W^ord

^^

AtZ

EARNEST DISSUASIVE

JOINING THE COMMUNION

Cibwrrjb ot Eome.

ADDRESSED TO THE YOUNGER MEMBERS OF THE CHURCH
OE ENGLAND, AND ESPECIALLY TO STUDENTS IN
THE UNIVERSITIES.

REV. HENRY ALFORD,
VICAR Ol^ WYMESWOLD, LEJCESTEIISHIIIE ; AND LATE FELLOW
OF TRINITY COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE.

" Whosoever doth not bear his cross and come after Me cannot be My disciple." Luke xiv. 27

LONDON:

.JAMES BURNS, PORTMAN STREET:
OXFORD, PARKER.

Mh^

^ t^ MDCCC.XLVl.

LONDON :
PRINTED BY ROESON, LEVEY, AND FRANKLYN,
Great New Street, Fetter Lane.

NOTICE.

In times like the present, it surely becomes every man's
duty, who lives by the guidance of a principle which he be
lieves that he himself clearly apprehends, to endeavour to
set that principle before others, whom he believes to be
going wrong from want of having it definitely in view. This,
and this alone, must be the Author's excuse for presuming
to speak in a tone of advice or caution to those who are ad
dressed in the following pages. If he shall have succeeded
in causing any to stop and consider the matter calmly and
solemnly, with humble and self-abasing views of duty and
truth, the danger which now hangs over so many young and
earnest spirits in the English Church will, he feels assured,
be so far averted. At least, it is wholly out of his power
to imagine, that calm and deliberate reflection, accompanied
by self-searching and prayer, can lead to any other result,
than more confirmed and devoted attachment to that Church
in which God hath placed us, and by whom we have been
born into the faith.
He would request those general readers into whose hands
this address may fall, to remember that it is written for a
specific purpose, and adapted to a particular state of mind ;
one that has become, alas, among the )'ounger members of
the Church of England, fearfully common.
Wymeswold, December 11, 1845.

It has been thought better that the " Meditations and Prayers suit
able for the present time," originally announced as to be appended lo
this Address, should be published separately.

AN

EARNEST DISSUASIVE,

ETC.

DEARLY BELOVED IN CHRIST,
I HAVE presumed to address you, who,
perhaps, have no right to come forward and speak
in this manner. It may, however, be the case, that
where existing authorities are set aside, the voice of
one who feels what he says, and has no other plea
than a deep-seated conviction of truth, may win its
way to your hearing.
The following remarks are addressed to those
who have been led to waver in their attachment to
the Church of England, and to look longingly on the
communion of Rome as claiming their allegiance.
And of these I would speak especially to the young
— to those who are yet in course of education and
training. It appears to me that your case requires
distinct and carefully directed treatment. Your dif
ficulties are not those of maturer minds. Your trials
do not spring from the same source, have not their
exercise and points of pressure in the same part of
B

your spiritual being, as those of persons who have
entered on the active realities of life. Let me, then,
speak to you on your present state of doubt and
embarrassment. Let me endeavour to clear away
some of the obscurities in which the inclination of
men, when strongly wrought upon, never fails to
enwrap the great principles of duty.
You are beginning to doubt whether the Church
of England, into which you have been baptized, is
your appointed mother in the faith ; you are beginning
to look coldly on her ; you are aware of longings
within you which she does not, or does not appear to
satisfy. I will deal with this state of mind first.
Let me ask you. Of whom is it that you thus
doubt ? Of the Church of your baptism ; of her in
whom you are called " a member of Christ, the child
of God, an inheritor of the kingdom of heaven." I
am aware that you may consider this way of stating
it as a begging of the question in dispute ; that you
may say. If I reject the teaching of the Church of
England, how is she any longer to me all this ? But
wait awhile. Your baptism brought with it certain
vows and promises, on any view of the subject not
lightly to be dealt with ; solemnly renewed at your
confirmation ; again solemnly renewed, as often as
you have approached the table of the Lord. Now
let me earnestly ask you, Are these promises nothing ?
And if they are of any force, to what do they amount ?
To what but this, that you will continue a diligent,
faithful member of that Church into which you have
been born by baptism? These vows and promises

rest upon you in their full obligation ; you cannot
shake them off.
But suppose you take the step from which it is
my object to dissuade you ; suppose you join the
communion of the Church of Rome, you will be
again baptized! You will renounce your allegiance
to your former mother in tbe faith. Now, the pre
sent question is. What then becomes of your solemn
promises ? You renewed them at your confirmation.
This was not very long since. It is my object to
inquire. What has taken place since then, to release
you from the obligations which you then undertook ?
And remember, the validity of those promises, as
binding upon you, is quite irrespective of any ques
tion which you may, in your present state of mind,
raise, as to the efficacy of the rite as administered
to you. Your renewal was a plain answer to a plain
question, which might have been given in reply to
any inquirer, but which, being given to the Bishop,
asking in presence of the Church, and as representing
the Church, thereby assumed a high and awful cha
racter. But perhaps you may again say, that those
promises did not bind you to any special attachment
to the Church of England as such : they regarded
only the general and universally acknowledged duties
of renunciation of sin, belief of the Christian faith,
and obedience to God's holy will. But surely they
were imposed on you as the fitting thoughts and acts
of one new-born into the kingdom of God by your
baptism, and that baptism bound up with, and neces
sarily connected with, the Church established in these

8
realms. Nay, by your own confession, if you j
Rome, it will be shewn to be so ; for when i
abjure the Church of England, you abjure your b
tism in her, and, by implication, all that belo:
to it. Now, this being so, let me ask you again, W
change has taken place since you renewed these p
mises, by which you now conceive yourselves to
released from them ?
You answer me, that you find the Church of E:
land insufficient for your spiritual wants; that you
sensible of deficiencies in her, which limit and era
your aspirations after holiness ; that you see these d
ciencies filled up in the doctrines and practice of
Church of Rome ; that you moreover believe that i
Church of Rome is the apostolic body united under
see of St. Peter, to which all Christians owe attachm
and allegiance.
In stating this as your answer, 1 believe I h;
proceeded fairly ; at least I have never met a case
which the desire for Rome did not come first, and
acknowledgment of her claims follow, as a justifi
tion of indulging the desire. If there have beei
case in which the paramount claims of Rome h;
risen gradually on the reluctant and otherwise sa
fied mind, till at last, from the sheer force of tl
unanswerable requirements, they have carried over
son of the Church of England, from practices wh
he approves, and doctrines to which he assents, to
contrary, — I have yet to be acquainted with it ; {
therefore I must speak of that which I know.

9
Now, let me ask you. What is this incipient dis
satisfaction but the very state of mind which gives
rise to and characterises all dissent 1 You, perhaps,
revolt from the imputation ; but examine it more
closely. / am not satisfied ; / want more ; my soul
is not fed ; my wants are not supphed. What is this
but the schismatic mind ? what but the ci,'igs(Tig of all
ages — the seeking out for one's self — the placing one's
self out of and beside the solemn obligation of obedi
ence in that state in which it hath pleased God to
call us ?
But, again ; you are dissatisfied. Why f Is it
because you have exhausted the whole treasures of
the Church, and want new worlds to conquer ? Is
it because you have drunk deeply of her services,
diligently kept her appointed times, rehgiously ob
served her holy injunctions ? Is it because you have
fully realised your baptismal state in her, taken it to
you, and made it your own ? Let me suppose the
most unfavourable case for my own purpose. You
have perhaps, as yet, done all this (a rare instance
indeed of early piety, hardly found in these days !) ;
yet, even then, I affirm that you have no right to feel
or express this dissatisfaction, because you are not
yet mature. You can as yet know nothing of the
development of the Christian character, as a citizen
or a churchman, which this Church is fitted to ex
pand ; you can know as yet nothing of those further
assistances of the Holy Spirit of God, which she is
capable of transmitting to you by her hturgies and
ordinances, amidst the trials and wearinesses of actual

10
life in the world. You have, even on this supposi
tion, no right to judge. But in whose case is this
supposition true ? Who is there among us who has
really, and in full surrender of his heart and life,
obeyed the Church's orders, followed the Church's
rule, so as to be able to pronounce upon how far she
can go in her spiritual teaching 1 Is there any one,
in these days of rebuke and blasphemy, who can
solemnly affirm, from his own spiritual experience,
that the children are come to the birth, and there is
not strength to bring forth ? I apprehend not : and
if not, then surely none are qualified to say that the
Church into which they have been baptized is not
adequate to sustain and further the life of holiness in
man. Now, if this latter be the case with you ; if your
conscience bear witness that you have not given the
Church full trial; that you have never tested her
powers in your own case ; then, I say, you have no
right thus to be dissatisfied, till you have, by a dih-
gent and humble course of holy conformity to her
injunctions and ordinances, sought to fulfil these
your solemn vows and promises, in her, and by the
grace which she offers you. And this is to be ac
complished, not by a scrupulous observance of her
times and ordinances, while the heart is alienated
from her ; not by the kind of trial where the judge
is determined to condemn ; not by selecting such
parts of her rubrics and injunctions as seem to you
attractive, from their identity with that Church which
has more charms for you ; but by a loving and faith-

11
ful, loyal and sincere perseverance in all that she
enjoins, whereby alone you can become aware of her
true character. The case of one who has done all
this, and grown up to maturity in the doing of it,
and yet is then dissatisfied, is to be dealt with on
other grounds. With him the conflict of the claims
of the two Churches is to be entered on ; but not
with you. Under no circumstances can you, as yet,
take part in it : by the very nature of your case, you
are unqualified.
But in connexion with this dissatisfaction, spring
ing up and casting its baleful shadow over the bright
feelings of youthful devotion, let me dwell awhile on
another part of our subject. Of what kind have been
your ideas of the Church up to this time ? In Eng
lish society in general we find prevalent a half puri
tan, half worldly way of speaking of the Church.
The first of these elements shews itself in the tone
and character of mind which implies that the Church
is " the sect to which I have attached myself ;" which
views all her ordinances and services ab extra, ap
proving here, disapproving there, wishing certain
words and phrases altered in the Liturgy, and per
haps her constitution and discipline changed to suit
the time ; and the latter is manifested in upholding
a rule of duty, and honour, and excellence, totally
opposite to that set before us by the Church, and
received from her Divine Head : in despising her
rules, and justifying her ministers for breaking the
solemn vows which they took upon them at their
ordination. Now I ask you, what wonder, if you

12
have been conversant with notions of this kind
specting the Church of England, that you should h;
formed a low and inadequate estimate of her ?
But you will perhaps say to me. The wh
frame of the English Church is infected with th
low views which you describe ; the attempt to n
her is hopeless. While I by no means grant th
while I earnestly contend that the Spirit of God
doing a great work in and by this Church, which
daily spreading and deepening; yet supposing
case to be so, what then follows ? It then folk
that the situation of the members of that Chu
who are aware of their state and duties, is one
quiring more than usual self-sacrifice, a more tl
commonly close following of Him who has assu
us that we must take up our cross, and come ai
Him. And in this supposed state of things, w
shall we say of those who escape from the thoi
path of unwelcome difficulties, to the fair pastures
other lands ; who refuse to bear the burden i
heat of the day ; who, because they find no respo
to their high aspirings, and all seems cold and c
around them, forsake the post of duty, and the
pointed round, and the field of holy exercise, to S(
out a new and uncommissioned service ? What,
this, that they have not had that endurance wh
the Lord pronounces blessed : what, but that tl
have loved themselves better than their brethri
their inclination, rather than their duty ; their ei
rather than their cross ? And think not these to
harsh words. Of bodily ease, worldly self-inc

13
gence, sensual luxury, I do not now speak. Away
from us be all such thoughts of those that have left
us, as that they have gone from unworthy motives,
and with secondary ends in view. The shallow-
minded, though well-meaning, may quiet their alarms
with some such easy solution of the matter ; the
unbeliever may retail such calumnies in his easily
uttered sarcasms. But far be they from us. It
makes our position far stronger, it deepens our holy
love, and strengthens our spiritual sight, to look at
all these things in the pure light of Christian charity,
which thinketh no evil. And thus I have spoken —
not insinuating, as I do not believe, that in any case
has the fatal step been taken from a love of ease
or shrinking from duty ; but asserting, as I do firmly
believe, that a mistaken view of duty has committed
our poor friends to both of these, without their own
consciousness. Now, — the battle must be fought
without them. And consider what a conflict it is —
how great, how glorious ! In this land are myriads
of members of the English Church, half-informed,
half-attached ; spectators, rather than worshippers ;
critics, rather than hearers. The holy sacraments
are but partially known — despised, through ignor
ance of their nature — supposed to draw men away
from the Lord Christ, instead of uniting them to
Him and His mystical Body. To remove these
errors, to hold up the pattern of the Gospel of
Christ as exhibited by the Scripture and the Church,
to vindicate the honour of His House, and the effi
cacy of His ordinances, is the specific duty now

14
set before the Clergy and Churchmen of England.
But in this work we shall have our former friends
arrayed against us. The more this Church ap
proaches to the exemplar set before her, the greater
will be their opposition. They cannot compromise
this matter ; they are bound to believe, and to act
on the belief, that we are the enemies of the truth ;
and the more extensive our influence, the more
active must be their exertion against us. Our more
frequent services, our crowded communions, our in
creased devotion to the Church, will be only, in
their eyes, so many fruits of heresy and schism, more
active, and therefore to be more energetically striven
against. Yet again. There are in this land, in its cities and
villages, myriads of dissenters. Did you ever look prac
tically on the vast harvest of reclaimed souls, which
would be gathered in to the garner of Christ's Church,
from these wanderers, if the Churchmen of this land
were to sow, and water, and look for increase, as they
are bound to do, in the name of their heavenly Lord
and Master ? Yet in this good work, again, our for
mer friends have turned their hands against us. With
the malevolent political sects of this country, their
body in it makes common cause ; with few individual
exceptions, their interests are one ; the ways in which
they pursue them are identified.
But once more look over the land where God
hath placed us ; look at its over-peopled cities, its
neglected rural districts. Churches and clergy are
fast taking up their stations in these dark places of

15
the earth. We are awaking to the awful demand
made upon us by the increase of our population — a
demand augmented tenfold by our own most cri
minal neglect. Let me solemnly ask you. In our
deep repentance for this sin of ages, where Ues the
holy path of return to our duty ? Is it that, by
which we set before these people the ordinances and
preaching of that Church whose vows are upon us,
or that, by which we sow discord and raise oppo
sition where this is attempted to be done ? Let an
answer be given ; and let that answer be based, not
upon the friendly declarations and half- Anglican sen
timents of some among the Romanists in England,
but upon the unaltered and unalterable hostility of
genuine Romanism to " the deplorable heresy, which
has too long held captive our beloved country under
the yoke of error ;"^ namely, the Church of England.
But one important part of my dealing with you
now comes to be treated. Is the Church of England
really so deficient in her provision for your spiritual
wants, taken at any given time, as you are apt to
suppose ? She furnishes you first with daily public
prayer. If this is not offered to you where your
abode is, it is not the fault of the Church, who has
distinctly ordered it, and enjoined it upon her minis
ters : if you are in the University, the opportunity is
continually affiarded you. In these public prayers you
have daily confession of sin, daily absolution, daily
praise and thanksgiving, daily confession of faith,
1 Prayers for the Conversion of England, p. 10; published May
1845.

16
daily reading of the holy Scriptures, daily interces
sion of prayers, frequent litanies, and above all, th(
often -recurring administration of the Holy Commu
nion of the Body and Blood of Christ. If these ser
vices are irreverently performed, or irregularly ad
hered to ; if the Holy Communion is seldom admi
nistered and thinly attended, — again I say, the fault
is not with the Church, who has provided abund
antly, but with the laxity and unfaithfulness of hei
ministers, who have not dealt out that provision as
it was their duty to do. Then you, perhaps, wish
for counsel and spiritual communion with your parish
priest, and are repelled by his worldliness of charac
ter, his neglect of the spiritual life, or some other
disqualification on his part for the solemn duty of
receiving your application and imparting to you holy
counsel. Again I say, is this the fault of the Church,
who has distinctly encouraged those who cannot quiet
their consciences to " come to God's minister, and
open their grief ?"^ or is it not rather the fault of the
individual, or, which is a far humbler view of the
matter, in great part your own ? In a case like this,
is not the parishioner in fault, who, from real or ima
ginary unfitness in the character of his priest, makes
no apphcation to him in his need of counsel ? Might
not you be the means of reminding him of a solemn
duty which (supposing that to be the case) he has
forgotten and suffered to lie in desuetude? Might
you not, by applying to him, bring about the very
fitness which you desire ?
' Exhortation before administration of the Holy Communion.

17
But the discipline of the Church of England is
lax, and ill enforced. I confess and lament it ; in
deed, the true charge would be, that we are without
discipline at all, properly so called. But is there no
symptom of amendment in this respect ? Will not
the united voice of Churchmen, demanding a better
regulated state of things, at length, by God's grace,
bring it about? And, taking it even at the worst,
how does it affect the question of your duty of alle
giance to that Church ? Is it possible that it can be
affected by a mere accident in her history, not inhe
rent in, but contrary to, her system and rules ? Nay,
is it not therefore the bounden duty of all her sons
to raise to the highest the standard of moral recti
tude, and advance it on her behalf? Her difficulties
are many in this matter. They arise out of her posi
tion ; and she has to contend with them in common
with every Church incorporated into the system and
constitution of a Christian land. You may not find
these difficulties among the English Romanists ; but
place them in the situation of the Church of England,
and they would be immediately beset by them. You
will find them in France, in Prussia, in Austria; in
fact, wherever there exists a recognised national
Church. I am not now justifying the want of dis
cipline. I am only accounting for its tenderness in
some of those cases in which we might have wished
its arm more unfettered, and its execution more
speedy. Of one thing, however, we cannot but be
persuaded — that the only hope of true disciphne re
turning to the Church of England will be when her

18
sons are humbly and lovingly devoted to her rule,
and learn to look on her commands as sacred and
not to be disobeyed. For this in the succeeding age,
so full of promise and hope, we look to you ; and will
you. so bitterly disappoint us as to turn away from
the godly work set before you, and shrink from the
duty allotted to the age in which you live ?
But the Church of England discourages fervent
piety. Where ? in her hturgies or formularies ? in
any of the services by which she hallows the recur
ring occasions of life ? You will hardly say that.
Here, again, the fault is not in the Church, but in
her sons, and those who have borne office in her.
That fervent piety has been discouraged in and
driven out from the Church of England, is too
plain. But it is also plain that it is not the Church,
by her system, who has done it ; for the very persons
who have been thus treated have founded their de
fence on the spirit of her known formularies, and it
has been unanswerable. But is it so universally true
that, in the well-known words of one who has been
persuaded to leave us,^ " Our mother has good things
poured upon her, and cannot keep them, and bears
children, yet dare not own them ?" Has she " never
the skill to use their services, nor the heart to rejoice
in their love ?" Does " whatever is generous in pur
pose, and tender or deep in devotion, her flower
and her promise, fall from her bosom and find no
home within her arms?" Indeed, in this time of
deficiency and humiliation, it ill, of all times, be-
' Newman's Sermons on subjects of the day, p. 461.

19
comes us to boast: far indeed be it from us, while
our work is so little advanced, and so much remains
to be done. But are there no devoted spirits, walk
ing in holy communion with their Saviour, humbly
doing the daily work of this our mother ? Are there
no contrite and praying poor, to whom their Church
is as a home, and their Bible as a precious treasure,
whose lives make known that they have been with
Jesus? Are there no dihgent and self-sacrificing
ministers whose secret closets witness the fervour of
daily intercession for their flocks ? At the holy times
and commemorations of the great events of our re
demption, is there no chastened joy, no devout aspi
ration ? Are there none who treasure up the golden
hours of penitence and self-abasement in Lent — none
who follow their Lord through His Agony, His Trial,
and His Passion, and exult in the triumph of His
Resurrection ? Are there none who, at this time of
Advent, are occupied in humble anticipations of His
coming— whose hearts beat with the fervid response
of love. Even so, come. Lord Jesus ? And where
does the Church of England discourage any of these ?
where does she preclude their services from finding a
field for exercise, or their love from furnishing her
with matter of joy ? Is it that there are no poor in
her fold, or that they may not visit them ? no af
flicted, or that they may not comfort them ? no
lambs that they may carry in their bosom ? no ig
norant ones that they may instruct ?
But perhaps it is for other frames of mind, and
other desires than these holy employments evince, that

20
you would fain find encouragement in the Church c
England, but do not. You have perhaps been wander
ing into pastures forbidden by her, and wedding your
selves to strange practices. I mention not these b;
name ; my object is not to refute, but to dissuade.
only ask you. Can, even on your own view, the desir
ableness of any one of these practices be for one mo
ment placed in competition with your bounden duty o
keeping the unity of the Church in which you hav(
been placed by Providence, and to which your vowi
of allegiance are made ? And more than this : i
they are such practices or devotional habits as the
Church your mother has protested against and ab
jured, you are, by indulging in them, unfaithfuUj
performing your covenant with her. By confessior
of all, you have that to which all these practices art
maintained to be subsidiary : you are invited to the
love and worship of the eternal Son of God ; His
Cross and Passion are ever held up before you;
each commemoration of the events of His hfe upon
earth, each remembrance of His blessed saints, leads
you to Himself, the Comfort of the afflicted, the Sa
viour of the lost ; no fervour of devotion to Him, no
holy earnestness of meditation on Him, no degree oi
self-denying hkeness to Him, is withheld from you.
Why then, leaving all these, wander into forbidden
paths, in which He, by the voice of His Church, has
warned you not to walk ?
And here let me say a few words to those who,
remaining in the Church of England, attending her
ordinances, and passing for her sons, have allowed

21
themselves to speak shghtingly and undutifuUy of
her, to expose her faults, magnify her deficiencies,
and give her an ill word at every opportunity. Par
don me for placing your conduct in its true light.
No excuse can justify the course you are now pur
suing. In all times and societies, false-heartedness
to friends has been stigmatised as one of the basest
characteristics of men. Yet to no less than this,
and this in one of its worst forms, does your con
duct amount. Supposing you convinced that your
mother in the faith has erred (and I cannot, for
the reasons above stated, allow this conviction to the
young and immature), does not the piety of nature
itself suggest to you, that the error should be gently
and reverently treated ? Nay, when others speak of
what they believe to be errors in the Church of
Rome, are you not the first to require that due re
verence should be maintained, in handling subjects
so sacred as those to which these errors are allied?
I have witnessed striking instances of inconsistency
and self-contradiction in this matter. I have heard
the same person who had carefully fenced from ridi
cule the narrative of the exhibition of a Roman relic,
shortly afterwards tauntingly caricature practices of
his own Church, requiring to the full as reverent treat
ment, on the same principles. Were this to occur in
the conversation of a stranger, we should pronounce
him to be partial, and regard his statements as being
made ex parte; we should naturally suspect him of lean
ing to that body, of which we should believe him a mem
ber. But if we were told, that so far from that being

22
the case, he was casting ridicule on his own pro
fession, and maligning his own friends ; I ask any
person whether our moral estimate of him would not
at once sink down — whether we should not thence
forward regard him and his statements as undeserv
ing of weight or consideration ? Yet such is your
case ; and that, too, before you are fully qualified to
judge. So true is it, that the present spirit of de
fection to Rome bears with it the symptoms of a
moral disease. It first stops the healthy flow of the
life-blood of our moral being, by checking natural
piety and holy reverence ; it promotes a fevered
and unnatural circulation ; it causes the appetite to
loathe the constant daily bread of the inner life ; nay,
as in fatal diseases of childhood and youth, it has
been noted, that the gentle and joyous countenance
is withered into a dismal maturity, — even so in this
our day does the youthful mind put off its teachable
ness and its buoyancy of thought, and present a mor
bid and unseasonable ripeness, the sure forerunner of
moral decay.
But I come to another part of your answer, as
stated at the beginning of this address. You find
these deficiencies filled up in the doctrine and prac
tice of the Church of Rome. With regard to the
deficiencies themselves, remember what has been
already said. If they are wants created by disease, if
they are merely longings produced by an absence of
attachment to your spiritual mother, your statement
may be true; they may be provided for in the
Church of Rome. But on this supposition the ques-

23
tion must reach deeper, and must call in doubt, as
I have already done, the legitimacy of the desires
themselves. But if the deficiency is one genuinely felt ; if you
find your aspirations after purity of heart and life
checked and cramped in the Church of England, are
you quite sure that this hindrance will be removed in
the Church of Rome ? Are you quite sure that you
are not taking a false criterion whereby to judge in
this matter ? Let me illustrate this by an example.
You regard it perhaps as a great deficiency in the
Church of England that she affords no scope for the
open profession of a self-denying life by joining a re
ligious order. But did you ever allow for the opera
tion of this deficiency (as it seems to you) in her
system, as compared with the Church of Rome ? Do
you not see that it is just a difference of this kind :
that whereas in the one Church, the holy and self-
denying have an outward status and position, cog
nisable by the world; in the other they must be
known and sought for, and are not heard of till thus
found out. Look over what you know of the two
Churches: in the one perhaps you are aware of a few
pure-hearted, devotional, holy men, — but they are
your own relations or acquaintance ; all the rest, clergy
and laity, seem to you, as far as eminence in piety is
concerned, almost a blank. Whereas in the other,
examples seem to abound, ' heroic names' to be every
where registered, profession and practice to bear out
and be the measure of one another. All this, or great

24

part of it, may be accounted for by the difference
which I have stated.
Again, are you quite sure that you have allowed
for all that weight in the Romanist scale, which is
given them by their position in England ? Alive to
every occurrence which may forward their cause —
watchfully, jealously on their guard, they present to
us all the discipline and order of an army in an
enemy's country. Not a nerve seems weak, not a
heart faint; whereas, on the contrary, we of the
Church of England are under the constant tempta
tion of slumbering in the possession of our fathers'
inheritance; all those benumbing influences, which
too often creep over the most energetic among men,
possession, office, and (shame that it must be said)
lucre, are paralysing the powers of the sons of our
Church. That this is their fault, their most grievous
fault, I would not for a moment deny ; but it still is a
fact to be allowed for in your estimate.
But this last difference operates also in another
way. There is a prestige about a stir and a move
ment, which departs wholly when the position of rest
is attained. In the case of Rome, all is clothed in
attractive and beaming colours. Every day there is
something new, something startling. Continually,
alas, in this time of defection, you have some new
name to add to the list of those who have gone,—
perhaps an adviser, perhaps a friend, perhaps one
with whom through his writings you were familiar;
and all this keeps up an excitement and restless in-

25
terest within you, and naturally causes that Church
to which, as a centre, all this tends, to be upper
most in your thoughts, and first in your inquiries.
Whereas in the Church of England, although there
IS, I humbly trust, a growth and an advance in
knowledge of her true principles, and firmness and
devotedness in maintaining them, yet all this is so
quietly, so unromantically done, that it casts no halo
of interest around it. In the secluded parochial work
of the minister, in the deepening piety of his commu
nicants, in the slowly advancing purity of life of his
flock, in the uninviting routine of his school-instruc
tion, is this change to be traced: but it makes no
show before the world, and, as it does not, it attracts
not like the other.
Again, are you quite sure that you know the
Church of Rome well enough to trust her? You
have seen her as she is presented to you in Eng
land. Or, it may be, during hurried tours in her
own countries, you have seen much that struck
you as better than any thing out of her commu
nion. Now I am far from denying that externally,
and on a first view, this may be so. I am deeply
sensible of the apparent irreligion and secularity of
the great majority of so-called English Churchmen :
but are you quite sure, that the distinct characters
of the two Churches, already hinted at, have not
extended their influence to this point also ? On
the surface of the Church of Rome, I am ready to
confess, there is more reverence, more devotion, a
greater sense of the Divine presence, and realisa-

26
tion of holy things. And let it not for a moment
be imagined, that I suppose all this to be super-
flcial only, I make no such insinuation ; it is not
worthy of a Christian, nor of my present endeavour.
I am bound to hold the devotion, the earnestness,
the sense of holy things, which we see in the Roman
communion, to be genuine and heartfelt. But I ask
you, is not the visible shewing forth of 'these feelings,
in the very nature, and according to the course, of
her system ? Is it not necessary in that system, that
the best and hohest should be thrown out in strong
relief before her less devoted multitude ? And, again,
that in these last, the convictions and feelings which
concern faith and devotion should be afforded every
opportunity for outward action ? And, on the other
hand, is it not the necessary effect rather, perhaps,
of the tone and character of English society, than
of the Church of England, but also of her, as far as
she is English, and pervaded by the same spirit, to
throw into privacy and the shade the very things
which the other brings forward ? I grant that we
lose by this, — that we lose much more than we need,
because we carry the principle to an undue extreme,
even to the shrinking from setting holy examples,
and consenting to wave our religious principles for
the usages of society. But allowing this, and with
every prayer and endeavour that we may make a
bolder confession, and, at least, act up to the oppor
tunities which our Church affords us, I still believe
the principle to be a sound and good one ; I still be
lieve that, at the time when the Church of England

27
took it up, there was an imperative call to prefer the
substantial to the showy, the inward to the outward,
in religion. And I would remind you, that for the
action of this principle very much must be allowed ;
that it does not by any means follow, however you
see apparent superficial coldness and calculating
worldhness in the members of the Church of Eng
land, that there is within her body a low apprecia
tion of the great truths by which she hves, or an
absence of recognition of that holy Comforter, who
is, and vdll be, present with her unto the end. And
then, are you quite certain that you know the Church
of Rome in her influences upon society, where she
reigns supreme ? " By their fruits shall ye know
them," said our Divine Master. Are the great moral
principles of purity and truth more recognised and
more generally observed under her sway ? What op
portunities have you had of ascertaining this most
important point? You have hastily gone through,
or you have dwelt a while, in her domains : you have
observed and conversed with some of her more re
markable and eminent sons. But what opportunity
have you had of observing the mass of society ?
You have perhaps heard unfavourable accounts of
the moral state of her people, and have disbeheved
them, as exaggerated, and given through a medium
of prejudice. But have you taken any pains to as
certain their truth or falsehood ? Have you studied
this matter with a genuine desire to arrive at the
real state of the case ? Or are you purposely shut
ting your ears to the voice of report which reaches

28
you from other lands ? There is very much, amor
the persons whom I am addressing, of this whol
sale incredulity ; very much of an absolute r
fusal to make themselves acquainted with the tri
condition of things ; and it is one of the most unf
vourable symptoms of their state of mind. Let n
just select one instance from among many. Ar
this instance shall be — the ' cultus,' or worship, (
saints and angels. You, in England, hear of this <
a theory ; — you read of it as a development ; — yo
are taught by the Romish writers to believe, thi
they treat it as subsidiary to, and defensive of, tl
awful mysteries of our redemption. And, in tl]
practice of English Romanists, after a little strang(
ness and surprise, you persuade yourselves that
does bear something like the place which they assig
to it. Even here, it is true, a few instances of ' hj
perdulia' distress and perplex you ; but you quie
yourselves by thinking that they are to be ascribed t
the over-action of a fervent mind. Nay, you some
times even see them checked and discontinued by th
caution of their authorities in our land. But did yo
ever inquire into the real state of the mass of the pc
pulation in Romish countries, with regard to thes
practices ? Did you ever, in society, hear with pai
the charge made, that the religion of myriads unde
the Romish sway is plain Polytheism? Have yo
revolted from such a statement ? have you tried t
disprove it by argument, and maintained that o
your theory, or on that put forward by their books
it is impossible ? Yet surely this is not the wa

29
in which such charges should be dealt with. They
regard matter oifact. The question is not, whether
this worship, as it stands in some elaborated theory of
developments, be or be not idolatrous : the test where
by, on the sacred principle which our Lord has laid
down for us, it must be judged is, the actual state
of those people among whom it prevails unchecked.
And I hesitate not to say, that a very short obser
vation of men and things, as they are in those coun
tries, will, in any fairly judging mind, substantiate
the above charge : that the outward speciousness of
the theories of Romanism, as here put forward, covers
an extent of ignorance, and sanctions practices of
heathenism, which are difficult to credit, till we be
come eye-witnesses of them. However disposed,
therefore, you may be to look favourably on the
reasoning and habits of Romanists here at home,
you have, I maintain, no right to dismiss, without
inquiry, the unanimous assertions of English Church
men respecting the character of their practices
abroad ; nay, it is a solemn duty incumbent on
you, before making up your mind, to examine into
the tendencies and results of such tenets as these,
by watching them where they prevail without re
straint. Then, as to the last point in your answer, " you
believe that this Church of Rome is the Apostolic
body united under the see of St. Peter, to which all
Christians owe attachment and allegiance."
Now here several things are wanting, before the
cogency of such a reason can be made clear to the

30
mind. First, the whole matter proceeds upon an
assumption, which, as far as the Scripture record
goes, is certainly not borne out. In no point does
the advocate of Romanism falter and labour more
than this. In no point has the subtle author of the
" Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine"
found himself so much at a loss for illustrations,
fetched them from such unworthy sources, or so
much blinded himself and his readers to the proofs,
from declarations of the ancient fathers, which
go to undermine the theory. But have you exa
mined the theory itself? are you sure that you have
fully appreciated the consequences of it ? Here,
as before, the English Romanists have misled you.
There is among them a certain backwardness in
professing their opinions, as to the extent and
nature of the Papal supremacy. We hear some
times, that it is left an open point : we hear ultra
montane doctrines spoken of with apparent disap
proval, and even by some indignantly disavowed.
Yet surely, on a matter of such fundamental conse
quence, there can be among them no real sentiment
but one, however hidden, and cautiously kept back,
I see not how any Romanist can stop short of the
unavoidable inference, that the Pope, as Christ's
vicar upon earth, has all the power which the most
ardent ultramontane would ascribe to him. Nor
can I conceive any liberty allowed, or variety of
opinion, as to the extent of this power ; if it exist
at ah, it must be ah-penetrating and universal. Are
they themselves prepared for this admission ? Are

31
you prepared to dehver yourselves over to a power
so awful, and so unlimited, before the grounds on
which it rests are ascertained or examined ? Here,
again, it is your bounden duty to make it a matter of
serious and diligent inquiry, whether any such exalta
tion of the see of St. Peter flnd its record in holy
Scripture, or the writings of the fathers ; whether we
discern in the former, after the Ascension of our
Lord, an absolute bowing down to St. Peter among
the other apostles, or not rather, on one occasion, a
withstanding and rebuking of him, as delivering an
erroneous judgment ; and, in the latter, whether the
circumstances of the imperial city were not such as
fully to account for any really ancient testimony to
the precedency of the see of Rome. Again, you
should inquire how long a time elapsed before such
a claim as this now spoken of was even advanced :
whether the whole view which this theory implies be
not essentially modern, and in its beginnings depre
cated and protested against by most eminent men
among the Romanists themselves.
But another ground yet remains to be taken. It
is not uncommon in these days to hear the young
and inexperienced declare their resolution to abide
by the decision of such or such a person, whom they
respect and admire, and to shape their course ac
cording to his. Here again we see the very prin
ciple and mind of schism, as set before us by the
apostle St, Paul. Nay, the very persons who thus
make themselves followers of men, are the first to
denounce the same fault as it prevails among the

32
dissenting communities, or in certain parts of l
English Church. Wherever the tendency exists,
springs from the same class of deficiencies in 1
inner spiritual life — from want of stedfastness in l
faith, mostly induced by the absence of real inwi
humihty and self-renunciation. Men will have le
ers ; it is not in our nature to put off the looking
to some superior spirit for guidance : in human
ciety, as in the Lacedemonian army of old, we ;
all K^ovng a^ovrm, led by others, but, in our tu
leaders of others again. And where, from an absei
of reverence and humility, the appointed leader, i
Church of Christ into which men have been b
tised, has been cast off and disregarded, we find th
ranging themselves under some guide of their o
choosing; and thus making those divisions, agai
which the ancient Churches were so solemnly warn
In what respect, then, I would ask, as to princij
will the conduct of such as now declare their int
tion to follow this or that person into the commun
of Rome, differ from that of any of the numer(
bodies of separatists who now distract our Ian
Only in this, as far as I can perceive, — that wher
these last have confessedly thrown off the obligati(
of Church-order, and with curious inconsistency ma
tain that every man is to be his own guide, you, m
follow the example of men to the neglect of the co
mands of your mother the Church, do so with a 1
acknowledgment of the duty of obedience — a 1
recognition of the principles which you are yoursel
infringing. And belonging to this nart of our subje

33
there is one view of the position of those who have
left us, often insisted on by their apologists, but easily
shewn to be entirely untenable. They are repre
sented as having been driven from us by our own
fault ; compelled to take the step they have taken by
harsh treatment, or coldness, or some declaration of
the existing law of the Church of England. How
any such treatment can possibly have affected their
position with regard to the duty of allegiance and
affection to the Church, it seems impossible to con
ceive. If any such temper has been shewn toward
genuine and unreprovable piety, the responsibility lies
upon those who have thus become hinderers of their
brethren ; but there surely must be something ex
ceedingly unsound in the moral perception, — when
the mere ebullition of the temper of the times, or the
mere declaration of an official, can be supposed to
alter the great and permanent laws of duty and
truth. I believe I have gone through your principal
reasons for thinking your obhgations of allegiance
to the Church of England to be no longer binding.
It has been my earnest endeavour to shew you that
not one of these can be weighed against your own
solemn vows to God, and His Church in which He
hath placed you. In doing this, I have endeavoured
as much as might be, to take your own ground, and
dissuade you upon a real and practical view of your
present state. Many considerations remain, which
for that reason have not here been brought forward.
It is a time of excitement ; a time almost of panic.

34
The whole fabric of a dissuasive, in such a time, re
quires to be wrought in adaptation to the necessities
and character of those to whom it is addressed. If
I may have seemed to some to say less than might
have been expected on the great question at issue
between the Church of Rome and ourselves, let them
remember that I have been pleading with those in
whose minds most of these questions are prejudged;
and that my object has been, not to lead them into
the controversy, but rather to teach them, that their
own recorded vow of attachment to God's service in
this His Church is of paramount importance, and
thus to keep them, while unripe for it, out of the
debate altogether. If I have not dwelt upon con
siderations which with the reverent and sober-minded
would carry much weight — if I have said nothing of
the violence done to the commands of parents, the
miserable disruption of Christian families and Chris
tian friendships which the fatal step once taken en
tails — it has been because such an argument would
rather make against than for my purpose, in the view
of those whose moral vision has been distorted by a
leaning towards Rome. It is, with many young and
ardent souls, an additional inducement to leave the
ranks of the Enghsh Church, because father and
mother and friends will be thereby forsaken, as they
imagine, for Christ. To such persons, a vivid detail
of the miseries which they will occasion would only
be a stronger recommendation to put in force their
purpose. From that I have therefore abstained ;
only beseeching them to take good heed that they be

35
not, in thus doing, casting out themselves from Christ's
family, into which He hath adopted them, and break
ing the solemn command which binds us to " obey our
parents in the Lord." There is no crime, however
atrocious, which has not, in the history of human
error, been committed under the idea of doing God
service. Let the knowledge of this make them pause,
before they violate a definite positive command of
God and nature, for the sake of a new and untried
pursuit. And finally, let the position which I have main
tained be carefully reviewed in the minds of all into
whose hands these pages may come. We are bound
by solemn obhgations, undertaken for us at our bap
tism, renewed by ourselves at our confirmation, to be
the faithful soldiers and servants of Christ in this
branch of His Church. If we are unfaithful to these
vows, what is to excuse us ? And what is it but
unfaithfulness to these vows, to desert our ranks
where He hath placed us ; to leave a Church whose
distinctive mark it is, that she directs us to look off
from all other rehance to Him, the Author and
Finisher of our Faith ; — to leave her, too, at a time
when her energies are awakening, her love is being
quickened, her faith strengthened, her practice puri
fied ? If such an increase of grace bring with it
opposition and scorn, evil speaking and persecution
from the world, is it any more than we have been
taught to expect? Rather should we count it all
glory that we are permitted to suffer for His name —
that we are misunderstood and maligned. He is

36
even now caUing upon His Church in this land, 1
take up her cross and follow Him. And shall w
shrink from the cross, because it is ppt accordin
to our will ? Shall we seek to escape from the ui
welcome task of actual and appointed duty, to th
more pleasing labour of a voluntary and self-impose
discipline ? Through many a severe affliction, man
a bitter storm, has this Church stood faithful to he
Lord and Master. Let not her whom the fires c
Rome could not consume, nor the axes and hammei
of Puritanism destroy, fall in the day of her tria
by the unfaithfulness of her own sons.
Let it be our firm resolution, that, unshaken b
the defections of others, or the fashionable opinion
of the day, we will "continue stedfastly in the apostles
doctrine and fellowship, and in breaking of bread
and in prayers ;" with one mind and one endeavou
serving our God and Father in Christ. So shal
each one in his place become blessed, and a blessing
so shall the light of good works shine forth from u
to His glory : so shall the distractions of this land h
healed : so shall her poor become rich, and her out
casts find a home. And if days of darkness and peri
be near, — so shall we of this Church of England, hav
ing our loiijs girt and our lights burning, be ready t(
do the bidding of our Lord.
Which may He of His infinite mercy grant
through Jesus Christ our Saviour. Amen.

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