But the apostle says, Faith in Christ Jesus. This is the peculiar, and though not the exclusive, yet the principal and transcendent, and, if justification is regarded, the appropriate and saving object of christian faith.

The general object of faith, as I have said, is all the truth revealed by God in holy Scripture. The object of justifying faith is Christ Jesus as Mediator and Saviour; Christ predicted by the prophets -Christ shadowed forth by the ceremonial lawChrist exhibited in the Gospel-Christ expiring on the cross-Christ offered to man universally for the remission of sins and the other great purposes of salvation.

The peculiar and appropriate act of justifying faith, is that by which we apprehend, for ourselves individually, the free promise of pardon and eternal life made through the merits and sufferings of Christ; which justifying faith, being a holy principle, and including the belief of all that God has made known to us in his word, "works by love," and produces obedience.

And so the apostle adds, And love to all the saints. Love is a habit divinely created, by which the will is inclined to love God above all things, and everything else on account of God.

Love is a fruit of the spirit, and can never be separated from faith, though it may, and is, from a merely dead historical belief, like that of the devils, "who believe and tremble."

It is the practice of the modern divines, against

whose errors I wish to guard India, to imitate their predecessors of the Council of Trent, and separate faith from love, asserting that faith is formed by love or charity. This is in order to overthrow the righteousness of faith in our justification, by making charity a joint instrument of it; but is in plain contradiction to the Scripture, which teaches us, not that faith is formed by charity, but, on the contrary, that charity is formed and produced by faith, as its proper fruit, and that it is faith alone that jus

tifies.

Love embraces all men generally, but especially in proportion as we discern in them the character of saints. And if the hatred and reproaches of the world fall upon them, it is only attracted the more strongly towards them, as being most in need of our help.

Love is nourished by contemplation, intercourse, acts of mutual aid, affectionate remembrance, defence of our brethren when defamed, admonition when in fault, tenderness in dealing with them when differences of opinion and controversies exist; attempts to lessen grounds of dissension, and widen those of agreement; to put the best interpretation on doubtful actions, and to rejoice in the least opening for peace-all crowned with habitual meekness of spirit and deportment.

Love is not the giving up our conscientious convictions this is cowardice; nor is it the denying their real importance-this is latitudinarianism; nor

is it the mixing of all opinions together-this is in doctrine scepticism, and in discipline confusion. No. Love adheres firmly to its own fixed principles, sustained by faith and a good conscience, and yields not the least in what it views as essential truth; and yet regards with candour opposite errors, especially if they are not fundamental, and loves the persons of those who hold them, if they are, so far as they bear the image of Christ. Love abstains from controversy, when duty will allow; spares an adversary, where it is possible; conducts its arguments with fairness and temper; and, if it be possible, stifles the rising irritation at once, and returns to all the offices and occupations of peace.

Let this, then, be our Christianity-faith in Christ Jesus, and love to all the saints; and in a day of unavoidable controversy like the present, when some of us are compelled to " contend earnestly for the faith once delivered to the saints," let us watch our motives, spirit, word, conduct, that all may be done with the love which becometh our christian character. By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples," said our Lord, "if ye have love one to another." "Now abideth," says the apostle, faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity."

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Note, p. 15.—In a proper sense, our church holds the apostolical succession, that is, the succession of bishops to the ordinary and permanent official functions of the apostles, with the careful exclusion of all claims to direct inspiration and unerring judgment. This

we hold to be deducible from the appointments of Timothy and Titus, and to be designed to be continued, for the purposes of the ordination of presbyters; for "supplying the things that are wanting;" for "charging some that they preach no other doctrine;" for confirming the young; for "exhorting and rebuking," not merely in the way of brotherly counsel, but " with all authority;" for "rejecting" and separating "heretics after a first and second admonition;" and preserving generally the unity of the church and the purity of the faith.

All this was distinctly committed, as we think, by the apostles, with a delegated authority during their lives, to Timothy and Titus, as appears by the Epistles addressed to them. By the close of the first century, this plan of church-polity seems to have been fully established, as the letters addressed to the bishops or angels of the seven Asiatic churches prove. And that it so continued, as all history testifies, till the sixteenth century, none can deny, nor do any deny. Some of the reformed churches were, however, then compelled, with great and avowed reluctance, to follow another platform, by the impossibility of obtaining bishops. Our English reformers still considered them, however, sound sister churches. For though she accounts episcopacy to be of divine authority, being established by the apostles, who were divinely inspired to settle the infant flocks, and whose example she justly considers generally binding; yet, as there was no express command delivered by Christ himself, or his apostles, for the continuance of this exact model of ecclesiastical polity and no other, she defines a church, in its essential properties only, as "a congregation of faithful men, in the which the pure word is preached, and the sacraments be duly ministered," &c., Art. xix.; that is, she does not consider episcopacy as of the essence of a church-or, as Bishop Hall well expresses it, (with whom agree all our best divines from the Reformation,) she regards episcopacy as not essential to the being, though it is to the well-being of a church. And then in Article xxxvi., and the preface to the Ordinal, she adds to the above general definition, her own explanation and application of it as to her own commu

nion. And here she stops, without condemning or unchurching other christian communities less perfectly constituted.

I make this statement because I observe sometimes in works in the present controversy, written by authors not well acquainted with the subject, and, as I presume, not members of our church, that the mildest assertion of episcopacy is unjustly charged with an arrogance which we abhor and disclaim.

It is of great importance that the clergy in India should be well grounded in the plain and acknowledged principles of our Protestant Episcopal Church, so as to know what they really are, and to be able to stand immoveably and consistently on them, without being tossed about by the arrogant claims of Romanists on the one hand, or the loose statements of members of the reformed churches abroad or Separatists at home, on the other.

So also as to the most salutary connexion of the church with the state, which we hold to be both expedient and lawful, and to be founded on the clear example of the most pious princes, and those most commended by the Almighty in the Old Testament— an example, as it appears to us, not resting on the Mosaic dispensation or its ceremonial or judicial code, but on the essential duty of a prince towards the people committed to his charge, to diffuse the means of religious instruction throughout the whole mass of his population, in the form most agreeable to scripture truth, and most conducive, upon the whole, to the end in view; leaving an entire freedom to individuals to follow their conscientious convictions, if they peaceably prefer another course.

A reaction is always to be guarded against in such a controversy as the present, both as to doctrine and polity; and in a country like India, where our church has been so recently planted, it is necessary for the clergy to know their true position; and, whilst avoiding popery and semi-popery, not to fall into wildness and confusion.