p, R« Cf£

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€t)e position anb Safeguarbs of tlje Clntrcf).

A SERMON

PREACHED IN

It %tfym Cjmnft, Slaurtj Conntg, fern.,

FIFTH SUNDAY AFTER TRINITY,

A. D., M,DCCCLI.

BY.THE REV. E. H. CRESSEY, D. D, RECTOR.
Ml

CHURCH DEPOSITORY, No. 20 JOHN-STREET.
1851.

HIS EXCELLENCY
WASHINGTON HUNT,
CKotoernor ot tjje State of WetosXovft,
THE AUTHOR BEOS TO INSCRIBE THIS SERMON,
WITH MOST KIND AND GRATEFUL RECOLLECTIONS
OF THE OBLIGATIONS DUE TO HIS FRIENDSHIP.

Rectory of St. John's, \
Ashwood, Aug., 1851. j

SEEM-ON.

" The ChuTCh of the Living God, the pillar and ground of the Truth."
1 Timothy iii. 15-
Cbucieied — risqn — His mission of Love accomplish
ed, and now in the act of that withdrawal of His
person, which He declared should not be comfortless,
our blessed Lord vouchsafed to his apostles the pre
cious assurance, that " He would he with them always,
even to the end of the world." But how, to what
effect, — and when the first apostles should rest from
their labors, — with whom would He be always, even
to the end of the world ?
The present age, perversely cunning to invent con
venient interpretations, and wrest the Scriptures into
crooked conformity with its own vagaries, rejoices in
the discovery, concealed from all former generations,
that this endless promise found its period within half a
century ; — that when the Word of Truth said, to ihe
end of the world, He must be understood as meaning
the suppression of a Jewish rebellion by the Eomans :
that when He said always, He meant about forty years ;
when He said He would he with discipling and baptiz
ing apostles, He had no reference to Matthias, or Bar
nabas, or Paul, but only to the original eleven, and to

only one of them even this contracted pledge should
be fulfilled, in the person of St. John. So that the
Christianity of all subsequent time has been deluding
itself with an empty solace, a mere fancied pledge of
the Bedeemer's presence. This discovery was fallen
upon in the search of a way by which the path of
Apostolic Order and Succession might be forsaken.
But we, my brethren, are captivated by no views for
the secure enjoyment of which it is needful for us to
lean on this interpretation, bartering for it our interest
in the promise of a Present Lord. We may put it
aside, therefore, as valueless, save as an example of the
strange obliquity to which determined prejudice can
distort the intellectual vision of man.
But other ideas may attach to the subject of the
Unfailing Presence, of which it may well be disencum
bered, in the prosecution of the theme before us. Ob
scurity may arise from the circumstance that the same
terms which designate the Body of Christ in gen
eral; — the whole apparatus of means divinely in
stituted to convey and dispense the blessings of the
New Covenant,- — are also applied to subordinate
organizations in which the whole may, in different
times, placrs, and aspects, disclose itself in the
world. For example: the idea, with the name of
the Church — the Church of Unity and Apostolicity,
for we speak of none other, — is recognized by the
individual member, in the congregation to which he
belongs — in the diocese, and with peculiar distinctness,
in the confederacy of Dioceses which may be united
with it under the same details of government and dis
cipline, forming an independent ecclesiastical body.
And yet, since the promise was spoken, how many al
tars at which saints once bowed in adoration, have long

been overthrown and desolate ! We look in vain for
the seven Churches of the Apocalypse, whose Bishops
were addressed by the warning voice from Patmos.
Where Carthage and Hippo were, no seats remain for
successors of Cyprian and Augustin. Nay, in regions
of the world where hundreds of Bishops were wont to
gather in councils, whose recorded wisdom is still ex
tant for our instruction, not a Gospel candlestick re
mains erect, and struggling missionary tapers pass
faintly to and fro, through the density of spiritual dark
ness, which, for centuries, has brooded there. And
what then ? Has the pledge been broken ? Is the
Divine presence therefore null ? Not so, my brethren,
not so ; such particular organizations, though always
formed on divine principles, are things of human and
mcidental arrangement, dictated by the convenience of
local proximity, of civil connection, or a common lan
guage. The Church of Promise is affected by their
formation or their removal, just as the giant oak
that has battled with the storms of centuries, is affect
ed by the accident that shoots forth or shatters a parti
cular bough. Every branch is fed by the same life-
sustaining fluid, and possesses the same organic deve
lopment. Any one may be severed by the tempest, or*
withered by decay, but still the tree is there, and it
owes a deeper and firmer mooring of its roots to the
winds which visit' the boughs unkindly. Even so the
Tree of the Lord's planting, moored on the foundation
of prophets and apostles, nourished in its primal sea
son by the blood of martyrs, and watered with the
tears of saints, has stood through the tempestuous vicis
situdes of the ages past, and shall stand, " always, even
to the end of the world." Schism may rend away, or
corruption dry up many a verdant and far-spreading

10
arm, but still the vital energies of the trunk shall issue
from their unfailing and eternal source, till, at last, the
moral universe shall be sheltered beneath its mighty ex
panse, and " the whole earth shall be filled Avith the
knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the
sea." While, therefore, indefectibility abides in the
Church, by virtue of the Divine presence, while her
witness shall attest the integrity, and her sanctuaries
dispense the fullness of the saving Word and Ordinan
ces, until the day of the Lord's appearing, it is an ob
vious result of her militant state, that ere that day
shall be hailed with universal recognition, no local ex
hibition of the Church Catholic can be absolutely ex
empt from the liability of disturbance and decay. The
same causes through which, long ago, the Church of An
tioch erred, and of Alexandria disappeared, and of Ge
neva has since rebounded from schism into the abyss of
Unitarian heresy ; declare also the fatal folly of Rome's
fabled infaUibility, and impress upon all to whom
the care of God's heritage is committed, the deep lesson
of fidelity and vigilance in the keeping of their holy
trust. According to the rule of Providence, which
"adapts heavenly visitations to the discharge of human
responsibility, the spiritual safety of any provincial
Church must be involved with the faithful adherence
of her people, and of those who are over them in the
Lord, to her divine institutions and holy teaching. Of
this they may be thoroughly assured, that true ecclesi
astical well-being — the well-being which is measured
not by visible conquests, nor by the favor of the world,
but by primitive completeness and Gospel purity — will
never be impaired unless by voluntary dereliction from
the ways of heaven. That security unforfeited, there

11
shall nothing hurt or destroy in God's holy mountain.
Thither no violence or hate can ever reach. No fear of
evil can be admitted there, " though the earth be moved,
and the waters thereof rage and swell."
" A gentler stream witli gladness still
The city of our Lord shall fill,
The royal seat of God most high, —
God dwells in Zion, whose fair towers
Shall mock th' assaults of earthly powers,
While His Almighty aid is nigh."
There are other considerations, however, which have
an important bearing on our theme, and chiefly, as tend
ing to maintain that great bulwark of ecclesiastical
stability. Wherever the Church of Promise is not renounced
and displaced, that is, wherever the organic principles
continue inviolate, whereby alone there is authorized
dispensation of Divine ministrations, there abides in
those principles a conservative character, attested by
all experience. Behold the ancient Churches of the
East, secluded as they have been, during silent age§>
from the hght, and separated from the movement of
modern intelligence, — immured and trampled by the
powers of Heathen and Mahomedan superstition. No
schism now existing on earth has over-lived three hun
dred years. Not one has passed a century without re
ceiving the impress of essential change. Many, since
the remote era when these Asiatic Churches were in
volved by the rushing cloud of the Arabian imposture,
have kindled, careered, exploded, and vanished away ;
yet there they remain, emitting, it is true, a pale and
languid lustre, but clinging still to the primitive sys-

12
tern, and pursuing, unshaken, their ancient orbit. And,
although it has been proved, in lamentable instances,
that in spite of the safeguards to which we refer,
amidst radical revolutions of human society, corruption
may find stealthy ingress, and the channels of Divine
knowledge be polluted or dried up, together with those
of social civilization and intelligence ; it has also been
proved a possible event only when such extreme causes
do their fatal work. And even then, there is no actual
lapse of the suffering branch. When ProAddence
brings round the day of Gospel blessing for the land
over which it droops, it needs not removal, but re-invi-
goratdon — " through the scent of water it will bud, and
bring forth like a plant."
Another very useful aid in our present design, exists
in that test of capacity of a particular branch of the
Church, to endure an expected crisis, and to resist ap
prehended influences of evil, which is furnished by its
past experience of similar ordeals. Again, in the de
tails of its organization, as adapted to a particular
state of human society, and to the encounter1 of parti
cular exigencies, these are valuable indices by which to
estimate the degree of its exposure to peril, either from
the collision of external circumstances, or from the
workings of inward disorder.
And now, from these sources let ns draw hght for
the inquiry, how far the Protestant Episcopal Church
in these states — the Reformed branch of the Church
Catholic, by the tendrils of which we cling to the
Body oe Christ, the Pillar and Ground of the Truth,
may sustain the buffetings of that religious commotion
by which other Christian institutions are shaken to
their base, and may meet and resist the influences
which would draw her away from the purity and integ-*

13
rity of the Faith. The exhibition of these topics,
which an occasion like the present admits, is limited —
but happily the case requires no more.
The age of dogmatic indifferentism has passed away,
and we have fallen upon times of religious turmoil and
change. Apart from the conflicts of opposing sects, and
the restless groping and reaching after the truth which
we witness on the part of many, never blessed with
the nurture and discipline of the Church : apart from
all these remarkable indications, the Papal aggressions
upon the Church in England — her peculiar relations,
and subjection to the state ; and the fact that from her
communion, some, and among them honored names,
have apostatized to Rome, together with hke alleged
tendencies in our own Church, most clearly show the
force of these religious agitations, and the danger
which may be apprehended.
A very limited sagacity cannot fail to perceive, that
the influences now active are not to lose their force un
til great changes have been wrought on the face of
what is called the Christian world. At the birth of
the storm the winds are inconstant, and fitful gusts
sweep, at intervals, over the deep ; but at last the va-
rient forces veer to one point, and the waves are driven
onward in one direction, and by one resistless impulse.
Let us observe the indications, and estimate their bear
ing on the position of the Church.
We behold the confusion of an extreme still tending
to further development, and a beginning re-action.
There is an extreme movement not yet fully spent. In
Christian societies, at a former period, separated from
the Church, the separative element is continuing its
natural and necessary exhibition. In the abuse of pri
vate judgment, — that principle which, in its rational

14
freedom, is vital to Christianity, and in its unbridled
license, is the great • destroyer alike of its peace and
purity, — in the abuse of private judgment these socie
ties originated, and by similar abuses they are shatter
ed. Restless children are seizangthe same privilege- of
condemning and proposing, of pulling down and erect
ing, of casting away and inventing, which they inherit
from restless fathers. The indulgence of this propen
sity, now pampered by frequent exercise, has engen
dered a morbid disdain of all fixed opinions and stable
institutions. The idea of any Church oe the living
God, any Pillar and ground of the Truth, is not only
virtually, but formally and angrily renounced. The
social apparatus of Christianity, in all its parts and
principles, has come to be regarded as of no better than
human authority, and because the world is wiser,
needing to be superseded by more ingenious devices.
Here, a large Christian body is rent asunder by a pre
tended point of morals of which St. Paul was entirely
oblivious when he wrote his Epistle to Philemon.
There, we behold the aggregation of a new body, com
posed of individual refugees from the various existing
sects, and denouncing them all as incumbrances to the
Gospel work.
By these, and the hke painful excesses, in which the
schismatic element is finding its extreme development,
deep wounds are inflicted upon society in more than
one of its aspects, as well as upon the holy religion
whose name is borrowed but to be desecrated. But as
our inquiry is concerned, How is the Church affected ?
Only as a grieved spectator, diffusing a healing influ
ence from a position above and beyond the vaultings
of this capricious spirit.

15
But there is a reaction from that extreme. Thought
ful spirits are becoming wearied with a Protean faith
and worship. They are awaking to a sense of their
lack of the great principle of unity, and longing for its
salutary safeguards and stable reliances. They are
looking back to the venerable exemplar of primitive
truth and order, and around for the living institutions
which they animate and adorn. And in this there is
nothing to inspire the slightest apprehension for the
Church, or any emotion but of sympathy for the earn
est spirits which have cut themselves adrift from inse
cure moorings, and are voyaging through mist and
storm, in search of a haven where dwells repose. The
Church has no part therein but to fulfil her office as a
beacon to the tempest-tossed, " shining as a light in
the world, holding forth the Word of Life." She re
coiled from that extreme three hundred years ago,
when she reformed, but refused to mutilate her system,
and she has no reaction to fear. She has only to re
main where she is, with what has always been her own.
That which is elsewhere missed, and which urges these
movements, is the normal form of the Christian life,
which is the principle of her own stability.
But hostility is arrayed against the Church. The
reaction of which we speak has become so apparent,
and so many have been led by the pursuit of truth and
peace into her fold,- that multiform and many-headed
dissent is avowedly leagued for her attack. And fear
we that the weapons so formed against her will pros
per ? Why, the Church in this country has grown up
in an atmosphere of such reproach, and blossomed
amidst the frosts of such hostility. The present gene
ration of dissent accuses the Church of Formalism and
"Homanism. Did not the fathers allege the same

16
charges, appeal to the same prejudices, employ the
same misrepresentations, and wield the same argu
ments — such as they are — on the very same points of
difference ?
But within the Church there are soundings of alarm
and symptoms of agitation. Prominent men dispute
with each other, and obscure men come forth in partisan
warfare. In this country, a few Clergymen and Laymen
have apostatized to Rome, or to dissent, while in the
English Church the defection, though not greater in
proportion, is still more notorious.
Now, in reference to this appearance of inward dis
turbance, we may properly consult the indices which
we estabhshed, and estimate thereby the degree of pe
ril which the Church may encounter.
When, according to one of these tests, we observe
the past for evidence of the Church's capacity to resist
trials of this nature ; we, of course, include in our view
the annals of that Apostohc Church of which she is a
continuous and perfect development, and of which
there are other ramifications in both the Americas, —
in Europe, in Asia, in Africa, in Australia, — so that the
sun never sets upon the region of her local and perma
nent organization. Since her planting in the British
Isles, in early times, aud probably by Apostohc hands,
she has, at different periods, contended with three great
hostile powers — three spirits of evil which, in different
ages, have been rampant in the world, — the Papal, the
Anarchical, the Infidel. In the combat with the first, she
resisted four hundred years, from the seventh century to
the eleventh. Hers was the last citadel which held out
against the usurpations of 'Rome, and at last her gates
were forced only by the political misfortune of the
Norman conquest. Even then she did not cease to

11
struggle. As a Church, she expelled the intruding
power, and reformed herself to her primitive system ;
while elsewhere, masses of individuals fled from its do
mination, and erected new institutions. And she has
stood up, ever since, the acknowledged bulwark of
Protestant Christendom, the chief object of hate and
dread to the baffled spirit of papal tyranny.
She was next called to pass through the fires of po
litical excitement, and the confusion of heretical opin
ion; and, in spite of circumstances so adverse that
Rome exulted over her imagined downfall, — she came
forth from that contest unscathed, all her bulwarks
complete, her system unchanged, her countenance of
the same undaunted calmness.
Then she entered that strange period in the history
of human sentiment, which is nearly measured by the
last century, and which ended in the great moral storm
of the French Revolution. A period which . was mark
ed throughout the world, not only in all religious bodies,
but in all civilized society, by a decline of spirituality,
a proneness to skepticism, and a decay of the principle
of faith. It was the reaction of the human mind from
. the fanaticism of the preceding age. How that danger
was encountered is evinced by the vigorous suppression
of the nascent rationalism of Hoadly and his school,.
within her bosom, and the immortal works* which
demolished the bold enginesf of a more developed in-

* Butler, Cudworth, Leslie, "Watson, Chandler, Sherlock, West, Warbur-
ton, Derham, Stillingfleet, Leland, Dodwell, &c.
t Hobbes, Chubb, Toland, Collins, Mandeville, Bolingbroke, Tindal, Hume,,
Gibbon, Paine, The French Encyclopedists, &c.

18
fidelity without. How that danger was weathered, the
present noble position of the Anglican Church reveals.
If you would know how potent was the foe over whom
the signal triumph was achieved, let me conduct you to
other fields where the prints of its invasion were im
pressed. Go to the birth-land of the Reformation, the
country of Luther, and there behold known unbeliev
ers- officiating as professors of Divinity, in Protestant
Universities ; reverend lecturers on the blessed Scrip
tures, taxing their ingenuity to explain away their mira
cles, and inspiration, and denying the Divinity of the
Eternal Son oe God. Turn, then, to the city where
Calvin taught and governed, and hear the ruling Pres
byters decreeing that nobody should disturb the
peace of the community by preaching on the doctrine
of an atonement for the sins of the world. Thence,
proceed through France and Spain, and be shocked at
the general presumption, that a priest, if gifted with
intelligence, must, of course, be a skeptic. And at last?
on your return from this melancholy survey, pass by
the walls of old Harvard, and enter the old congre
gational houses of New-England, which their Puritan
builders would have levelled with the dust, had they
dreamed that another generation would set up therein
the abomination of the Unitarian heresy. You will be
thoroughly convinced that the spirit of rationalism, in
other words, the spirit of infidelity — the spirit which
rebels against mysteries in religion, and will receive
nothing but what outward sense can handle, and rea
son comprehend in its finite grasp, is not an enemy
to be contemned, or whose incipient machinations are
to be slighted by the watchers for the souls of men.
Let it be noted, also, that it was while the battle
with this power was pending, and the views and ener-

19
gies of the Church directed to the outworks of the
citadel of faith, that the relaxation of her inward dis
cipline occurred, which is yet a theme of stale reproach
and malicious exaggeration. If the reproach could not
be cast without carrying with it the suggestion of the
sort and degree of evil that came into all the Christian
societies existing during the same great crisis in the
history of the Christian faith, it would rest in peace —
Christian charity would then cheerfully suppress it.
If such has been the capacity of resisting and expel
ling spiritual enemies displayed by the Church of Eng
land, cramped and trammeled though she has been by
political entanglements, how much more of hke capa
city may we reasonably assign to a Church, which, in
heriting all her conservative character, allows no re
straint or interference of any unspiritual power. The
American Church has no alliance with the state. No
Privy Council can decree doctrine, or interpret stand
ards for her.
Limited, as we are, there are but two aspects of
this conservative character of the Church, to which I
can direct attention, and to these but briefly: — the
liberality of her standards in their scope, and the
impassable rigor with which these broad standards
are made to apply, by her Liturgical Worship.
From those who approach her privileges, the Church
exacts no profession, but of the Primitive Creeds,
with repentance and Christian endeavor. From
those who minister in her sanctuaries, she requires
that they teach nothing contrary to the Articles,
evidently drawn up with a view to secure the greatest
latitude, consistent with fundamental truth. She tole
rates a more enlarged and liberal scope of Christian
opinion than any other Communion on earth. And

20
what is the result of this Christian liberty, and this
wise forbearance? The knotty questions which dis
tracted the Protestantism of Europe— over which
Whitfield and Wesley separated in anger, and which,
under our observation, have created new schisms in
the Protestant Societies of our country, have never
made, in the Church, anything more than a fraternal
argument. It is distinctly in our recollection, that
the enemies of the Church, a few years ago, amused
themselves with the utterance of prophecies of change
and divisions, in regard to sentiments and 'opinions^
popularly known as Puseyism. And it is quite as
distinctly remembered, and with feelings of devout
gratitude to the Great Head of the Church, that she
came forth from that probation, not only untouched
in the essentials of unity, but more united in feeling—
with the bonds of fraternal regard and affection
drawn closer. I remember to have heard it said, that
there is seldom witnessed a more heart-stirring spec
tacle than was exhibited at the close of the General
Convention of the Church in 1844, when men of dis
agreeing views — men, some of whom had grappled
with each other in debate, feeling striving against
feeling, intellect against intellect, — met each other in
cordial mutual congratulation over the final disposal
of the subject of their disagreement — a disposal made
almost with unanimous voice.* Such was the end of
that conflict of individual opinion, whose adjustment,
it was foretold, would rend the Church in twain.
But iet me remind you, brethren, that the sects
* Seventy-foiw out of seventy-eight Clergymen, and a similar proportion of
the Lay Deputies, recorded their 'affirmative vote. — Journal of Gen. Con.
1844, p. 65.

21
generally had their origin in obstinate attempts to pro
cure the imposition, or denunciation, of particular
views or practices, which, when the Church refused,
the parties went out from her, and set up their favor
ite symbol. The dissensions, by which they have
been riven into such fragmentary subdivisions, have
arisen from the same exclusive and intolerant impo
sitions.. Now, from this baneful source of confusion
and every evil work, the Church is absolutely exempt.
As soon as any man sets up his idol of opinion, which
other men must worship or be unworthy of his fel
lowship, — that instant he must leave the Church.
There he can never hope to set up his image. Into
the Primitive Creeds he can never dream of foisting
his new development of the fundamental faith. Into
the Decalogue, or the Sermon on the Mount, he cannot
hope to interpolate his new commandment of Chris
tian morals. He cannot even be gratified with per
secution, because no one thinks of taking the idea
away from his embrace, any more than of allowing him
to impose it on others. He must depart voluntarily
from the ancient temple of Christian verities, and
build his new altar, even the name of which gene
rally tells the thing for which, or the man for whom,
it was specially erected. It is the sense of restriction,
that inspires erratic longings in the human mind ; and
extremes of opinion naturally generate each other.
Within the Church there is ample scope to give all
healthful freedom to the play of the mind, and pro
duce the quiet and content which belong to the con
sciousness of freedom, and thus prevent the disposi
tion to overleap the essential barriers of the Faith.
But, both the philosophy and the history of the re
ligious sentiment, demonstrate, that contracted in-

22
closures engender morbid, and, at last, a furious appe
tite of hcense. Thus, everywhere, the revulsion from
Calvinistic standards has been to the Unitarian and
Universalist theories. The frequent recoil from that
fanaticism which reads spiritual revelations in its own
bewildered fancies, has been to skepticism. The mind
that rushes from the restless whirlpool of sectarianism,
is apt to plunge into the mantled stagnation of Rome ;
and the, fact is notorious, that the few converts who
have strayed from the fold of the Church into the ways
of Rome, have almost invariably been minds whose
position in the Church, at some period of their history,
was near the gate that looks towards Geneva.
Again, when error invades any Christian body, it
must be through its public instruction. Now, take an
example, where the teacher's mind, in its private studies
and speculations, happens to be perverted by heretical
chimeras, say the Unitarian or Universalist ; and where
all the details of worship are subject to his individual
discretion. As soon as his mind becomes unsettled, he
will naturally avoid, in the prayer which he composes,
the hymn he selects, the portion of Scripture he
chooses or withholds altogether, any profession of the
point of faith which he is beginning to doubt. Gra
dually the heresy is silently assumed in his teaching —
covertly insinuated, his congregation, meanwhile, for
getting the truth and imbibing the error, till, at last,
when all things are ripe, it is argued boldly in the pul
pit, and is confidently avowed by the people. This is
no fancy's sketch ; it is the sad history of hundreds of
congregations once established on the platform of Pu
ritan orthodoxy.
Now, take the case of a Church in which such a
worship as that of our Liturgy must be enjoyed by the

23
people. How can the minister contrive to overthow
from the pulpit what he is obliged to affirm from the
desk, before God and man ? Is he perplexed by the
Unitarian rationalism ? He must either abandon his
office, or he must acknowledge a " holy, blessed, and
glorious Trinity, three Persons, and one God," and
close every act of praise by ascribing " Glory to the
Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost ;" and
solemnly declare, " I believe in one Lord Jesus Christ,
the only-begotten Son of God, begotten of His Father,
before all worlds ; God of God, Light of Light, very
God of very God ; begotten, not made, being of one
substance with the Father, by whom all things were
made ;" and " in the Holy Ghost, the Lord and Giver
of Life, who with the Father and the Son together is
worshiped and glorified." Does he take up the crude
idea of universal salvation, holding that the judgment
of sin is only in the afflictions of this life, or a limited
period of purgatorial retribution hereafter ? He must,
nevertheless, pray the good Lord to deliver himself and
others from God's " merited wrath and everlasting dam
nation." For a person surprised by sudden sickness, he
must beseech God to deliver him from eternal death.
He must solemnly assure criminals condemned to die,
that they are " soon to pass into an eternal and un
changeable state; and that their happiness or misery
forever depends upon the few moments that are left
them." And in that most awful of all holy offices,
when the " priest's lips must keep knowledge, and the
living seek the law at his mouth," when he stands over
the grave of a departed brother, and commits dust to
dust, looking for the second coming of the Lord in
glorious majesty to judge the world, he must cry out,
in behalf of himself and others, " O Lord God, most

24
holy, O Lord most mighty, O holy and most merciful
Saviour, deliver us not into the bitter pains of eternal
death." Thus, the pure doctrines of the Gospel will have ut
terance in the Church — will present themselves to the
minds, and rise up to the lips of her people. And the
only recourse for heresy, when it perverts individual
minds, is departure from the household of the faith*
Evil humors are expelled as soon as they form. Essen
tial error cannot propagate itself in the Church until
it is introduced into her formularies. It cannot be in
troduced into her formularies without a previous gene
ral propagation. These united conditions create a clear
impossibility. One glance, before we draw the conclusion, at the
additional safeguards of the Church's system against
troubles arising from the indiscretion of individuals, or
the collisions of classes, in the details of her legislation.
In the Charybdis of priestly domination, or on the
Scylla of Congregational anarchy, the world has seen
the woful wreck of more than one ecclesiastical ves
sel. Some have their spiritual movements clogged
by political involvements. Others are splitting upon
rocks of difference which lie entirely out of their
spiritual track, and upon which they have been im
pelled by the vehement fancy of erratic minds, who
must needs annex Church-power to some human ma
chinery. How little the Church is exposed to such
wretched mischance, is manifest, not only from the

* We have had recent examples of this lapse from the Catholic Faith, in
the case of the Rev. Dr. Forbes, a pervert to Rome, and the Rev. Dr. Ayde-
loth, a pervert to Geneva. They went out from the Church, because they
were not of her..

25
known spirit and history of her legislation, but from
the slightest view of the means by which it is con
ducted. Her system is a series of checks and bal
ances, offering an insuperable bar to evils, arising
either from the effervescence of popular enthusiasm,
or from the vaultings of personal ambition. Every
legislative proceeding must be sanctioned by the body
of the Laity, the body of the inferior Clergy, and
the body of the Bishops, severally and distinctly.
The peculiar functions of these three distinct elements
are so distributed and defined, that encroachment or
collision seems impossible. It is a system which ad
heres to the inspired precedent of the first Apostolic
Council at Jerusalem, where the inquiries from An
tioch were determined by the Apostles, and Elders,
and Brethren. It is the only existing system in which
the principle of Lay representation is rigidly carried
out. It is the system of a Church, against which the
charge of priestly domination is not unfrequently al
leged, from quarters where the people, as such, have
no voice at all in the adoption of any measure, in the
appointment of any officer, not even in the selection
of 'their own pastors.
Surely these topics, brethren, slightly and imper
fectly as they have been treated, — and there are
others to which we cannot even advert, — might well
repress any uneasiness which may be felt in regard
to the present position of the Church, and her capa
city to resist threatened dangers, even in these times
of disturbance and unloving strife. "Jerusalem is
built as a city that is at unity in itself." She has
enmity to encounter, indeed, on every side. Her foes
exult over her mischances, even though by them the
Blessed Lord himself is wounded in the house of his

26
friends ; but it is because, like them that dwelt * at
Jerusalem of old, and their rulers, "they knew Him
not, nor yet the voices of the Prophets." But it is writ
ten, that " Christ loved the Church, and gave Himself
for it." It is " the Church of the Living God, the Pil
lar and Ground of the Truth." His unfailing presence
is with her " always, to the end of the world." His
blessed Promise underlies all her hopes, and is the
pledge of all her glory. She is the Kingdom of God,
which He so often shadowed forth in parables, and
respecting the things of which, we are told, that He
spake to His Apostles during the forty days, between
His mighty Resurrection and His glorious Ascension ;
settling it on the foundation of the Apostles and Pro
phets, and erecting it as the Pillar and Ground of the
Truth. It is written again, that " by the Church shall
be made known the manifold wisdom of God, in the
purpose which He purposed through His Son !" If
the world, then, is ever to comprehend this wisdom,
and come to the knowledge of the Truth,' — if it is
ever to agree in the profession of a pure and uni
form Faith, it will be when the people shall take the
testimony furnished by the Church, in place of the
mere authority of late and uninspired discoverers in
religion, — when they no longer turn away from the
ancient and fixed decisions, confirmed through all
time, by the voice of the whole Church, to follow
erratic, individual minds through all their eccentri
cities, — when they steer their course, not by meteors,
which shoot a transient glare across the heavens, but
by the fixed stars, which shine in linked series along
the track of ages, and yield combined observations,
unvarying and immutable. The Church is the divine
ly ordained repository of the saving Faith, the saving

21
Ordinances, and the saving Word of Heaven. There
in are deposited, and thereby are maintained and
dispensed, the Ministry and the Sacraments, — the
great instrumentalities through which the Holy Ghost
ordinarily acts in the sanctification of the hearts of
men, and in preparing their souls for heaven.
I therefore mean, brethren, no such absurdity as to
offer excuse for such teaching as may tend to create an
enhghtened attachment to the principles of the Church,
and an enlightened interest in her prosperity, when
that authority to which minister and people must now
submit, and hereafter give account, has enjoined them*
to "pray for the peace of Jerusalem," and declared
that " they shall prosper who love her." I have no
sympathy of thought or feeling with the idea that iso
lated spiritual. viewrs and efforts are favorable to the
spiritual interests of men. It is this self-sufficiency
whence have issued all the torrents of fanaticism ; all
the spirits of misrule and blasphemy which have dis
honored the Gospel, and betrayed the souls of men.
I know, indeed, that a seemingly strenuous Church
man may be a lax Christian ; that a man who cares
little for his soul, may have a very great ideal venera
tion for the Church. And I know, also, that such a
careless soul may have a great ideal veneration for re
ligion itself. But should I attempt to awaken that
man to a sense of his spiritual peril, I would not con
sider his ideal regard for religion as an obstacle in my
way. And on the same reason I would build a hope
of leading him steadily to pursue the end of holiness,
on any interest of his feehngs or his judgment, in the
means which claim rational regard and affection, only
as instituted and adapted to save the souls of men, by
moulding them to " hve soberly, righteously, and godly

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