having broken away from the ancient uniformity of Creed, the ancient discipline of the Bishops, and the ancient terms of Communion, and refusing to abide by the verdict of antiquityhave substituted strange doctrines, a new discipline, and unheard-of terms of communion. Both too have exaggerated truths into miserable fables. Popery exaggerates the intermediate state into a gross purgatorial fire; the Real Presence in spirit and power in the Eucharist, into a carnal and local presence; respect for the ashes of the dead who sleep in Jesus, into a veneration for their bones; the indefectibility of the whole Church into the infallibility of the Roman; the Divinity of Christ, into a naked and absolute Divinity not now to be approached but by the mediation of Mary; the humanity of Christ, into a subjection to Mary whose maternal behests he must obey; the purity of Mary into her "immaculate conception," &c., &c.: while Puritanism pushes the Divinity of our Lord to the practical exclusion of his Humanity as a man like ourselves, whose life of prayers and fasts and sacraments and sufferings and charities we are bound to make our own; or else it presses His humanity to the denial of His Divinity; it magnifies an overruling, into a predestinating Providence; the election to privileges, into an irreversible election to salvation; a watchful care of the people of God, into their nolens-volens "perseverance;" the atonement itself, into a harsh, stern commercial transaction between what they style "parties in the Godhead;" the gentle influences of the Spirit, into a sudden and irresistible ictus from above; the divine method of patient

in their stead, in the Churches of England, the celebrated "Covenant :" while a Popish saint, regularly canonized, travestied the Book of Psalms, and applied their majestic worship to the Virgin. The Papists too, have adapted our gorgeous Te Deum to the Virgin: as the Puritans did our Litany and Benedicite to their wars against their Church and King. The Papists have a set day at Rome, in which they gather and kneel around the Pope-their Grand Lama-on his throne, and kiss his toe: not long ago, the " Presbyterian" was compelled to take to task a congregation for singing to the praise and glory of" their Minister just returned from Eu rope, a hymn of fulsome flattery to himself and his wife and children'

ly wearing out evils and abuses, into violent, spasmodic indiscriminate eradication; the utility of preaching, to the almost exclusion of worship; and sins God can easily forgive, into the "unpardonable sin against the Holy Ghost." I have seen a whole school of boys tortured on this last-named engine of revivalism, without a man to let us know that such a sin was, in us, well nigh impossible!

Thus do extremes meet. Thus are Popery and Puritanism mysteriously united, by some tie through which they seem to act and think and feel together: not unlike the Siamese twins, that seem sometimes to be one, and sometimes two. How often have we seen Popery and Sectarism combining -together with Infidels, Agrarians, and selfish Politicians, and profligate and debauched men, against the Church: both in England and America-Popery as bitter as Puritanism, and Puritanism as violent as Popery. O Popery! Popery! It is of thy doing that the bewildered world is doomed to tread this maze of dogmas, before arriving at the ancient fixed goal of truth! If thou hadst preserved the Creed intact, as the Churches of the East have done; if thou hadst even been content with thy ancient honors as Umpire in matters of local disagreement; if thou hadst left the Scriptures untainted by the Apocrypha; if thou hadst pinioned thy hand in the fearful hour that it was extended to rob the laity of the Cup; if thou hadst bridled thy tongue when thou framedst it to pronounce anathemas against the word of God in the hands of the people; if thou hadst stood fast by the ancient terms of communion in the early centuries; if thou hadst been as silent as the ancient fathers are, about the worship of Mary, and the angels, and the saints, and pictures, and images, and dead men's bones, and about purgatorial fires to satisfy justice, and about works of supererogation; if thou hadst left voluntary celibacy with the honors assigned it in Scripture and antiquity, and the celibacy of the clergy to the honorable

ence;

choice of pure and self-denying and heavenly-minded men, as it was left in the days of Jesus and of Paul; if thou hadst been content that "all generations" should call Mary "Blessed;" if thou hadst taught the ancient doctrine of the glorious Presif thou hadst been satisfied that the whole Church should enjoy conjointly-but separately should forfeit the promise of safe-keeping from the gates of hell; if thou hadst not interpolated the fathers; in a word, if thou hadst ADHERED TO ANTIQUITY: the world would have been spared these endless distractions, doubts, and protests. You have so mixed up the worship of Mary and the saints, with the worship of Jesus: that Sectarians by millions, without discriminating, have set the whole system down as an imposture, and denied the Lord who bought them with His blood! You have so confused modern inventions and traditions with those of high antiquity and apostolic dignity, that unless men can see a dogma categorically set forth in Scripture, they reject it, and fill the world. with the denial of infant baptism, and of other blessed and refreshing truths. Thou hast so perverted, too, the Episcopacy into the Papacy, that men in disgust reject the one as the germ of the other. Thou has so mixed up "works of supererogation" and the merits of your "saints" and societies and your "Banks of Piety," with the merits of our Only Redeemer that the whole doctrine of justification by merits other than our own, is ruthlessly despised. And, in fine, thou hast so set thine own self-will and "private judgment " against all the doctrines, teachings, and usages of the Ancient Church, that every Sectarist, in breaking away from unity and from authority, pleads the example of the Pope! Rome! Rome! Twin-sister to Geneva! Is all the fanaticism, false doctrine, heresy and schism, bewildering and blighting the minds of men this hour, to be found in thy skirts? And thou Genevaexalted to heaven, but thrust down to hell, for the denial of thy Lord-as thou art the child of Rome, art thou not the

Mother in thy turn, of this miserable brood of schisms, and strifes, and heresies, and horrid and blasphemous opinions, that darken and curse the sectarian world? "Come out of her, my people, that ye be not partakers of her plagues!" Drink not the cup that Rome and Geneva drink, lest ye be baptized with their baptism: but go to the pure fountains of Antiquity, the cool, clear, refreshing sources of an Ancient and Catholic religion.

CHAPTER XXVII.

VARIOUS OBJECTIONS ANSWERED,

Ir is singular how the whole outside world is fretted and worried with the family affairs of the Episcopal Church. The General Assembly of the Presbyterians may dispute, divide,

go into the secular courts, fly into a hundred sects and schisms, and the Episcopalian not even know it. Baptists may hatch their brood of fifteen different communions: and the Episcopalian will still be calm and serene as a sunny day in June. All Germany may become infidel, or Scotland Arminian, or Ireland Arian, or Geneva Socinian, so far as regards the Presbyterian population: and the Episcopalian will scarcely chronicle the fact. Fifty thousand sectaries may follow Joe Smith into the wilderness, or thousands of Presbyterian Protestants in Europe, terrified at the results of their experiment, may revert to Popery: and Episcopalians not notice it. But let there be an apostate to Popery from the ancient Church of God, east or west, north or south, in England or America: and all the sects are at once thrown into dismay, and the curtains of the land do tremble. Newspapers, magazines, mobs, platforms, parliaments, echo the wild dismay. Is not this the leaven heaving the bosoms of the nations? Is not this the Bride, startling the earth by the slightest imputation on her fair fame? Is not this the Church of God-the city that cannot be hid?