Scotland (the discipline of which has always been preserved stricter than in her sister churches,) it has become, as a zealous Presbyter of that communion laments, a prevailing opinion, that there is no difference of any moment between the present (Presbyterian,) Establishment and the Episcopal Church; and consequently that there is no ground for preferring the communion of the one to the other, except in taste or convenience; and what renders the matter worse, they who entertain this opinion are confident in asserting, and zealous in recommending it; and at the same time take to themselves no little praise for being, as they phrase it, charitable, moderate, and liberal in their sentiments. See The Difference between the Episcopal Church, and the Presbyterian Establishment in Scotland, 1811.

Such opinions and practices are undoubtedly evils of the greatest magnitude, and which require the united exertions of the clergy and laity to counteract in due time. It is not so much to the efforts of her enemies, as to the long continued supineness of her own sons, that this general laxity of principle in the church is to be imputed. The clergy have solemnly promised at their ordination to "be ready, with all faithful diligence, to banish and drive away all erroneous and strange doctrines contrary to God's word," and it is chiefly to their exertions we must look for the preservation of the unity of the church. "It is incumbent on us, stewards and ministers of the gospel

(says the present apostolic Bishop of St Davids,) to see, that the people committed to our charge, especially our poorer brethren, be not left ignorant of so essential a part of the knowledge and duty of a christian, as the knowledge of the nature and constitution of the Church of Christ, and of the duties of church fellowship and christian Unity. Ignorance is the foundation of Schism: Ignorance of the great duty of christian unity, and the great sin of dissension and disunion. It is ignorance which exposes men to be "carried about with every wind of doctrine,” and to be confounded by “oppositions of science, falsely so called." First Principles, Pref.

There are two extremely improper practices I shall here take notice of, which have arisen from that general ignorance of sound principles so prevalent at present, and have contributed more than any thing else to the increase of schism and disunion. The first I allude to is the scandalous practice of the members of the church occasionally frequenting the meeting-houses, and chapels of Methodists, Papists, and other Sectaries. Nothing almost can be more unscriptural and more at variance with the discipline of the purest ages of the church, (See p. 145.) If a member of our communion be even invited to attend a charity sermon at such places, let him send his alms (if he is so inclined,) but let him not scandalise his christian profession by countenancing those who "make divisions contrary to the doctrine which he

has learned. That excellent little book, The Faith and Practice of a Church of England-Man,, by Dean Stanley, very explicitly represents the opinion of a churchman on this head: "I conscientiously forbear going to any irregular unlawful assemblies, though only out of curiosity, because my being there but once, and out of no bad design, is a giving them countenance and encouragement, and is also a putting myself out of God's protection, by tempting him in running myself into evil and danger, which he may justly suffer me to fall into; and again, I religiously abstain from communicating with heretical or schismatical congregation, for they break the unity of the body of Christ, and disobey lawful authority in the church," &c. See the 5th Dublin Edition, 1733, published by the Bishop of Kilmore, p.

34.

any

Nearly in an equal degree injurious to the unity of the church, and unpropitious to the cause of christianity, are those societies formed lately for the purpose of distributing bibles to the poor, and composed of Churchmen and Dissenters of all descriptions*. For can we consider any society to be propitious to the cause of general christianity, which presents the novel spectacle of Churchmen and Dissenters of every kind, not even ex

*I allude in particular to the British and Foreign Bible Society. It is not from the distribution of bibles that the adversaries of the mixed societies apprehend danger. On the contrary, they are all unanimous in asserting that the more widely the scriptures are disseminated, the greater in all respects must be the good produced

cepting Socinians, joining hand in hand to present the Bible as the common standard of their respective opinions. Can any thing be more likely to produce a total indifference to all the modes of faith, than this strange and unnatural combination? And will they not lead the objects of their bounty to suppose, that each admits the peculiar tenets of the rest to be really contained in scripture. A more ingenious project for neutralising the sacred pages never was invented.— But the poor are not only thus exposed to the hazard of confounding true and false doctrine by the provision of such societies, but their reverence for the priesthood is also necessarily diminished by it. When they are told that every clergyman is, on account of his sacred function, a member of the committee, and that every Dissenting teacher and Methodist preacher is, for the same reason, invested with the same privilege ;-what inference must they be expected to draw, but this, that in the opinion of this great and increasing society, there is no difference between the characters and pretensions of those various persons, to whom it has thus given equal rank in its committee.

But even without arguing from its proper *and natural consequences, it is the bounden duty of every true churchman to oppose such combinations, being plainly contrary to those commands of the apostles, which forbid us to consent to go hand in hand, and have one common object in religious matters, with heretics or schismatics

of any description*. I am sorry, observes the zealous Wordsworth, to recognise the names of several clergymen of known respectability, whose precipitance and ill-disciplined disposition to be doing good, without due enquiry concerning the means, has drawn them in to become dupes of this indigested and pernicious undertaking; I intreat they will re-consider their doings. If, says Dr Marsh, churchmen in general resolved to act by themselves in the distribution of bibles and prayer books, and Dissenters formed another society for the distribution of bibles alone, the two societies might act, without mutual bitterness, and without an encroachment on each others rights. -Surely harmony may be preserved without requiring that one party shall sacrifice to the other.

Having now distinctly shewn in what manner this Treatise is applicable to Protestants in general, I shall next consider it in reference to the members of the Romish Church. The corrupt religion of this once powerful sect, we must re'collect, is not extinct. It has indeed, of late years wonderfully revived, and rears its crest in these realms with all the ardour of confidence. Mi. racles, too, are pretended to be wrought in testi

* The Committee of the Belfast branch of this Bible Society (Address, Belf. 1812. p. 3.) speak of it in very appropriate terms: "Do we not here behold a new thing upon earth? Christians of different denominations forgetting their differences," &c. A new thing indeed (novum monstrum in terris,) totally unknown since the first preaching of Jesus Christ to the present time!