Rev. Mr. Ingleby.—"They mean that God can save them, as he can save an infernal spirit; but he gives them no promise of mercy on which they can place any hope of salvation."
Miss Roscoe.—"What opinion, Sir, do the evangelical clergy who hold high church principles entertain on this question?"
Rev. Mr. Ingleby.—"Why, all of them would rather see the people within the pale of the church than on the outside, deeming it of the two, the safest spiritual locality; yet I never knew an evangelical clergyman express a doubt about the salvation of any one who believes and trusts in Jesus Christ."
Mr. Roscoe.—"Are high church principles held by any very considerable number of the evangelical clergy?"
Rev. Mr. Ingleby.—"I regret to say that, in the best and the most liberal, there is a strong leaning towards them; but the majority, I believe, are not only their decided but their zealous advocates. They know that the gospel they preach is preached with equal purity, and sometimes with greater power, in the pulpits of Dissenting churches and chapels; and hence, from motives of policy, I apprehend, they endeavour to enlist the sympathies of the lay members of the Establishment in favour of these principles, to prevent the possibility of their withdrawing from it. To what extent they succeed in imparting their spirit of exclusiveness and bigoted attachment to Episcopacy, amongst the enlightened and the pious laity, I have no means of judging; but I believe, from some few indications I have seen, that in liberality of opinion, and generous expressions of Christian feeling, these lay members of the Establishment are at least half a century in advance of their clergy. They were, a few years since, equally exclusive and bigoted, but, from the concurrence of various causes, they have improved most rapidly in the cultivation of charity and brotherly kindness—the prominent graces of the Christian faith. They are acting now as pioneers in the work of church reform, though that, I fear, is a forlorn hope."
Mr. Stevens.—"Then, Sir, we cannot calculate on any great accessions from the clergy of the Church of England to the cause of Christian union and fraternal fellowship, during the prevalence of these high church principles."
Rev. Mr. Ingleby.—"A few, who are ripening more rapidly than the average of their brethren for a removal to a purer world, gladly hail and accelerate the progress and the triumph of fraternal union of all denominations amongst the people of God; but they subject themselves to much obloquy and reproach, by overstepping the broad line of ecclesiastical demarcation which is drawn by these high church principles, to prevent any intermixing of the different denominations, even in ordinary social intimacy. They are marked men; deemed by their brethren ecclesiastical renegades, who sacrifice clerical consistency to gratify their vanity."
Mr. Roscoe.—"These high church principles, in their development and practical working, militate very strongly against the Church of England, and do more than any other cause to shake the confidence of the laity in her Divine origin; they make her more like the gaudy, intolerant, and exclusive Church of Rome, than the simple, meek, and loving church of the New Testament. She has now officiating at her altars a numerous tribe of Tractarian priests, who are subdivided into two orders—one prepared to fraternize with Papal priests, the other directly opposed to them—but both orders unite in denouncing their evangelical brethren, and with as much severity as they denounce Dissenters. The various tribes of infidelity watch the virulence and the progress of this internal contest with intense gratification, and its tendency is to increase their contempt for the Bible and Christianity. We know that the church has in her service a comparatively small number of clergymen who preach the pure gospel of Jesus Christ; but, unhappily, with few exceptions, even these are as much opposed to Dissenters as the Tractarian clergy, and consequently it would be utopian to expect any rapid progress in the cause of Christian unity and fraternal fellowship while these high church principles continue in the ascendant. What reaction may take place on the evangelical party from the tremendous efforts of the Tractarians to assimilate the Church of England to the Church of Rome, must be left to pure conjecture, but we may hope that, in process of time, they will be brought to see and to feel that the more nearly they are conformed in spirit, in temper, and in disposition to the Lord of all, the more brilliant will be their moral lustre, and the more powerful their ministry."
Rev. Mr. Ingleby.—"I should like to see the dove with the olive branch make its appearance, betokening the abatement of the elements of strife and contention; but I fear the day of its alighting on our altars is far distant. However, let it be our aim and our daily prayer to aid the progress of Christian union and fraternal fellowship, and then we shall have this testimony, that we please God our Saviour, and serve our generation according to his revealed will."