Word itself. The holiest exhortations, so Scripture teaches, could not avail, but for the parallel and hidden movements of that grace which in Christianity makes religion a power instead of a form. One may say to a man, and say truly, "You are God's creature, you ought to serve your Creator." But that word ought," which carries with it, in the mind of a deeply-penitent man, a resistless energy, has no stringency to our natural perceptions: perhaps even the naked proposition might be denied-at all events its results would be evaded. We have not therefore yet arrived at the means by which a spiritual life is actually brought home to the heart of man. It is not the sound doctrine, nor even the presenting of that wholesome food to the heart as a seed is laid in the ground, nor the appreciation of the stimulants of fear, and hope, and unappreciable love. There is still wanting a mystical and secret link between the knowledge implanted, in which its spiritual uses lie locked as in a kernel, and the character of the man: that connection, that capacity of intercommunication, between the heart of the man who is to know and the heart of the thing which is to be known-that power of extracting the nutriment on the one side, which seconds and meets the capacity of yielding it on the other, must be supplied by the inscrutable agency of divine grace. 87. This gem, destined for an earthly use, requires a casket-this casket a keeper. The casket is found in the Holy Sacraments; the keeper in their appointed, hereditary, and perpetual guardians. By these living agents is the dispensation of God made living in its external form, as it is in its inward energy. By their custody it is kept decently apart from the crowd and the tumult of earthly things; and, separated a little from the stage of our perpetual conflicts, it is more conspicuous to the eye of the weary ones who seek for rest. The Word, trenchant as it is, speaks not to them by whom it is unopened; the Sacraments feed not them who do not repair to their dispensation; the providential machinery of life has no beauty, no meaning, to our dull eye, reluctant to perceive the nearness of the Almighty; by a standing apostolic ministry that system of instruments, which is found at best, not always, alas! to win back the sheep that are astray, is completed; the word and voice of God are made importunate-are brought to the very door of the heart of man; if perchance, though he will not rise from his bed of self-centered repose for love of the voice that calls, yet even for peace' sake he will unbar and open it. Are not these then great moral and great spiritual uses? And when we have more accurately adapted our lives to the framework of the Catholic system, and have so more deeply drunk into its spirit, shall we not see its beauty more keenly, shall we not feel its purposes more profoundly, and be less crude and more persuasive in telling of them? 88. I know not the way of access to those minds which are satisfied to put aside the contemplation of the essential and inherent character of tenets claiming to be true and authoritative, because they can find that priests have been sometimes ignorant, ambitious, cruel. "The love of contest and the lust of blood Dwell in the depths of man's original heart." * They are still our frail and sinful brethren; yet amidst the wild and wayward scenes of human destiny they have diffused commonly a sanctifying, and almost uniformly a softening influence. May there be mercy for them and us! 89. We must beware of judging unjustly from narrow and partial views, and likewise of defrauding ourselves from the same cause. Yes: these are days when we have especial need to take heed to ourselves, and to watch, if it might be, hundred-eyed, against these assaults upon the faith which are, perhaps more than ever, proceeding not only from † our flesh and blood, but from " principalities and powers," from 66 "the rulers of the darkness of this world," and from 'spiritual wickedness in high places." The Church must be the more careful to take unto herself the whole armour of God; and particularly to guard the doctrines of spiritual grace as the mainsprings of the whole Christian dispensation, and the institutions wherein, as in inner fortresses, those powers are lodged. If there be a tendency in the men of the present age to lower the estimate of those institutions, it is their misfortune. Let not those whom the Church has taught * The Fall of Alipius, by R. M. Milnes, M.P. by lukewarmness contribute to their remaining under their delusion. If the vital powers of the Gospel be denied, and the vineyard of the Lord ravaged by a proud and most irrational presumption, if "the boar out of the wood doth waste it, and the wild beast of the field devour it," they can at least raise unceasingly the voice of earnest prayer: "Return, we beseech thee, O God of Hosts! look down from heaven, and behold and visit this vine; and the vineyard which thy right hand hath planted, and the branch that thou madest so strong for thyself.' *Ps. lxxx. 13-15. CHAPTER VI. THE SPECIFIC CLAIM OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND. 1-4. Question whether the Church of England has Catholic rights. 5, 6. Materially affects the question of legal establishments. 7-15. The distinct guarantees for her creed and her historical continuity. 16-19. Presumption in favour of the Dissenter as against the Deist. 20-27. And of the Church as against the Dissenter. 28. The argument against Romanism is separate. 29-37. Question of historical identity considered. 38. Conclusion in the affirmative. 1. I AM now about to offer some arguments upon the claim of the Church of England on our adhesion and allegiance. It is not proposed in this place to deal with the details of her constitution; with her theological distinctions; with her pure and noble services; with her advantageous position for re-uniting bodies now in a state of conflict or of reciprocal alienation; with her excellent social influences; or with her humane and tolerant spirit: these, so far as they exist, are all the natural results of her doing that which history shows her to have done, viz. of taking and keeping her stand upon the line of ancient and divine ordinance in all essential matters of ecclesiastical polity. The argument of this chapter is for her claim to be regarded as the Church of the country; not to be made such, but to be acknowledged such: and this not as matter of favour, of encroachment, of bare human preference, however authoritative, but of descent |