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l8 5"3c

THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND, FOUNDED ON
SCRIPTURE, 'AND ESSENTIAL TO
THE CONSTITUTION.

f $txkm.

PREACHED AT THE VISITATION OF THE VENERABLE .THE
ARCHDEACON OF LONDON, WILLIAM HALE HALE, A.M.,
MAY 3, 1853.

BY
THE RET. GEORGE CROLY, L.L.D.,
rector ov st. Stephen's, walbrook, and st. benkt's London.

^uMitsfjeli bg Eepest.

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FLEET STREET, ahd HANOVER STREET,
LONDON : MDCOCL1II.

One Shitting..

THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND,
FOUNDED ON SCRIPTURE
AND ESSENTIAL TO THE CONSTITUTION.

THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND, FOUNDED ON
SCRIPTURE, AND ESSENTIAL TO
THE CONSTITUTION.

I $mrara.

PREACHED AT THE VISITATION OF THE VENERABLE THE
ARCHDEACON OF LONDON, WILLIAM HALE HALE, A.M.,
MAY 3, 1853.

BY
THE REV. GEORGE CROLY, L.L.D.,
hector op st. Stephen's, walbrook, and st. benet's London.

^uWtsftelf 6g H&eqttest.

%ukp

FLEET STREET, and HANOVER STREET,
LONDON : MDCCCLI1I.

VENERABLE THE ARCHDEACON
AND
THE CLERGY OF LONDON,
THIS SERMON IS DEDICATED
WITH ALL RESPECT AND CONSIDERATION,
BY
G. C.

[NOTICE. J

THE AECHDEACONEY OP LONDON.

"On Tuesday, May the 3rd., the Venerable Archdeacon Hale
held a visitation of the Clergy of the City and Archdeaconry of
London, in the parish Church of St Sepulchre, Snow-Mil.
About 180 Clergymen were present, amongst whom were the
Venerable Archdeacon Hollingworth, Eector of St. Margaret's,
Lothbury; the Eev. Prebendary Mackenzie, M.A., Eector of
St. Benet's ; the Eev. Prebendary Murray, M.A. Eector of St.
Dunstan's-in-the-East ; the Eev. J. T. Bennett, M.A., Sub-Dean
of St. Paul's ; the Eev. J. Charlesworth, Eector of St.
Mildred's ; the Eev. J. S. Sergrove, LL.B., Eector of St. Mary
Somerset ; the Eev. W. H. Dickinson, B.C.L., Eector of St.
Catherine Coleman ; the Eev. P. P. Gilbert, M.A., Eector of
St. Antholin, Wailing- Street ; the Eev. Dr. Hughes, Eector of
St. John's, Clerkenwell ; the Eev. J. Thomas, B.C.L., Eector
of AllhaUows', Barking: the Eev. E. Dear, M.A., Eector of
St. Mary, Woolnoth ; the Eev. Messrs. Faulkner, Darling, Cox,
Povah, Toogood, Blomfield, Abbiss, Marshall, Gelling, Eyan,
Short, Markwell, Whittemore, Ellis, Gibson, Saunders, &c."
(Standard.)

SERMON.

another parable put he forth, sating, the kingdom op heaven
is like unto a man which sowed good seed in his field ;
but while men slept, his enemy came and sowed tares among
THE wheat, and went his WAY.  MATT. XIII. 24, 25.
From the time when the Pharisees charged our
Lord with working miracles hy Beelzebub, a
charge which showed that their malice was be
yond the reach of reasoning, he spoke to the
multitude only in parables. Of these, the first
two especially referred to the progress of his
teaching. I am aware, that many of our leading
theologians have interpreted the parable of the
Tares, as alluding merely to the common mixture
of the pious and the profligate in human society.
But, notwithstanding the acuteness of Clarke,
and the logic of Sherlock, it appears to me,
freighted with a much higher lesson, and one

8
wholly distinct from that of the parable of the
Sower. In that most impressive parable, our
Lord had described the effect of his mission upon
the four great classes of hearers,— the negligent,
the fickle, the worldly, and the sincere ; the view
comprehends mankind. But, in the parable of
the Tares the view is limited,v and its limit is
Christianity already proclaimed. — It is, His king
dom already known. The ground, already the pro
perty of Christ, "His field." The wheat, His
seed, already sown. The ' men,' His watchers,
already appointed: The whole evidently refer
ring, not to the incipient and imperfect state of
a religion commencing its travel over the unsub
dued expanse of the world : but to a system
already formed — a possession already determined
— a Church no longer floating on the surges of
human casualty, but anchored to the shore. In
the parable of the Sower, the reference is to the
effect of truth on the World ; in the parable of
the Tares, it is tp the effect of temptation on the
Church. In the former, one class alone brings
forth the good fruit; in the latter, all bring forth
the good fruit, though mingled by Satan with
the evil. In the former, the Sower is Christ ; in
the latter, His enemy. In the former, there is
no reference to retribution ; in the latter, all is
retribution. But, the most marked distinction

9
is, that the former makes no mention of the
divisions in the Church ; while the latter gives
the origin, the operation, and the punishment of
those divisions. The parable of the Tares is the
whole prophetic history of Schism.
Schism is separation without cause ; and in
stead of being the natural exercise of conscience,
or the courageous disdain of authority, or even
the allowable liberty of superior minds, it is
everywhere in the Gospel pronounced to be an
act of the most terrible temerity.
The last prayer of Christ for the Apostles,
and for the Church in all ages, was for unity.
" Neither pray I for these alone, but for them
also which shall believe in me through their word.
That they all may be one, as Thou, O Father,
art in Me, and I in Thee, that they may also
be one in Us." He makes this Unity the
human evidence of the Gospel;- — "that the world
may believe that Thou hast sent Me." He
makes it even the pledge of our glory to
come ; — " This glory,, the glory which Thou
gavest to Me, I have given to them, that they
may be one, even as We are one. I in them,
and Thou in Me, that they may be made perfect
in one." (John xvii. 20, &c.)
What can those immortal words mean, but
that unity is essential to the Gospel ? and what

10
can their solemn reiteration mean, but to impress
on mankind a hgrror of dislocating Christianity ?
The same high lesson is anxiously urged in the
Epistles. St. Paul perpetually implores Unity.
" Now I beseech you, brethren, in the name of
the Lord Jesus Christ, that ye all speak the same
thing, and that there be no divisions among you,
but that ye be perfectly joined together in the
same mind and in the same judgment." The
Apostle then adverts to the forms of those divi
sions : the first of which was leadership — the
partizan substituted for the disciple. " Every
one of you saith, I am of Paul, and I am of
Apollos, and I of Cephas, and I of Christ."
Thus, he will not suffer even the holiest of names
to justify party.* He pronounces schism to have
its origin, not in the solicitation of superior purity,
but in the actual corruption of the heart — " Ye
are yet carnal ; for whereas there is among you
envying, and strife, and division — are ye not car
nal?" (1 Cor. iii.) In the Epistle to the Romans,
he commands the Church to shrink even from
association with the schismatic. " Mark them
which cause divisions and offences, contrary to
the doctrine which ye have learned, and avoid
them." In this language, schism is not a par
donable weakness, but an enormous crime ; not
a right of judgment, but an act of rebellion ;

11
not even a frivolity of man, but a treason against
Heaven !
In the language of the Apostle we have none
of the languid faith and lax interpretation of
later times, no perversion of liberty into the
privilege of error, no indolent permission of false
hood, through fear of being called on to combat
for the truth ; none of that guilty compromise
with our indolence which would suffer sectarian
ism to sow its seed broadcast through the field
of the Gospel, on condition of its suffering us
to press our pillows while the enemy was doing
his work of darkness.
Yet, what would the Apostle have said, if
instead of seeing heresy, as in his time, scarcely
peeping above the ground, he had seen its har
vest in our day ? If I can mark in my mind's
eye the holy anxiety and illustrious care in the
countenance of that great servant of God, when,
in the first clashings of the infidel arms, he
poured out his anathema on the corruption of
the Church ; what must be the measure of his
fiery energy and inspired indignation, at seeing
the hosts of schism now marshalled by millions
and kingdoms ? But the day of trial comes.
"Every man's work shall be made manifest, for
that day shall declare it. Know ye not, that
ye are the temple of God. If any man defile

12
the temple of God, him shall God destroy, for
the temple of God is holy, which temple ye are."
This is the answer of the Holy Spirit, to the
arrogance that exalts its own fantasies above
the majestic soberness of Scripture — to the igno
rance that thinks itself justified by its disdain of
knowledge — and to that last and deadliest in
fatuation, which conceives that, having accounted
with its own cloudy conscience, it stands clear
before the judgment of Heaven.
The History of Schism is still to be written,
and whenever it shall be written by a pen worthy
of that achievement, it will form the most power
ful illustration, at once, of the long-suffering of
God, and of the perversity of man. Almost
every age has had its especial form of Schism.
In the Apostolic age, it was chiefly Leadership.
In the second age it was Gnosticism, a system
compounded of the sullenness of Jewish tradi
tion, with the extravagance of Indian mystery.
In the third it was an influx of subtle absurdities
from the West ; ,the Stoic, the Platonist, and
the Epicurean, each pouring his especial current
of grave folly into the general channel of the
Alexandrian School. In the fourth, the trial of
the Church was Arianism, the denial of our Lord's
Divinity, a vast heresy, whose ruins, even in
our day, deface the soil of Christianity. In the

13
fifth, it was Monachism, — the Desert and the
scourge, substitutes for the duties of Society
and Religion ; the mortification of the flesh, for
the charities of the heart. The capitals of Africa
and Asia saw with astonishment and alarm, the
long procession of those grim enthusiasts from
the wilderness. Professors of imaginary virtue,
and martyrs of ostentatious misery, coming to
fill their streets with blood, and exhibit the full
frenzy of human passions, under the disguise of
religious imposture. At length, the rapid succes
sions of Apostacy had filled up the swamp left
by the fall of the great Heathen Empire, and
the ground was now firm for the building of
that mingled palace and dungeon, in which so
large a portion of Europe has ever since been
dazzled and enthralled, — and on whose throne
sits a mortal, usurping the attributes of Divinity
— " sitting in the temple of God, and shewing
himself, that he is God."
The learned ability of England has been long
employed in vindication ofthe Establishment ; yet
I must acknowledge, that I have never discovered
a single work, at once succinct and sufficient,
on the subject. The circuitous logic and cum
brous quotation of our theological ancestry are
unfit for that vivid, but subtle, encounter which,
in our age, must be met by the soldiers of Chris-

14
tianity. The argument which I now offer would
require a volume ; I must give but an outline.
In the Mosaic law, modelled by the hand of
the Almighty, I find distinct answers to every
charge brought by Sectarianism against the
Church of England.
If we are to be told, that a National Religion
is incompatible at once with human rights and
Divine justice, we answer— '-that in Judea a
national religion was the express ordinance of
the Almighty.
If, that an Establishment is the most injurious
form of sustaining a religion, we answer — that
an Establishment of the most systematic, autho
ritative, and even exclusive kind, was the Divine
form for sustaining the religion of Israel.
If, that rank, power, and connection with the
State, are inconsistent with the duties of religion;
we answer — that the Jewish High Priest held
the rank next to the throne ; and that in some
emergencies he even acted as the Sovereign.
If, that distinctions of rank in a church are
ruinous to religion, we answer — That in the
service of the temple there were no less than
four sacred ranks, and those separated by wider
lines of distinction than have ever subsisted since.
— The High Priest in the direct line of Aaron,
— the Chief Priest or President of his class, also

15
descended from Aaron, — the Priest, — and the
Levite — the whole of those offices being limited
to one tribe, and incommunicable to the body
of the nation.
If, that the provision of a Church by tithe is
ruinous, even to the cultivation of the land, we
answer — that the tithe of the tillage was the
Divine provision for the Church in Palestine, a
country wholly agricultural, and the most pros
perously-cultivated in the world.
If, that it is unjust, to compel the dissentient
from a national religion to contribute to its
Church : we answer, that every Jew twenty years
old, whatever might be his secret opinion, or
however remote his country, was commanded
to pay for the support of the Temple.
If, that stateliness of worship is fatal to the
simplicity of religion, we answer, by appealing
to the elaborate richness of the Tabernacle, whose
pattern was " given in the Mount," and the
costly grandeur of the Temple • to the four thou
sand minstrels and singers of the established wor
ship ; and to the whole tribe of- the Levites, em
ployed in successive classes of a thousand, in the
general guardianship of the Temple — all in con
temptuous contrast to the squalid nakedness
and irreverent penury of the conventicle.
If, that a Church is scriptural only as it is de-

16
pendent on voluntary contribution, we answer —
that in the Mosaic law, except on special occa
sions, voluntary contribution was unknown ;
nothing was left to the capricious bounty of
man. The property of the Church was held by
the same high title as the property of the State.
Spoliation was not among the resources of Divine
expediency. The dignity of the Church was not
to be consulted, by being seen on its knees to
the populace. The character of the religion was
not to be looked for, in the reduction of its
ministers to mendicancy.
Finally, if, that a Church can be virtuous only
as it is poor — we again answer from the
Pentateuch. The provision for all engaged in the service of
the Temple was ample, and in some instances
even munificent. To the tribe of Levi was al
lotted the tenth of the whole yearly produce of
Canaan. And this provision amounted indivi
dually to a much higher value than the allot
ment to the other tribes ; both from the com
parative smallness of its numbers (38,000), and
from their receiving a tenth. The priesthood
were, individually, still more largely provided for.
They had a right to a tenth of the whole portion
'of the Levites ; and they received,, besides, the
first-fruits of the harvest, the first clip of wool

17
in the general sheep-shearing, a part of the sin-
offerings, and peace-offerings, and the skins of all
the animals sacrificed, which, at the Passover,
sometimes amounted to a quarter of a million.
They had, also, the first fruits of all trees, the first
born of all clean animals, a fine upon the first
born of all unclean animals, five shekels as a
redemption for every first-born child, and even a
portion of the spoil of war ; and all this income
was their exclusive property, the expenditure of
the Temple being met by the universal contri
bution of the half-shekel.
Independently of this maintenance, to the Le-
vites were allotted forty-eight cities, with suburbs
and gardens, extending to a thousand cubits round
the walls, and with an open space of two thou
sand cubits more, for recreation, or for pasturage.
Of those cities, thirteen were the property of
the priesthood.
But, may not a Church be too rich ? We fully
make the admission. The Romish Church in
this country was actually in possession of a third
of the land ; and the arts by which that possession
was gained made the grasp the more iniquitous.
Woe be to the family, where the Monk found the
father on his death-bed. Woe be to the woman,
whom terror, seduction, or folly, drew within the
bars of the Convent. But, the Mosaic Law well

18
prohibited the hazards of this national plunder.
Avarice is tempted only by the hope of accumu
lation. But, the Jewish priest could accumulate
nothing, his income was fixed. There still might
be in the priesthood, sons of Eli, unworthy of their
station; but the income of their class could neither
be increased nor diminished ; its sources were
public; and its limitation was a matter of Law.
But, at least, the charge of opulence cannot be
laid to a Church, in which nearly three thousand
of its ten thousand benefices are under one
hundred pounds a year ; and in which, even if
its entire property were thrown into one mass,
the average of its benefices would not amount
to three hundred pounds a year.
The obvious purpose, of the Jewish Law, in its
provision for the priesthood, was, first, to place
the Church above the emergencies of the nation.
And next, to give them that dignity of character,
which secured the reverence of the people ; in
stead of involving them in the anxieties of the
world, to wean them from the world ; instead of
pressing them with the necessities of the day, to
invigorate their virtue, at once by a conscious
ness of the Giver1 of their opulence, and by the
disposal of the Divine bounty. Another strik
ing feature of this provision was, its being here
ditary. Thus, it could neither be wasted, nor be

19
increased ; and, thus it was freed from the temp
tations to artifice which beset obscure men in
the slow struggle for fortune, and the desperate
devices which tempt prodigal men in the struggle
against ruin.
This wealth gave them leisure for study, and
they did not " eat the bread of idleness." When
relieved from the laborious ceremonial of the
Temple, the priesthood were the teachers of the
people, the interpreters of the Law, the protectors
of the poor, and sometimes even the ministers of
the arts of healing. The moral may go farther,
and teach us the Divine view of the nature of
wealth. In modern declamation, Aristocracy is a
tyrant, and opulence a corruption. In the lan
guage of the inspired Law, both are natural in
struments of virtue. An opulent Noble, who feels
a sense of his duties, is a blessing to the earth.
The Jewish priesthood were an Aristocracy ; their
rank was a power, and their affluence enabled
them to dispense the active charities, the cheer
ful hospitalities, and the thousand individual
kindnesses, which make a Clergy the light and
life of all around them ; but which are utterly
beyond men harassed by difficulties of existence,
and scarcely less harassed by the effort to conceal
those difficulties from the contemptuous compas
sion of the world. s 2

20
The whole question is not of discipline, but of
principle. Can Sectarianism be suffered to de
nounce those features in the Church of England,
as merely human: which in the Church of Judaea
it must allow to have been Divine? Can the one
be intrigue, and the other, inspiration? Thus, the
Establishment refutes Sectarianism, on the high
est of all authorities ; and, whether impugned by
ignorance, or assailed by faction, she addresses
herself to the common piety of mankind; appears
at the great tribunal of opinion, with the Scrip
tures in her hand ; rebukes her accusers by the
oracles of God ; and appeals from inconstancy and
infidelity, from the covert rivalry, *and projected
rapine of man, to the legislation of Heaven.
But, descending from the height on which
Scripture places the question ; the necessity of
an Establishment to the mere safety of the State,
is matter of demonstration.
Religion, as the great regulator of the human
heart, is obviously essential to the peace of
Society. Therefore, if the State should not find
a Religion, it must found one : — there must be a
National Religion.
But, Religion is not born with man, it is not
an Instinct. Religion is not a necessity of his
nature, it is not an Appetite. Its want is least

21
felt by the man who most requires it ; — it must
be brought to him.
But that duty must not be left to teachers who
may be ignorant, or corrupt, or even hostile;
who may assume their office without pledges
to their character ; or desert it from the inso
lence of their caprice. They must be settled,
responsible, and subordinate. But, Settlement
implies a profession ; Responsibility, rules ; and
Subordination, difference of ranks. — There must
be a National Clergy.
But, the principles of the National Religion
must not be left to the fantasy of individuals :
they must be secured equally against rashness
and fraud, against . fanaticism and imposture ;
they must be gravely formed, authoritatively
pronounced, and publicly known. — There must
be a National Liturgy.
But, the provision for the Clergy must. not be
left to the casual favoritism of the Government,
or of the people. In the former case, the Church
sinks, in the first emergency of the State ; in the
latter, its existence fluctuates with the fickleness
of the multitude. In either case, it obviously
runs the hazard of becoming a slave. Dependency
for subsistence must rapidly work dependency
in doctrine ; a few heroic minds may rise superior

22
to all circumstances ; but, it is folly to count on
the heroism of human nature.
Precariousness of property would work even a
deeper evil. It must give the next generation of
a Clergy over to ignorance. The Apostolic . age
rode through the storm only by the power of
miracle. But no man will educate his son for a
profession, in which popular clamour may sink
the whole body into petitioners for public charity,
This was the especial device of Imperial tfpostacy,
in the fourth Century. It had seen the Church
defy the scaffold ; but no man can defy the neces
sity of subsistence. Faith may grow under the
axe ; but famine roots man o\it of the soil. The
learned, the rational, the manly teachers of the
Religion,, would have perished, and left their
place empty, or only to be filled, like the altars
of Jeroboam, by Priests " from the vilest of the .
people." The Church would have been amerced
of posterity. But, the sword of providence smote
the tyrant, and saved the ReUgion. — The Church
must possess independent property.
Thus, all the requisitions of Reason meet in the
Establishment. But, England has not to look
back beyond two centuries, for her experience.
She saw the fall of the Church, instantly followed
by the fall of the Monarchy ; and the ground no
sooner covered with the ruins, than, springing

23
from the wreck, a building of confusion and dis
persion, a tower of Babel, the emblem of a dis
tracted Religion, and a sullen despotism.
In all its aspects, I see the Establishment, con
genial to the feelings of the people, allied with the
noblest struggles of their religious history, and
endeared by the earliest fellowship of their Civil
Freedom. I see it at once teaching the lessons of
the holiest truth, and leading the young nation by
the hand, up to Constitution. I see Liberty, in all
other nations, stained with the blood of Revolu
tion, or bending under the scourge of angry Des
potism. I see its stature erect, in this country
alone. I trace the influence of the Church in all
the energies of public prosperity. I see it, the
central pulse of the mighty frame, — the sleepless
heart, receiving the jaded and colourless circula
tion from the extremities, and projecting it once
more, vivid and purified, through the arteries of
Empire. — I see it, with all its stateliness, no huge
cumberer of the ground, no Popish pile, reared by
the slavery, and cemented with the blood of man;
no pyramid of tyranny and superstition, filled only
with darkness and dry bones; but, a noble eleva
tion, standing out from the low level of human
prejudices and passions, to pour down refreshing
on the soil, and reflect on man the lustres of
heaven. I am fully aware of the painful events

24
of late years ; of the power of Romish subtlety ;
of that tree of temptation, which has once more
been planted among us, with death in its fruits,
and leaving those who taste, only to discover
their nakedness in their ruin. I see it, a glorious
product of providence, planted in faith and
freedom, circumscribing with its branches a larger
boundary from year to year; and destined to drop
its fruits of immortality round the globe.
I do not dissemble the difficulties of our mis
sion. The spiritual wilderness is before us, and
we have more to meet than its naked solitude.
Heresy is there. "We wrestle not with flesh
and blood, but with principalities and powers."
It is calculated, that there are nearly sixty
Sects in Protestantism. Even in England, there
are two millions of "Sectaries, some simply bewil
dered in vapourish speculation, but some guilty
of desperate practical errors. Thus, we have a
Sect, numbering thousands, who reject both Bap
tism and the Lord's Supper; at once defraud
ing the infant of Christ's membership, and the
adult of the forgiveness of sins. We have another,
numbering hundreds of thousands, who reject
Baptism, until the age of maturity; with the
evidence before their eyes, that one-half of the
human race die before they are ten years old.
We have some who deny the Divinity of Christ,

25
and others who deny his existence. But I shall
not attempt to go through the list of the pre
sumptuous and the blind ; the muster-roll of those
irregular and gloomy bands, which close the mad
march of Apostacy. It is wholly in vain, that the
Scripture speaks to the ears of such men ; that
Religion thunders from the mount ; "He that
believeth and is baptized, shall be saved." " He
that hath not the Son, hath not the Father."
" He that believeth on the Son, hath eternal
life, and he that believeth not the Son, shall not see
life : but the wrath of God abideth on him." We
still have the Unitarian denying Christ, the Deist
scoffing at Christianity, and the mighty mass of
Indifferentism, fixed between truth and false
hood, and not giving a thought to either ; a
blasted tree, producing neither fruit nor shade,
but shaming the landscape with its deformity, and
encumbering the soil with its barrenness.
But, we are not left to the obscurity of calcu
lation. We have the consummate danger em
bodied before our eyes. Popery, in England, at
the beginning of this century, had but sixty
chapels, it has now seven hundred! Seven hun
dred dens of darkness, fabricated in the very
sun-shine of Protestantism; seven hundred roofs
resounding with image-worship ; seven hundred
altars burning with incense to pretended saints;

26
seven hundred gatherings of infatuated hearts,
and bended knees, in homage to the false Divinity
of the Virgin !
I do not exceed the moderation of the pulpit'
when in sorrow, and also in shame, I ask, ought
such things to be ? ought we to see this desperate
delusion working its spells with impunity ; this
slave-trade of souls, without an effort to stop
the traffic, or even unlock the manacle ; this vast
funeral pageant descending to the vault, when
we might say to the dead, 'Arise!'
If we are to hear of the haughty antiquity of
Rome, or the bitter inveteracy, or the systematic
decay which defies restoration ; I say, let the
Church in its simplicity and its strength stand
beside that grave : and long as the Lazarus may
have lain in the bondage of corruption, it will
hear that voice, and walk forth from the grave.
The words of inspiration cannot speak in vain.
There will yet be a vast call, and a vast conver
sion. "Come out of her, my people." We can
not listen to the subterfuge, — that the extinction
of those errors must be the work of time, that they
will all find their level : — that " Truth is mighty
and will prevail." The indolence of man never
took shelter in a more transparent evasion. Nay,
the enemy of man never devised a more fatal fal
lacy ; we might as well expect the harvest without

27
the plough. Truth, left to itself, can do nothing.
In Science, it may be, like the path of a star,
direct, progressive, and luminous; but in morals,
it is a path through the forest, every where en
tangled with the rank production of the world,
without directness of advance or extent of view ;
every where exposed to the- obstructions of na
ture and of man.
The maxim of experience is, " Falsehood is
mighty, and will pre vail," — passions, pleasures, all
the temptations to vanity, vice, and ease, are
banded against Truth. Its whole life is a trial ; all
its successes must be won through sacrifice ; like
its great master's, the cross must purchase the
crown. But, if we are asked — where is Infallibility ?
What is Truth ? — to those most important of all
questions, the answer to be given is, — Truth is
a reality; and it is to be discovered, wherever
man takes the rational steps to its discovery. God
cannot have given Truth to man for the object
of his pursuit, without giving him also the power
of its possession.
There are but three forms, under which Reli
gious truth can be pursued — Sectarianism,
Romanism, and the Church of England.
Butthe^nncipZe of Sectarianism is, not simply,
that every man has a right to form his opinion ;

28
but, that every man has a right to teach his opinion.
But, this principle extinguishes all qualification at
once. Sectarianism, therefore, demands neither
learning, nor judgment, nor experience. Any
man, from any condition, may instal himself in a
chapel, gather a congregation, and found a sect.
He may have learning and intelligence, but it
makes no demand of either. Ignorance is easy :
Indolence is natural, and where men can indulge
both, and live ; the countless majority will indulge
them. But, Truth disdains discovery by either.
The principle of Romanism is intellectual sla
very. The council of Trent only rivetted, in the
sixteenth century, the fetter fixed a thousand
years before. The creed of Pope Pius V., thus
prescribes the limit of Popish freedom. " I ad
mit the Holy Scriptures according to the sense
which our Holy Mother the Church has held and
does hold : To which it belongs to judge of the
true sense and interpretation of the Scriptures ;
neither will I take and interpret them, unless
according to the unanimous opinion of the
Fathers." Thus, the Papist is stopped at the threshold of
enquiry, unless he is prepared to enter the dun
geon. Of course, he makes no investigation; shuns
the peril of discovery, for the safety of ignorance ;
abandons the Bible, and solaces himself with the

29
Breviary. That much learning and much ability
may exist among Papists, is admitted : but the
highest subject of both is precluded to them ; if
they may think for themselves, they dare not speak
to others. The Bible is the clasped book of
Rome. Thus, in Popery the Truth is not sought,
and therefore it is not likely to be found.
The principle of the Church of England is in
tellectual freedom. Avoiding the giddy licence of
Sectarianism, and the senseless submission of
Romanism, it combines the vigour of liberty,
with the soberness of subordination. By insist
ing on a learned education, which raises the clergy
above the vulgar errors of their time ; by assigning
a fixed stipend, which renders the pulpit inde
pendent of popular fantasies ; by a settled place
of duty, which prevents all roaming after popu
larity ; by articles, open to the general eye, thus
giving stability to her doctrines, while she yet
requires na admission of them but " on the sure
warrant of Scripture ; " it adopts the only con
ceivable means of discovering the truth.
This church makes no pretension to Infalli
bility ; but, if freedom from error is refused to
manly judgment, sincere research, and educated
enquiry, Truth is beyond the reach of man.
Having no especial cause of gratitude to the
Establishment, (injusta noverca) I can offer it

30
the more unbiassed testimony — that the Church
of England is the only one, compatible with the
British Constitution ; that it has been the supreme
source of the national glory, England's primal
clothing of honour, which, like Joseph's robe,
was the envy of its brethren, and designated it
for supremacy ; that it was the guiding pillar
through the struggles and sufferings of the
national march to freedom ; or, by a still nobler
benefaction, that it breathed into the manly and
firm-knit frame of England, that spirit which is
the pledge of national immortality.
But, sterner times are to come ; and wholly
disclaiming, as I do, the extravagances of modern
interpretation; it is impossible to doubt, that
prophecy points to a tremendous trial of the faith.
" And when he had opened the fifth seal, I
saw under the altar the souls of them which were
slain for the word of God, and for the testimony
which they held, and they cried with a loud voice,
saying, How long, O Lord, holy and true, dost
thou not avenge our blood on them that dwell
on the earth?" (Apoc. i. 6.) And this solemn
remonstrance is followed by the promise, that
their blood shall be avenged.
If our Lord declared that the blood of all the
prophets should be repaid, in a mass of ven
geance on one generation ; can we wonder, that

31
the blood of the millions, who have died for the
gospel, shall yet be avenged by a still more com
prehensive ruin. I offer no calculation of dates.
With the prohibitory words before us. — "Of
that day and hour knoweth no man, not even the
angels in heaven," the attempt is profane. But,
we shall inevitably require, in that day, the City
of Refuge, and I would have its walls manned.
In adverting to the preparation of the Church,
I propose no new principle, I would merely give
its natural expansion to the old. Episcopacy is
tbe pillar of the Church of England. We must
strengthen and secure that pillar. Without asking
additional seats in the Lords ; I would place a
Bishop in every shire of England and Wales.
Then, instead of a few prelates, embarrassed by
-the extent of their jurisdiction, and exhausted by
its petty and perpetual routine ; we should have
a large body of active, vigorous, and learned men,
superintending the Estabhshment, and especially
marshalling its learning and ability, for the con
test with Sectarianism.
I would have every Cathedral a College, for
the express study of Theology. There are thirty
Chapters in England and Wales. The Canons
should be the professors of those Cathedral Col
leges, disengaged from parochial duty, and form
ing the Council of the Diocese. There should be

32
an increase of the active agency of the Church.
The Rural Deans, even now an useful body, should
be a fixed and salaried Order. Gratuitous services
soon grow cold. There should be in every
Diocese, fixed Committees of the Clergy, ap
pointed by the Prelate, for defined services. — One,
expressly for the instant defence of Christi
anity, against all attacks of infidelity, of popery,
and of reUgious faction — Another, to superintend
all the objects of public education, in schools,
workhouses, libraries for the people, asylums,
almshouses, and to give lectures on subjects of
general interest, or Scriptural information. —
Another, to have under its charge all the opera
tions of charity, collections for the orphan and
the decayed, Charity Sermons, contributions for
the poor, burial funds, and Benefit Societies. —
Another, for the superintendence of all things con
nected with the proprieties of Divine worship, the
furnishing of Churches, their repair, their build
ing, and the skill and beauty of their architecture.
This principle of divided duties is not new.
In the Apostolic age, there were nine Orders,
according to the gifts of the Holy Spirit, all
with especial objects, and, we may be convinced,
all necessary, even for the few thousands of the
early Church. In Britain, we have twenty
millions to enUghten !

33
If this system of activity, zeal, and usefulness
were universal, time would no more hang heavy
on the hands of the country Clergy ; every man
would know his own position ; every man's
talent would be brought out, and the nation
would be built up, with the inscription on its
front, " Holiness to the Lord." The character
of the Clergy would be known to their Bishops.
The Bishops would be relieved from the endless
routine which now occupies and wastes their
time. Like the Apostles, they would feel it
unseemly to " serve tables," and would give
themselves to the higher duties of the Gospel.
The results would be inevitable, and incalcu
lable. The Dioceses would be no longer infested
by Sectarianism ; it would vanish away without
querulousness, or collision. Heresy would be
enlightened, or fugitive. Indifferentism, the moral
morass of the Gospel, in which every truth sinks,
and the more weighty the sooner, would be ex
hausted, reclaimed, and fertilized, into the good
harvest. And Popery, everywhere instantly con
fronted by vigorous zeal, and practised ability ;
its aggressions loftily expelled, and its insidious-
ness exposed ; no longer able to "betray with a
kiss," would go "to its own place," despairing,
and undone.
The further reforms are obvious. The Im-

34
propriations, that robbery of the Church ; and the
Advowsons, equally the scandal of the Church
and the Law, should be extinguished, at any
expenditure. Thus, the Church would be no
longer burthened with hereditary imbecilities, in
sulted by the public sale of the ' Cure of souls,'
or startled at tales of Simony.
The Clergy should have representatives in the
House of Commons. It is wholly unaccounta
ble; that in the country of proverbial justice;
with an assembly, where every civil interest finds
especial representatives ; the most highly-educated
body of the nation, bound by their profession to
the highest principles; and offering their character,
for the pledge of their conduct ; should be branded
with exclusion from the National Councils ; — that
the privilege should be denied to the Church, which
is given to the Conventicle; — and that those
Legislative gates should be shut upon sixteen
thousand English gentlemen, of loyalty and learn
ing, within which Sectarianism may libel, and
Heresy may conspire.
The Universities are to the Church, what
Siloam was to the Temple, the founts of refresh
ing and purifying. Once, the leaders of public
opinion, the Nation would gladly see them re
sume their office. Tormented by petty reforms,

they must make great ones. Two, at least, are
palpable. They must abolish Celibacy, as the condition for
fellowships — and they must limit those fellow
ships to ten years. By the former they would get
rid of a monkish abomination, contrary at once
to the Divine blessing and the finest impulses of
our nature ; always tending to misery, and often
tempting to evil. By the latter, instead of allu
ring the indolence of man to waste Ufe, like the
Monk, in a cell, on a pittance ; they would send
him into professional life, with the first ten years
ofthe struggle tided over; man, in the full vigour
of the accomplished understanding.
To the perpetual cavil against the connexion of
Church and State, the obvious answer of common
sense is, that the connexion is essential to the na
tional peace. God appoints Society ; as the only
scene, in which the faculties and duties of man
can find their full exercise. But, a nation must
have a Government and a Religion. A hostile
Religion might overthrow any Government.
What must be the effect of the ten thousand
pulpits of England, declaiming against the throne?
the tenth part of the number once subverted
the monarchy. Therefore, to prevent perpetual
convulsion, the State must have some tie upon
the National Religion. The Church may exist
C 2

36
without the State, as it existed in the Apostolic
age ; but the State cannot exist against the
Church, The connexion, without interfering with
doctrine, prevents possible hostility ; and thus re
lieves the Empire from the hazards of Revolution.
All Sectarianism, from its very constitution, is
republican. All Romahism, from its very con
stitution, is despotic ; both must be hostile to a
limited monarchy. The Establishment, by its
union of Subordination with Liberty, has, in it
self, the principles of limited monarchy. If
English Statesmanship had now the choice of
Churches for the Empire, it must choose the
Church of England.
How then has Sectarianism risen ? The para
ble gives the answer. "When men slept;" at
once a solemn reproach, and a pregnant warning.
On this, I say no more. Yet Schism is unquestion
ably decaying in the Empire. The creature of
tumult, it sinks with the subsidence of tumult ;
— planted like the " tree of liberty " in a time of
national disturbance, and worshipped only in the
day of popular frenzy, having no root in the pub
lic feeling, and flourishing only in the rash and rude
chaplets of the populace ; its fall will be less even
by the indignation of justice, than by the course
of nature.
But Sectarianism has the dupe, as well as the

37
deceiver. Is it possible to doubt, that there are,
in its ranks, men who feel how little the cry, "I am
of Whitfield, and I am of Wesley," differs from that
proverb of Gospel scorn, " I am of Paul, and I am
of ApoUos ; " men, who once beUeving that they
might build on the foundation of Christ what
ever extravagant structure they pleased, have been
suddenly awakened to the Apostolic denunciation,
" Let every man take heed how he buildeth
thereon ! " * * * * For, that day shall
declare it, because it shall be revealed by fire,
and the fire shall try every man's work, of what
sort it is." Shall no hasty speculator in cavil, no
volatile fabricator of religious faction, no invol
untary impostor, be brought to his senses, by
the words, " Though we, or an angel from Heaven,
preach any other gospel than ye have received,
let him be accursed."
And, who were those, on whom the Apostolic
curse was denounced ? Not Heathens, not In
fidels, but preachers of Christianity, doing by
their strifes unconsciously the work of both, and
alike by their refinements and their cavils, des
troying the simplicity of the Gospel !
To enlighten, to reclaim, and to restore those
men, would be the noblest duty of the Church ;
and the present divisions of Sectarianism show
that the time is come, when the Establishment, by

38
a large and lenient measure of protection, would
do itself immortal honour.
But, if man is to hope for success, he must
take the natural means.
The pulpit is the great instrument of Christian
ity. Even in the splendours of apostolic mira
cle, the words were written, " Follow after
Charity, and desire spiritual gifts; but rather
that ye may prophecy." * The priests of heathen
ism seem never to have addressed the people,
even in the native lands of Oratory. The Jewish
priests were limited to the ceremonial of the
Temple, Even the synagogue seems not to have
attempted more than the explanation of texts.
Jesus of Nazareth was the first preacher !
Thus, He has given, for the first -time in the
history of mind, its noblest use for its noblest
purpose. The simplicity, directness, and force
of the apostolic addresses have no superior
in human record. Peter, before the priest and
the people,-— Paul, before the king and the tribu
nal, are magnificent. .
The English pulpit, in the patronage of
Eloquence, has the use of an instrument, com
bining all the elements of power — like the thun
derbolt ofthe poet.
* In the New Testament, prophecying means, preaching.

39
Tres imhris torti radios, tres nubis aquosse ;
 — rutili tres ignis, et alitis Austri,
Fulgores nunc horrificos, sonitumque, metumque.
I have done. I must leave it to others, to do
justice to a subject so full of lofty conception,
and national utility. But, I simply appeal to
experience, that if soundness of doctrine and
faithfulness of service are to be tested by pros
perity in Church and State ; no country on earth
can supply more ample proofs, that her Church
has " walked with God."
Without diverging into political details; the
outhne of our history, for the last fifty years,
exhibits a constancy of Divine protection, scarcely
less palpable, than in the open revelations of
Judah. Has it ever been heard before, in the his
tory of National conflict, that a nation, engaged
in war with half the world, should have been
carried through the five and twenty years of that
tremendous exigency, without ever losing a pitched
battle ; that in the general subversion of the
Continent she should never have lost a province, a
colony, or a foot of territory ; that with all the king
doms of the Continent bankrupt, she continued
to command all the treasures of the earth ; that
with the commerce of the Continent buried, as if
in the ocean, her commerce floated over every
sea, and' flourished on every shore? And

40
that this prosperity was perpetual ; never inter
rupted by casualty, at a time when casualty
seemed to be Nature ; when the path of tyranny
and blood seemed to be paved with Crowns ;
and when the Continental Kings seemed to be
waiting in chains, like a train of the condemned,
at the foot of the Scaffold, each to ascend it
in his turn. I would give that history as a reply,
and as a rebuke, to all Scepticism. Who can
read it without a conviction, superadded even to
Scripture; that "the Most High ruleth in the
kingdoms of men!"
The progress of the Church has been almost
equally visible. Years have not shorn the locks
of her strength. Time, instead of inflicting on
her the natural law of decay, has only increased
the practical ardour, and hallowed loftiness of
her aspirations. She is now planting her bishop
rics round the circumference of the globe. Like
the great leader of Israel, with " neither her eye
dim, nor her natural force abated ; " she is as
cending that height, from which the regions of
the promised conquest lie before her ; still, not
to taste of death, but to remain the visible memo
rial of a protecting Providence, and the anointed
guide of the generations of power and glory to
come. THE END.