principles. A sect is, in fact, a revolt against the authority of the Church, just as a faction is against the authority of the state; or, in other words, a sect is a faction in the Church, as a faction is a sect in the state; and the spirit which refuses obedience to the one, is equally ready to resist the other.' A position which will not be controverted but by those who feel themselves indisposed to admit the regular establishment of authority in either case.

But upon this head, it is to be feared, it may be said, "Iliacos intra muros peccatur." What from the loose writing of some of the clergy, and the general silence of the body, upon the constitution of the Christian Church, the subject is so grown out of knowledge, as to have lost almost universally its influence upon the mind. Ask an ignorant man why he separates from the Church, his answer probably will be, that he lives in a land of liberty where he has a right to worship God in the way he thinks proper. Ask a man of reading and understanding, and he will quote respectable authórity for the same opinion; whereas both one and the other might, it is probable, have continued members of the Church, had they been taught to form a correct notion of it. But when they have been led to consider the Church as a word of general and indiscriminate application, and religion itself as a subject of mere private opinion, independent of all authority; it is not to be expected that they should feel disposed to restrain a licence, of which, from the latitudinarian way of thinking and acting, in which they have been

* Boucher on the American Revolution. Discourse II.

educated, they conceive themselves born in rightful possession, megbey now and doqu Imede

The minister of the Church, however, who prays constantly against schism, should in consequence think it his duty to prevent Christians, as far as may be, from falling into, so dangerous, a sin. And whilst he remembers of what spirit, a Christian ought to be, the means made made use of by him for the purpose will be no other than what a Christian ought to employ. Following" (to make use of the words of the celebrated Mr. Locke) "the example of the Prince of Peace; who sent out his soldiers to the subduing of nations, and gathering them into his Church, not armed with the sword, or other instruments of force, but accoutred in that best armour, the Gospel of peace, and the exemplary holiness of Christian conversation,” aleb

Without pronouncing sentence, therefore, upon, or disturbing, those who are without the Church, his object will be to preserve those that still, remain in it. This he will do, by enabling them to form correct notions of the nature and constitution of the Christian Church; and by giving them such an explanation from time to time of its services, as may produce in them a rational attachment for its communion. Considering the Church, as a society, which has God for its founder, and Christian faith as the offspring of Divine revelation, he will regard the varying opinions of mankind upon those subjects rather as proofs of the weakness and incapacity of the human mind, than as illustrations of the truth. At the same time, therefore,

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that he is desirous of laying no unnecessary restraint upon human judgment in religious subjects, he will take care to point out the standard by which it should be regulated; a standard which draws the line between faith and credulity; between a sober inquiry after truth, accompanied with a proper respect for authority, and that licentiousness of opinion which knows no authority but its own, in a word, between that liberty with which Christ has made us free, and the liberty which the natural man is at all times disposed to make for himself.

But the clergy, some individuals of the body at least, have still more to answer for on this subject. A freedom of opinion on Church matters has led, as it might be expected, to a freedom of practice. Whilst some by their writings have put the establishment of the Church, as it were, quite out of sight; others by their conduct have openly withdrawn Christians from it, by becoming, in some cases, officiating ministers in the places of public worship independent of episcopal jurisdiction; in others, by their attendance at places of worship which are in an actual state of separation from the established Church of their country. How such conduct is consistent with the established government of the Church; how the circumstance of a minister of the Church taking upon himself to preach in a place of worship unlicensed by the bishop, is to be reconciled with canonical obligation;* with what propriety such a

* If the oath of canonical obedience mean any thing, it means obedience to the bishop according to the canons of the Church.

minister can, in the liturgy of the Church, pray against schism in the place where he is in the actual commission of the sin; are points upon which I feel myself at a loss to determine. For, as I have always understood, the schism of which such a minister is guilty, strictly corresponds with that sin, against which the Apostles and first bishops so loudly inveighed, which consisted in breaking the unity of the Church by a separation of particular congregations from the authority of their respective bishops.* But exclusive of this important consideration, there is, moreover, (as the subject strikes me) something like two fallacies practised upon this occasion. The proprietors of these separate places of worship, by sheltering them under the Toleration Act, prostitute an act of the legislature

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Taking it in this light, I do not see how those of the clergy, who renounce episcopal jurisdiction, by officiating in," , or attending, in direct defiance of the canons, at places of worship separated from the establishment, can be secure from the charge of at least virtual perjury. 1964

*St. Cyprian considered that the unity of the Christian Church was liable to be broken two ways, by heresy and schism.

Diabolus hæreses invenit et schismata; quibus scinderet unitatem." CYPR. de Unit. Eccl. § 2. In allusion, therefore, to this distinction, after having, with an eye to the profession of the same faith, exemplified the unity of the Church in the words of St. Paul: " unum corpus, et unus spiritus, una spes vocationis vestræ, unus Dominus, una fides, unum baptisma, unus Deus," he proceeds to point out that other bond of unity, by which it was designed that the Christian Church should be held together. "Nemo fraternitatem mendacio fallat; nemo fidei veritatem perfidâ prævaricatione corrumpat; episcopatus est unus; cujus a singulis in solidum pars tenetur."-CYPR. de Unit. Eccl. § 4.

to a purpose for which it was never made. By so doing, what was designed only as an indulgence to those who dissented from the Church, becomes ministerial to the actual division of the Church itself. This is a fallacy practised upon the legislature buod/460 - 25.a.

But there is still another fallacy attached to these separates places of worship, which, though it may not be designed, ought to be guarded against. The adoption of the liturgy of the Church of England serves as a decoy to many well-meaning Christians who, from their perfect ignorance with respect to the nature of the Christian Church, and the sin of schism, conclude, that if they attend the Church service, it matters not where it is performed, or by whom and thus become schismatics, without knowing that they are so.

It may be a position inadmissible in the present day, though founded on the basis of truth and propriety, that no clergyman of the Church ought to appear, much less to officiate, in any place of public worship, separated from that establishment of **By the Act of Toleration, those who declare themselves dissenters from the Church of England are exempted from certain penalties, on their taking certain oaths. But in places of worship here alluded to, such as Lady Huntingdon's chapel in Bath, as it is called, and others of a similar kind, the parties assembled are not dissenters from the Church of England; for they make use of its services, and have at times a clergyman of the Church of England for their officiating minister; they are, therefore, a sort of separatists from the Church, at the same time that they conform to it: a fallacy which, it might be hoped, no clergyman of the Church of England would countenance, because it tends to defeat an object which he, as a minister of the establishment, ought to have at heart.