneva, and utter unbelief in Germany, and a host of sects in England and America, whose name is Legion, and who seem to be agreed in nothing else but in the denial of sacramental grace, and visible unity; and all this at the last hour, in the very turning point of our destiny, to seek alliance with those who have no other point of union but common resistance to the tabernacle of God among men? A persuasion that nothing short of the very existence of the Church of England is at stake, that one step into the wrong will fix her character and her prospects for ever, compels one to say that certain acts and tendencies of late have struck dismay into those who desire above all things to love and respect their spiritual mother. If the Jerusalem Bishopric, promoted, (at the instance of a foreign minister, not in communion with our Church,[[170]] and who has recorded in the strongest terms his objection to her apostolical episcopacy,) by two Bishops on their private responsibility, without any authority from the Church of which they are indeed most honoured, but only individual rulers, be the commencement of a course of amalgamation with the Lutheran or Calvinistic heresy, who that values the authority of the ancient undivided Church, will not feel his allegiance to our own branch fearfully shaken? The time for silence is past. There is such a thing as "propter vitam vivendi perdere causas." It must be said publicly that such a course will lead infallibly to a schism, which will bury the Church of England in its ruins. If she is to become a mere lurking-place for omnigenous latitudinarianism; if first principles of the faith, such as baptismal regeneration, and priestly absolution, may be indifferently held or denied within her pale,—though, if not God's very truths, they are most fearful blasphemies,—the sooner she is swept away the better. There is no mean between her being "a wall daubed with untempered mortar," or the city of the living God. I speak as one who has every thing commonly valuable to man depending on this decision; moreover, as a Priest in that communion, whose constitution, violently suspended by an enemy for one hundred and thirty years, yet requires that every one of her acts, which bind her as a whole, should be assented to by her Priesthood in representation, as well as by her Episcopacy. If the grace of the sacraments may be publicly denied by ministers of the Church, nay, by a Bishop ex cathedrâ, with impunity, in direct violation of the most solemn forms to which they have sworn obedience, while the assertion of Christ's Real Presence in the Eucharist draws down censure on the most devoted head, the communion which endures such iniquity requires the constant uninterrupted intercession of her worthier children, that she be not finally forsaken of God, and perish at the first attack of antichrist.
R. CLAY, PRINTER, BREAD STREET HILL.
NOTES
[1] Bellarmin. de Rom. Pont. Lib. iv. 25; iv. 24; i. 9.
[2] De Maistre, du Pape. Liv. i. ch. i.
[3] S. Cyprian de Unit. Ecc. 12.
[4] "Development," &c. p. 22.
[5] Thomassin, Part i. lib. i. ch. 4. De l'ancienne discipline de l'Eglise.