SECTION XXXI.

Of Uniting with Professing Christians Exterior to the Protestant Episcopal Church.

"Can two walk together, except they be agreed.”Amos iii. 3.

Q. Is not disunion the result of acting with spurious liberality?

A. Bishop White says, "Of all mistaken expedients for the increase of union, there cannot be any one of them more delusive than the prospect here contemplated; professed to be for the combining in worship of bodies of Christians, now disjoined. Instead of this, it tends to the opposite effect of dividing our Church, as existing in its present forms; and, into how many separate

* Gen. Theol. Sem., Address, 1828, p. 10.

and perhaps hostile communions, it is impossible to foresee."

Q. Is it true liberality for Churchmen to join in religious exercises, when all distinctive principles are lost sight of?

A Bishop White says, "It was expressed to be a specious but delusive profession of liberality, inviting us to join in religious exercises, and in religious instruction whether delivered orally, or through the channel of the press; in which it is understood, that all distinctive principles are to be lost sight of; and there is to be the sole object of regarding truths, on which the members of the different communions are agreed."

Q. What is Bishop White's opinion as to the authority or consistency of

* Gen. Theol. Sem., Address, 1828, p. 4.

such as give their patronage to schismatical bodies?

A. Bishop White, speaking of Dr. Haweis, says, "There is propriety in informing such readers, that Dr. Haweis although an ordained and beneficed minister of said Church, (of England) was in the habit of openly giving his patronage to societies, withdrawing from its communion and rejecting the obligation of its institutions. By what process of reasoning he may have reconciled such conduct to consistency of character and fidelity to engagements, is here unknown. The only reason for recording the fact, is that it may be a protest against any use of his authority, as that of a clergyman of the Church of England."

* Comp. Views, vol. i. p. 408.

SECTION XXXII.

Of Revivals, True and False.

"And after the earthquake a fire; but the Lord was not in the fire: and after the fire a still small voice."1 Kings xix. 12.

"That they may truly please thee, pour upon them the continual dew of thy blessing."-From the Prayer Book.

Q. Give Bishop White's view on the subject of Revivals.

A. Bishop White says, "The expression 'revival,' applied to religion, being rendered indefinite by the variety of forms in which it appears; there may be propriety, in the author's declaring of his sense of the distinction between the use and the abuse of it.

"Exercises professedly religious, but, manifesting less either of the operation of the intellectual faculty, or of affections marked by the acknowledged graces of

*Gen. Theo. Sem. Address, 1828, p. 18, 19, note.

the Gospel, than of the excitement of animal organization, and extended principally by the power of sympathy, are not here understood under the term in question.

"In the New Testament, there are records of occasions, when, from the concurrence of favorable circumstances, there issued excitements of religious sensibility and of disposition to religious inquiry, without the notice of any such accompanyment: as when the Baptist addressed the crowds attendant on his ministry: as when our Saviour delivered to a concourse of people his Sermon on the Mount; as when he worked a miraculous provision for the five thousand; and, as when on the preaching of St. Peter, there were added to the Church about three thousand souls. If, in exercises so different from any thing found in these instances there are to be con