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is unchangeable. This glorious attribute is, and must be confined to the Deity, to the great "Father of Lights," whose self existence, whose infinite power, and infinite wisdom, as they must have been fully and equally perfect at all times, can and could be subject neither to increase nor diminution, but must have been the same throughout all ages. In him, therefore, I repeat it, and in him only, with whom, according to this, and other passages, Christ must consequently be one, we are rightly told, that there is no variableness, "neither shadow " of turning."

That indeed this is not the nature and property of man, as the experience of every day cannot but convince us, so may we see it most strikingly exemplified in the history of that period, to which I am now, in the course of my subject, naturally led to refer. The age of the Reformation, as it is marked by many and singular benefits of which it was productive to mankind, so does it abound with numerous proofs of the imbecility inherent in human nature, its want of steadiness, and proneness to error. In the act of emerging from darkness, we see the first reformers unable (as it were) to bear the light. The effulgence which at once broke in upon them, one would suppose,

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dazzled their sight, and prevented their seeing many of the objects presented to them in the same point of view; and hence it happened that that entire agreement and union did not take place which was so desirable, and might have been expected. When the existence and enormity of abuses were equally apparent and confessed, we might well have hoped that those who were unanimous in condemning and combating them, would be content to proceed to their removal by the same means, and with the same spirit.

To take away that which is corrupt, and to leave that which is sound, to let the tree stand after it is freed from its rotten branches, seems to be the mode in all such cases, not only the most fit and natural to be pursued, but likely to be attended with the least difficulty. It is the mode which we say, and, we trust, with reason say, was happily pursued in this country. Could it have been pursued in other countries also, not only a greater and a more strict union would have prevailed among the reformed churches in general, but in the individual churches themselves much less occasion, or rather no occasion at all, for schism would have been ministered.

Unfortunately, however, that took place which is common upon other occasions, that men flew from one extreme to the other; from the most abject slavery, they passed to the

wildest liberty. And indeed this is perhaps the hardest trial to which a human being can be subjected. It is at least the most severe test of strength in the moral, as well as in the physical world, to restrain exertion within its due bounds. In all cases where it is called upon to put forth its utmost powers, the mind, as well as the body of man, is apt to overshoot the mark, to be hurried beyond its proper object.

Hence it was that with many individuals, nay, with many bodies of men, the odium which had been so justly excited by the corruptions of popery was extended to many particulars with which they had in reality no sort of connection. Matters the most indifferent were pronounced to be an abomination; ceremonies the most innocent, nay edifying, were cried down, because they had been used by the ministers of the Romish church, because in their descent from the remotest antiquity they had been handed down through those, whose touch was now to be considered as in every act of them communicating pollution and disease.

Nor was this all. The infirmity of man shewed itself also in those jealousies, "those oppositions "of science*," if I may so use the term, which have in all ages been the fruitful source of such inveterate dissentions. The glaring and enor

* 1 Tim. vi. 20.

mous abuses which, in my last three lectures, 1 pointed out, as most prominently distinguishing the church of Rome, were indeed equally condemned by all the Reformers; but still upon two or three points of Christian doctrine, differences, or rather shades of opinion arose, which, as they were with great heat maintained on the one side and on the other, produced among the first leaders of the Protestant churches dissentions but too violent, and at once destructive of union, and prejudicial to the common cause. The doctrine of transubstantiation, for example, was indeed disclaimed by all; but the nature of Christ's presence in the sacrament was differently understood by the different individuals. In particular Luther, from a partial adherence to old ideas, came to entertain the notion of what he termed consubstantiation : he held that the body and blood of Christ substantially existed in the sacrament, though not alone, but united with the bread and wine; so that both the one and the other were taken by the communicants. This approached so near to the popish doctrine, it so naturally led to all the same consequences, that we cannot wonder at its being rejected by Zuinglius, and other eminent Reformers'. Besides this, those great

In consequence of which they were most unmercifully abused by Luther, as the Romanists do not fail to remind us. It is remarkable, that in Mosheim's Ecclesiastical History, the word

points of predestination and free will, and the extent of divine grace, which, after their agitation by St. Austin, and his immediate successors, had been, as it were, laid by, and only furnished matter of speculation for the schools, now came again to be held forth as distinguishing tenets of sects, and from that time began to trouble and to divide the Protestant world.

It is well known with what heat and animosity the several parties maintained the contest which rose out of these, and the like questions. They who had been so heartily united in opposition to the tyranny of the see of Rome, all at once shewed a disposition to embrace one of the worst of its tenets. The Lutherans persecuted the Calvinists; while Calvin, on the other hand, was not backward in enforcing, by all the means in his power, a conformity to his opinions. In the mean time other sects arose, which revived ancient and almost forgotten heresies. The divinity of our Saviour, after an interval of near a thousand years, was again impugned; and in some cases the very foundations of civil society were directly attacked, and the standard of rebellion against the lawful magistrate was openly reared.

To these contests, upon points of doctrine,

"consubstantiation" is not to be found, which betrays a consciousness that the doctrine is not defensible, though as a Lutheran he could not expressly give it up.

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