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Les diagrammes suivants illustrent la m6thode. / errata id to It ie pelure, pon d 1 2 3 32X 1 2 3 4 5 6 1)1 A CHARGE DELIVERED TO THE CLERGY OF THE DIOCESE OF QUEBEC, IN CHRIST-CHURCH, AT MONTREAL, (Being the Parish Church oj that City^) It AT THE TRIENNIAL VISITATION, IN 1848. !l BY GEORGE J. MOUNTAIN, D.D., LORD BISHOP OF MONTREAL, {Administering that Diocese.) PUBLISHED AT THE REQUEST OF THE CLERGY. QUEBEC-PRINTED BY T. CARY. 19^20, Buade Street. 1848. My to r remt spot smo mon Pro^ gloo effec froii] som acco to-di and has year Stan exte and Qua edb mar (inf curr prov mer dem beer dang than wise rabh a cl( teer. ♦ 1 raedi the ii The 1 My Reverend Brethren, THE last occasion upon which we were permitted to meet in Visitation, was marked, as most among you will remember, by an exceedingly awful public calamity, upon the spot where we were assembled. — We stood in the midst of yet smoking ruins, — the second conflagration, which, within a month after the first, devastated the ancient metropolis of the Province, having just freshly occurred. Alas ! there is a deeper gloom now thrown over our meeting: we meet under the effects brought home to our own body, of a far sadder scourge from the hand of our God. We look for the familiar faces of some of our brethren in the ministry of the Church, who, according to all human calculation, would have been among us to-day-r-but gaps have been made in the circle : — they are gone, and their place is nowhere found upon earth. A recent stroke has added one to the mournful list of the victims of the past year — a stroke the more felt because unexpected, for circum- stances which are of public notoriety, have diminished the extent and altered the character of emigration from Ireland, and the amount of sickness and the number of deaths at the Quarantine Station, during the attendance of our lately deceas- ed brother, — so far from resembling the state of things which marked the summer of 1847, was, beyond all precedent, small — (in fact, only one death among the Protestant patients had oc- curred at the station when he left .t) — added to which, the ample provisions which, in consequence of the severe lesson of a for- mer season, have been made by public authority, to meet the demands of the case, and the admirable regulations which have been established in the hospitals, have sensibly lessened the danger of infection, which I believe to bo less, at this moment, than in any former year.* Yet, so it has been ordered by the wisdom of God that, although, with the exception of the memo- rable afflictions of last year, it had never happened that we lost a clergyman in this service, the very first of our faithful volun- teers who now undertook it, has already fallen. Precious in * This opinion has been since justified by events. No other clergyman, no medical gentleman, nor any of the subordinate functionaries and attendants at the island, have contracted fever iip to this date, (the middle of September). The number of Protestant interments during the whole summer has been 18, I ( I the sight of the Lord is the death of his Saints. Honored be the names among men, and dear be tlic memories of those devoted servants of God who counted not their lives dear unto them, while ministering to their humbler brethren in scenes of death and horror, and who, melancholy and grievous as has been the loss to their families and friends, have themselves finished their course with joy and are gone to their reward in Christ. To me, I hardly need point out that, as I was to a certain extent concerned in causing this exposure to danger of such among our martyr-clergymen, (in this sense) as contracted the disease at the Quarantine Island, (being one half of the whole number who have died,) there is here an aggravation of poignancy in the sorrowful sense of our loss. Yet suffer me to mention some comfort which I have derived from the thought, not only that our Clergy, with no suggestion from their Bishop, were found at the post of danger in every other spot where the lever prevailed, and that the case, therefore, was not peculiar, of those to whom 1 proposed, last year, (of course, without enjoining it,) a share of the Quarantine duty ; but also, that even including those who served at that station, there was not one victim, who fell simply in the execution of the duty which I had indicated. The established term of duty was only for a week — the two who were taken from us last antumn, both voluntarily out-staid their time, — one of them by his own express and earnest desire, had remained six weeks at the Island, — and, in human probability they might, but for their spontaneous extension of their term of service, have been here among us this day. With reference to the present season, you are aware, my brethren, that I made no suggestion whatever to individu£ils, upon the subject, — the occurrences to which I am here adverting, having caused me to shrink from assuming such a responsibility. Deeply as we must deplore the loss of so many valuable lives, and severely as it must tell upon the interests committed to us, there can, I think, be but one sentiment, when the case is fairly and fully considered, respecting the plain duty lying upon the Church to supply the service in question. It would have been monstrous, it would have been outrageous, to leave the Protestant sufferers at Grosse Isle, after our Chaplain be- came disabled, untended by the ministry of the Gospel — and no means existed to supply this want, but in the succession of visits from clergymen at a distance Upwards of five thousand Honored ies of those cs dear unto in scenes of vous as has themselves ir reward in ; I was to a to danger of IS contracted e half of the gravation of suffer me to the thought, their Bishop, ot where the not peculiar, irse, without }ut also, that 'lere was not of the duty of duty was \ last antumn, n by his own yeeks at the but for their ve been here it season, you on whatever ;es to which I rom assuming any valuable sts committed fvhen the case in duty lying »n. It would 30US, to leave Chaplain be- (spel — and no succession of five thousand $ four hundred bodies were buried in the Island during the single summer of 1847. In such a scene ol death and human wretch- edness, dreadful beyond conception in some of its details, and unsurpassed in the annals of history, it was not the part of the Ciiurch of England to leave her people to die like dogs, nor to deny to the bereaved and desolate survivors, to the helpless orphans and the heartbroken widows, who multiplied from day to day upon the Island, the soothing ministrations and the sea- sonable care and counsel of her faithful pastors. Among the sick and dying themselves, there were, no doubt, many examples 01 a condition in which from the operation of different causes, the ministrations of the Church can be of little avail — but even in these it was a satisfaction to be at hand and to do all of vyrhich the case might admit — while in a vast multitude of other instances, the Clergy, I well know, and I may appeal to breth- ren who are here present,— I might appeal to the testimony of those who are gone and the assurances of the last of whom, to this very effect, are, as it were, still sounding in my ears, — the Clergy, I well know, are prepared to spy that they found their labours most affectionately appreciated, and, as they had reason to hope, profitably applied — that their presence was hailed and the return of their visits was longed for, by the languishing sufferers among whom, from building to building and from tent to tent and from ship to ship, they made their unceasing rounds, — and that a gleam of joy, — yes, and not seldom, of holy joy would light up the sunken or all but closing eye, at seeing, charged, perhaps, with the sacred m.emorials of the sacrifice upon the cross, the messenger and representative of him who, in the days of his flesh, himself took our infirmities and hare our sicknesses ; who went about doing good and healing all thatwere oppressed of the devil ^ and who in laying down his life for us all, bequeathed to us the lesson, as we are expressly taught, although cur deaths cannot make the purchase of souls, that w& ought to lay down our lives for the brethren. The case here in our contemplation, has been practically recogniz- ed by the Clergy of this Diocese, as constituting such a call :— they have not all taken a share in the task — it was not needed, it was not possible that they should, — nor is any inference to be made on this account, in the way of unfavorable comparison — but, in every place where the call existed, clergymen of the Church have been found to respond to it — and, may God give us all grace, more and more, to appropriate the language of the e holy Apostle, in this or in any other case, should it ever arise, seeming to involve a risk of life in the cause of Christ, Fea and though I be offered upon the service and sacrifice of your faithy I joy and rejoice with you all. I have been prom[)ted to make these observations, because, among the laity of the Diocese who lament the loss of their Clergy, and who have not personally witnessed the exigencies which called them into scenes of danger, there have been questions raised, here and there, respecting the expediency or even justifiableness of their being so employed ; and reference, as I suspect, has, in some instances, been made to a Canon (the 67tb) which exempts a clergyman from any compulsory attend- ance upon persons in his parish, labouring under maladies which are known or probably suspected to be infectious. The Rubrics, however, in the Office of the Visitation of the Sick, which I conceive to be decidedly the preferable authority of the two, plainly suppose the attendance of the Clergy, even in the dead- liest prevalence of plague. Would it not have been a reproach, — a disgrace would be the more appropriate term, — to the Church of England, to have lefl all the sick and dying Protes- tants at the Quarantine Island, to the care and instruction of Priests of the Church of Rome,* never slackening in their la- * I think it scarcely worth v'Jle to notice here a construction which I have been informed that it has been attempted, in certain quarters, to put upon the zeal of the Church of England Clergy in the matter here in question, as if their MOTIVE in exposing their lives and wearing themselves down with fatigue in scenes (when the calamity was at its height) at once appalling and loathsome, had been merely to keep pace with the Church of Rome. If there are quarters in which this motive is imputed, it can be of little use to set persons right who are so falsely and so injuriously prepossessed as to entertain and seek to propagate such a notion. Common sense and charity concur in looking for an adequate motive in a higher source. I will here take the opportunity of observing that, from the different nature of the two systems, the labour of our own Clergy among the sick is far more severe than that of the Clergy of the Church of Rome, it being only looked for from the latter in their official capacity, (although they assiduously went about among the receptacles of the sick and shewed them all friendly attention, in the different stages and degrees of sickness,^ that they shcild, once for all, take the confession of the dying and administer tr.e last rites to them, — whereas, in the case of the /orme?*, their spiritual office is exercised day after day, with the same patient for weeks or even months together. If the remark be just which I have made above, lespecting the prepossessions of those who are reported to have misconstrued the motives of our Clergy, what shall be said of the spirit and feeling of men who, in another direction, have pertinaciously studied to throw odium upon some of our Missionaries, in very truth a poverty-stricken Clergy, who gave their unpaid labotirs of love at the Quarantine Station, because they were simply rc-imhursed by the Government for extraordinary expenses incurred in fhcir visits, paid in many instances, from it ever arise, ist, Vea and fice of your ns, because, loss of their e exigencies have been cpediency or 1(1 reference, a Canon (the Isory attend- ladies which rhe Rubrics, ck, which I of the two, in the dead- 1 a reproach, rm, — to the j'ing Protes- istruction of f in their la- 1 which I have to put upon the ition, as if their with fatigue in and loathsome, are quarters in s right who are ik to propagate for an adegwUe different nature ick is far more )nly looked for sly went about ittention, in the for all, take the vhereas, in the ■ day, with the prepossessions r Clergy, what lirection, have jnaries, in very 5 of love at the 10 Government instances, from lours, never shrinking from tlieir task, never abating in liieir zeal fur proselytism, and in the case winch wc are supposing, having all the advantage accruing from a discouraged or exaspe- rated feeling of the Protestant patients, on account of the neg- lect with which they were treated by their own Church ? — Would it not have been a reproach, ivould it not have been a disgrace, would it not have been an indelible, an everlasting stain in the pages of our history in the Colony, if, while physi- cians and magistrates and nurses and policemen and grave-dig- gers were found capable of braving the danger, and while mere secular motives prevailed to engage some of these parties in their respective service at the Island, or in other places within the Province where fever-hospitals were established, — the Clergy of the Church of England had turned their backs upon the scene of death and sorrow, and had shut their ears against the cry of the sick for their ministry, and the wail of the widow, needing to hear the words of life and pe^ice ? The Clergy who served at the Island had a sufficiently hard service to perform ; and in the t -nfusion of last summer, from the overwhelming flood poured in, of misery and disease, and the imperfect provisions which were at command for meeting the emergency, — the sick dying, at one time, by wholesale, from the mere want of attendance, and the entire establishment, notwithstanding an incessant watchfulness, and a wonderful de- gree of energy and administrative skill exhibited by the chief authority upon the spot itself, being carried on for a long time by strained expedients and inadequate shifts, — it was not easy to provide for the comfort and accommodation of the Clergy, in such a manner us might have been desired. But if any idea has been suffered to go abroad that the illness of the Clergy was lia- ble to aggravation from any oversighi in these points, the means are not wanting emphatically to contradict it. The Diocesan Church Society and other authorities concerned did their utmost to provide all that was needful, in this behalf. The Society charged itself unhesitatingly with the expenses to be incurred for the object, — as well as with all the expenses to which the Clergy were subjected by their visits to the Island ; includ- ing, in the case of those in whom the fever appeared after their the remote interior of the country, unable, as it is notorious they are, to bear any addition to their ordinary expenses ! jft is painful to think of a hostility against us having such a character as this. May God change it to a spirit of candour and of love ! f tlicir medical advisers; but the whole upon itself and the the return home, tlie charges ui Government ultimately took Society was reimbursed. It may be proper for the Clergy to know that, a public fast having been observed at home, in consequence of the calamities of Ireland, and communication of the Form adopted, having been made to the Bishops of these Colonies,(in some of which it was followed out in practice,) 1 did not fail strongly to urge the issue of a Proclamation for the same purpose, during the prevalence of the fever among ourselves ; but objections were found to exist which I did not succeed in my endeavours to overrule. In parting with this subject, I cannot forbear to express the thankfulness which we all ought to feel in seeing now among us some of our brethren who were, in consequence of their share in these labours of love, sick nigh unto death, but who have been spared to us, Icst^ in their cases, we should have sorrow upon sorrow^ — and spared, as we hope, for years of usefulness in the husbandry of God. We want, indeed, all that we can possibly make availably to carry on in this Diocese, the holy warfare committed to us ; for the demands increase from year to year, and, besides the sweep which has been made among us, by the cause to which I have been thus far directing your attention, there has been a very sensible diminution, in other ways, of our effective force. Within the last twelve months, or very little more, four Clergy- men have been permanently invalided ; two have gone to Eng- lend under medical certificates, for change of climate, and will remain at home ; one has gone home upon leave, on his private affairs, with an uncertainty attaching to his return ; and two highly promising students in theology at Bishop's College,one of whom would probably have been now ordained, if he had been spared, have perished by a casualty, in the river which washes the College-grounds. In all, we have sustained a loss of the service of fourteen clergymen, within the space of time just above indicated, and there are others in the Diocese who, from infirmity or broken health, are compelled to render nothing more than a limited amount of labour or a frequently interrupted course of performance, seeking, perchance, such help from their nearest brethren, as these, with their hands already full, can, by strained efforts, occasionally afford. My brethren, I men- tion these particulars because the difficulty of my own situation and the perplexity attaching to the discharge of my responsibi- 9 litics, is tlius very painfully incri^ascil ; tind I must rely not only upon you: n indulgence ol judgment, witli reference to the imperfect supp v '»f service in localities for which any of you ma) be particularly interested, but upon your endeavours to satisfy the minds of parties who may be ready to attribute what they suffer in tlie nay of spiritual destitution, to neglect and indifference on the part of the Church. With what«n'er slender pretensions upon any other grounds, to be compared to the Apostle, — in this one thing you may safely declare that your Bishop resembles him, that the questions are perpetually and distressingly brought home to his experience, — Uho is weak and I am not weak 7 — Who is offended and I burn not ? — Here is a Diocese, the largest in superficial r>xtent, with the exception of Calcutta, in the Hritish Empire, and over the whole inhabited portion of the 200,000 square miles which it comprehends, we have people belonging to us, scattered, a few here and a few there, demanding, in proportion to their num- bers, in order to their receiving, in many instances, even, a meagre supply of service, and with many of them still left un- supplied at all, an amount of ministerial labour infinitely beyond the capabilities of such a body of Clergy, j's we have resources at command for providing or maintain!. :g. To watch for opportunities of procuring accessions to the number of our la- bourers ; to reject the overtures of some and to adopt others, in nicely balanced cases ; to choose, in the majority of instances, their location ; to distribute them over the field, and to assign to them their work when they have been obtained and prei)ar- ed to go forth ; to decide between conflicting claims for their service, when appeals are made on the right hand and on the left ; to study the aptness of individuals for particular situa- tions, and to take into account a variety ol other considerations bearing upon this or that case, — to devise palliatives and tempo- rary expedients where the hope is yet distant of making effec- tual and permanent provision, — all this makes up a task under which the poor wisdom and ability of man, though far exceed- ing the measure vouchsafed to him -vho addresses you, might, without some measure also of that faith which relies upon a strengfh made perfect in human weakmss, sink down altoge- ther, and cannot, after all, expect to be saved from some error and miscalculation. But you have your own difficulties, my brethren, and you know something of mine, many of which, I owe it to you to say that you have lightened by your counsel, B li .1*" 10 your personal sacrifices,or your voluntary and offen severe exer- tions to supply the need of the Church. Let us be thankful to God for the seven recruits added to our ranks in the recent Ordination, and for the hopes of their efficiency which we are warranted to entertain. Let us be thankful for the establish- ment and eminent usefulness of that still infant and struggling institution, opened as the nursery of the Church in the Dio- cese, from which five among those recruits have been taken. Let us be thankful, — can we ever suffer any public occasion uf the Church to pass without some such acknowledgment ? — to the great Societies of the mother country, which, in addition to all the other accumulated benefits which we owe to them, have generously assisted this Institution, and one of which has enabled many zealous young men to prose- cute there their course of preparation, whom the res angusta domi would otherwise have for ever forbidden to devote them- selves to the work of the Gospel. It would also be unbecoming, upon the present occasion, to pass without notice the loss which that Society has sustained in the death of its venerated head^ who, for twenty years, had watchfully presided over its councils, and who, filling the highest ecclesiastical dignity in the established Church of the greatest empire upon earth, uniformly exhibited a pattern of meekness and charity combined with a highly practical wisdom and an unbending integrity of principle. It is pleasing to reflect that one of the last acts of his life was an act of bounty to the orphan family of a late clergyman of this Diocese — and it is more pleasing to know that in the approach of death, he felt, in all habitual humility of spirit, his own nothingness and natural sinfulness before God. It is not necessary to render a tribute, in the same manner, to the living : but all men of all parties are agreed that his succes- sor is a prelate of eminent ability, piety and zeal. Having noticed the College which owes so much to the So- ciety just mentioned, I am desirous of saying a very few words with reference to some circumstances which have tended to call it into existence and to establish it where it is. I allude parti- cularly to t^P necessity of providing such an institution, not- withstanding the previous existence of another College in this very city, considered to be under Protestant auspices and found- ed by the munificence of a member of the Church of England, of whose Au'orablo intentions towards his own Church, there 11 does exist evidence of the very highest respectability. The absence, however, of any explicit testamentary declaration to this etfect : — the mixed, and, tlius far, the utterly uncertain cha- racter of the institution in the grand point of religious control, the varying estimate formed even within the Church herself, of her own pretensions in the matter : — the protracted and up to this day unsettled questions whether any advantage at all shall be given to the Church of England within the establishment, or, if given, shall be given in a shape to secure the unimpeded operation of such a benefit, — the manifest disposition of the ruling powers to accommodate such institutions, when connect- ed, as in this instance, with the Government, to certain popu- lar notions in regard to distinctive privileges in Reliscion, — made it, altogether, impossible to wait, druggiug on, year by year, in an indefinite expectancy, till all these points shall be disposed of, and difficult to hope that they will ever be dispos- ed of, in a satisfactory manner. I do hope now, however, that the Professorship of Divinity in McGill College, will be settled once for all, in the hands of the Church of Eng- land, and also that no such pernicious anomaly will be there seen as that of different systems of divinity publicly taught, at the same time, within the same walls. Meanwhile, as I have said, it was impossible to wait — and the Theological Institution which was formed for directing the preparation of the students under the protection of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, has become a chartered and endowed College, with several Professorships in most efficient operation, (although the course has not yet been brought up to its destined mark,) — the whole Institution being placed by Provincial Statute, under the immediate control of the Bishop of the Diocese, and every branch and department of teaching being permanently under Church of England direction. There will not be, — at least there need not and ought not to be, biy interference or rivalry between the two Institutions. McGill College, whatever may have been its disasters and diffi- culties and causes of depression, comraencin'^ with a litigation carried on for twenty years, by the heirs at law of its founder,— however it may yet want any authenticated stamp, assured in perpetuity, of religious faith, — has, with reference to its due eetablishment and progressive extension, advantages, immedi- ately, in its location at the seat of Government, and, prospec- lively, in its expectations from the Legislature and the probable 12 il iuture augmcntatum of the value of its property ; and if llie establishment of the Divinity Professorship upon a proper foot- 'ng can be secured, then, in the event of a future division of the Dioce«!e, this Professorship may, in lack of a College wholly under Church auspices, such as that at Lennoxville, be the resource of the new .')iocese of Montreal, for the preparation of aspirants to the Ministry. A strange idea having at one time got abroad, — although probably to a very confined extent, — tnat, as President of the late Board of the Royal Institution, I had concurred in the recom- mendation submitted to the deceased Lord Metcalfe, of a scheme for what is called liberalizing McGill College, with rather a d&jhing hand, I here take the opportunity of stating that, upon the occasion in question, I addressed an official letter to that nobleman, which, of course, is upon record, expressly to con- vey my dissent from such a project.* While we are upon the subject of our Institutions within the Diocese, I will just glance, without going over ground which will be sufficiently explored in the meeting to be held this day, at the claims of the Diocesan Church Society to the ener- getic and enlarged support of our Clergy, and, mainly through our Clergy, of our people. It has pleased God to enable us to make some gratifying advances ; and we have, among other grounds of thankfulness, to acknowledge, within the past year, some bequests — specially one of the late Miss Fir lay, who has also been a bountiful benefactress, in the same way, to the poor of Quebec, and who having confided all her charitable legacies, except so far as she has specified the ohjeci of them, unreservedly to the hands of the Bishop, and having designated one of them to the relief of widows and orphans of the Clergy, has in a manner suggested, although she has not indicated, a recourse to the Church Society^ which opens a channel, by its constitution, for this particular department of christian bene- ficence. Upon these and upon some other points, we can rest with satisfaction in a review of the proceedings of the Society, whether as a whole or in its auxiliary subdivisions oi with reference to individual members, clerical or lay, — but a vast deal yet remains to be done before that Institution can be, as it ought to be with regard to the temporal resources for supplying the wants, and the temporal machinery for working the opera- • See Note A. - 13 tions, of the Church, identi'^ed with the Church itself in the Diocese. The Church Society must ultimately assume the same place in the Diocese which has been thus tar occupied by the Home Society for the Propagation of the Gospel — and in the mean time, must act as a kind cf hand-maid to the latter Institution, which has signified not obscurely, and upon very correct grounds, its purpose of making the continuance ol its own bounty contingent upon the manifestation of due sacrifices and exertions upon the spot, — with an indication of the Dioce- san Church Society as the medium to be employed for the pur- pose — and I have received recent communications re-asserting the proposed maintenance of such a principle.* , The Clergy, therefore, who receive stipends from the Home Society, will perceive the necessity under which they are placed, in the consistent maintenance of their relations with that Society, for exciting wherever it may not have been effectually done, an active interest on behalf of the Diocesan Institution in the minds of our people : but I indulge every hope that they, without any calculations of this particular neces- sity and that, with them, the Clergy who are unconnected with the Home Society, will persevere in enlarged and strenuous efforts to promote so vital an interest of the Church which they serve in love, f It is, indeed, quite time *hat the Church, her vninisters and her people should stand pre^ ared, by bringing into activity and profitably applying the resources which lie within her own bosom, for the necessity which may be not remote, of carrying on the work of religion, independently of any countenance and recognition of human government — (these, indeed, may be said here to be already withdrawn) — or any distant or extraneous aid. The whole aspect of the world, — we all see it, we all talk of it, — is pregnant with portentous change : the whole Jounda- tions of the earth are out of course : the whole frame of human society in continental Europe, — and Europe exercises a direct and powerful influence over the destinies of the world at large, — is convulsed : the signs of the times are sufficiently striking : the notes by which we are taught to descry an advanc- ing day of the Lord, and which it is needless that I should par- ticularize in addressing such an auditory as this, are very a • See Note B. t See Note C, 14 clearly discernible : the minds of men are, to a vast extent, un- settled : the hearts of some are falling them for fear ; the hopes of others are linked with that disturbance which they are helping on and that utter subversion which they anticipate of the estab- lished order of things. What struggles may yet come ; what ordained and predicted crisis in the Church of God, to be brought to its acme by the working of these political distempers, may now be approaching, — those are speculations from which I forbear : but surely we have a special call not only to stand with our loi?is girded and our lights burnings but to consider what we are going to do, and to put in train what we see is to be done, if these elements of agitation should burst violently upon our own heads, or, short of this, should operate changes which would alter both our relative and actual position and throw us, so far as human means are concerned, upon our own exertions alone. Regarding ourselves as Ministers of a Church which is the Church of the Monarchy, the Church of a proud and powerful empire, built in and consolidated at the seat of empire, with all the ancient L ilwarks of the realm, it is for that very reason that we must see the interests with which we are identified, to be exposed to danger ; and, although England has thus far stood unshaken in the revolutionary tornado which has been raging near her, and it has reached her only as a putf which her strength could defy, — yet does any man suppose that the spirit is permanently lulled and laid which has threatened dismemberment of her territories at home and abroad ? — Nay, on the part of the ruling powers themselves and the legislature of the Empire, comprising, as it may almost be said now to do, men of all creeds or no creed at all, have we not seen an inter- ference or a disposition to interfere, in points at once the most sacred and tender, with the Church, and to commence a sys- tem,which, if more fully carried out, must put in jeopardy the subsisting incorporation of the Church with the State? Have we not seen an apparent design to leaven the mass by the intro- duction, in her high places, of a peculiar class of opinions? — I am quite aware of the delicacy which may be considered to attach to this subject, but it is upon occasions like the present that matters creating excitement and difficultyiin the Church, should be laid before tlie Clergy, and the way in which they are to be regarded, should, so far as the ability is i, 'anted, be pointed out. And if half of the prelacy of England felt themselves called upon, in a particular conjuncture, to make an open stand against 15 an act of the Government, and the late venerable Primate lifted his own meek voice, then soon to be for ever eilent, in remon- strance, — let this, of itself, be a proof to all who love and know their Church, that the subject is one upon which a Bishop may be permitted and even called upon to speak, although he may- be but the Bishop of another Eugubium*, and with personal pre- tensions yet smaller than those connected with the worldly consi- deration of his See. Let none of us think, let none of us, so far as we can help it, suffer our people to think that these Prelates rushed under the impulse of a blind and hot-headed bigotry, to an unexamined conclusion and a rash and unwarranted act — or that the Bench is so composed as to make it possible that such a portion of it could stand forward in such a character and aspect. It is in this point of view only, that I wish to deal with the subject. Whatever motives may have withheld others, their brothers in the episcopate, although men concerned for the honor of God and the purity of faith in the Church, from unit- ing in so strong a measure, — whatever different view of the proceeding under consideration, may have been taken by some wise and good men with reference either to prudential considera- tions having the good of the Church for their object, or even to the merits of the question itself, — let it never be believed that such a movement would have been seen in the Church of England, either based upon mere shadowy surmises or prompt- ed by an intemperate spirit of party, I hardly need notice the insinuations, as improper and ungenerous as tiiey are unsup- ported by the very semblance of reality, that these Prelates, (from whom it is to be remembered that scarcely any of their own body have signified their dissent,) were secretly desirous of preventing the introduction of checks upon Romatiizing ten- tendencies within the Church : they are n)en in whose number there are eminent and victorious champions in the controversy with Rome, and men, as a body, incomparably better acquainted with that controversy and better prepared to conduct it upon safe grounds, than any who, in this point, would malign them ; and they are men whose motives, if for no other reasons, ought to be above suspicion, when it is remembered that there are • It is well known that this is the insignificant See, of which (amonj^ the multiplied testimonies which prove the early Church to have been opposed, no less than the Scriptures, to such pretensions as those of the Papal Supremacy,) St. Jerome takes the example, placing it upon a par with Rome herself, with reference to the original authority of the Episcopate, for wliich he asserts a complete independence of Romisli dictation. « ) M 16 -A several among ihem wh;» have been often named as probable successors to the Primacy of England, and who, if they had suffered themselves to be influenced by calculations respectmg their own worldly advancement, could not possibly fail to see that they were shutting the door against themselves once for all. In common justice to them and to the Church, we ought to believe and to maintain, whether we are among those who do or do not unreservedly subscribe to the propriety of their pro- ceeding, that they were impelled to stand forward in all recti- tude and conscientiousness of principle, because they were jealous with a godly jealousy^ both over the order, consis- tency and discipline of the Church and over the interests of God's everlasting truth. The character of the prelacy of England is calm, grave, and solid : and we may be well as- sured and ought to lay it to heart, that, if a large proportion of that body feel it their duly to assume, before the public, an attitude of protestation against the acts of the civil authority, it is more than a childish flash in the pan : it is an intelligible signal for those who navigate our goodly vessel, to look out for dangers which may or, as God may order it, may not be near — which may or may not come to pass. The grievous detriment done in very many ways to the Church, by the denial to her of her inherent privilege to meet by her accredited representatives, in stated and solemn delibera- tion, whether in General Convocation or Diocesan Synods, upon her own affairs, and some peculiar consequences of this ano- maly, affecting the Colonial branches of the Church, where cases and circumstances present themselves for disposal, not foreseen when our rules were originally fiamed, — must be considered as among the foremost of those sacrifices to which the Church has been content to submit for a time, for the sake of countervailing advantages arising fromjier connection with the State — a connection which, in itself, exhibits the proper posture of Religion in a Christian land, and is described in the the title of a familiar tract published by the Society for Pro- moting Christian Knowledge, which may usefully be cir- culated in this country, as " lawful, scriptural and necessarv.* With regard to the Colonial Church in particular, a weight of TiriF**'^'^^!.'^^*^^^'^'^™®"^^ lawful, scriptural and necessary, by the Rev. Mr. vr I I u ^^^^^ ^® ^" ^^ ^^'^ '^^ ^^^ Quebec Repositoi 7, There is also another published by the same Society, under the title of Religious Esiablishmenls Iricd by the \^ord of God, which is from the hand of the lalte Archdeacon Dealtry. 17 labour and responsibility, oAen very oppressive and very dis- heartening, is thrown, as things now are, upon individual Bishops, in which they ought to be relieved as well by oppor- tunities of reference to the great council of the Church at home, as by the collective wisdom of brother-prelates and clerical de- puties within the Colonies, assembled in the same formal man- ner and seeking, in united supplication, the guidance of the Spirit of Truth and love. In cases where complaints are brought before the Bishop, the extreme difficulty of dealing with them without any such helps, and without the machinery of any sort of Ec lesiastical Court, (although in some pecu- liar instances of a simple kind, there may be an advantage in being enabled singly and summarily to dispose of the charge or apply a remedy to the case,) is not, perhaps, very easily under- stood by persons not called to the exercise of such authority, and it can hardly be expected that due allowance for it should always be made. I have done the best in such cases, I trust, with a single eye, which God has enabled me to do.* In the general administration of the Church in the Diocese, it has been my anxious study and my faithful although feeble endeavour, — adhering inviolably to what, according to my con- victions, are the essential principles and the rightly understood interests of the AnglicanChurch, in the charge committed to me by the hand of God, — and preserving the fences of ancient order and settled authority, — to ke.}p out of sight, as far as possible, the existence and the name of party, and neither to allow in myself, nor to encourage in others, a tendency on either side, to extremes. I conceive it to be our duty in this behalf, to follow, — not any particular school in the Church, — but the Church herself — and if any man should say, you ought to fol- low Christ, to follow the Bible, to follow the teaching of the Spirit, — we answer, if he means to convey an impression that we are not doing this or substituting another guide for our way, that he either utterly misconceives or inexcusably misrepre- sents us, — and we have to remark, firsts that the profession of following Christ and the Bible, though coupled with the inten- * I may here repeat an acknowledgment made in my last Charge which is as follows :— " In the mean time, I cannot too strongly express my obligations to those of my brethren among the Clergy, who, in default of any legally constituted Court, have assisted me as Members of Commissions for the investigation and disposal of some moreorless difficult cases." !• ■■ I; III m i' 18 tion of doing so, docs not innply that we are following them rightly ; for this is (he stand tciken by all professed Christians, whatever variety of errors, in more monstrous or more miti- gated forms, they may espouse : secondly, that it is our hap- piness to believe the Church, who '* hath authority in contro- versies of faith" and is a " witness and keeper of holy writ,"* to speak in perfect accordance with the Word of Christ, and to be appointed and constituted in a definite manner, under the sanction of the word itself, a helper to us in following that word : and, lastly, that Christ and his word have left to the Church a power and discretion in establishing the provisions and framing the regulations of our Religion in matters which are not the subject of express Revelation, in the exercise of which power and discretion, our own Church has laid down certain rules and directions, which we do not compare for an instant, in their importance, with things commanded by God, but to which we, as her Ministers, are pledged, and the general principle of obedience to which is a principle founded plainly upon the word. And here again if any man would say, on the other side, examples can be pointed out in which you do not follow these rules and directions, [ would, for my own part, refer to an exhibition of my sentiments already made. To what extent we do — often by unhappy necessity, or by a force of circumstances almost irresistible, deviate from the letter of those rules and directions : in what particular instances it may be permissible, in altered times, to acquiesce in a deviation not absolutely unavoidable, which has long ago grown up into established custom, and that under the tacit sanction of autho- rity ; in what other particulars we ought assiduously to aim at the restoration, immediate or gradual, of usages which have fallen, in days of laxity, into desuetude and the recovery of forgotten but excellent rules ; in what manner, on the other hand, — if we profess it as a principle of conscience not ad- mitting of qualification or exception^ that we are to adhere at all hazards to rubrical and other authoritative direction of the Church, we are betrayed into inconsistency of practice and are found departing, without the plea of inability to help it, from practices as clearly prescribed as others which we main- tain ; and finally, whether there are not instances in whih we may be liable to commit mistakes under the belief that we are • Art. XX. ilV^ i\ 1 19 following out the rules of the Church, in practices open to question and research, and may prove after all, to be doing something different from what the Church intended, or insisting upon what she did not intend to insist upon, in some of the very changes which we are prompted dy a desire of conformity, to adopt,* — these are points which, according to the measure of the ability bestowed, i have, upon a former occasion corres- ponding to the present, as well as in other ways, treated in some detail, and shall only say here that I have seen no reason to alter any of the views which 1 have so expressed. I would here observe to my younger brethren in particular, that there are two capacities in which we act, which we must never attempt to separate, for they are blended iiarmoniously in one, — but both of which, in their ,ombined effect upon our res- ponsibilities, we must assiduously and constantly keep in view. First, we are preachers of the Gospel of Christ : — secondly, we are preachers of the Gospel of Christ, who are clergymen of the Anglican branch of the Church Catholic. What, then, is our commission as preachers of the Gospel ? Go ye into all the world and preach the Gospel to every creature : go ye and teach all nations^ baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghosts teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have com- manded you. This commission to evangelize the world, which accomplishes its object by being so distributed in different hands, through the wisdom of him who divideth to every man severally as he willy as to reach all times and places, and in which we have our part and proportion, within the sphere respectively assigned to us, — comprehends, we see, the admi- nistration of the ordinances of Christ and the training of the people in whatever he has instituted or made matter of instruc- tion : but looking at it in that move confined view in which it r^^lates to preaching"^ in the common acceptation of the term, how important, how pregnant with momentous consequences, how awfully responsible is the task of the preacher ! — And what is to be his prominent and primary object ? what is to be his grand and leading theme ^ I will premise that I am not excluding direct practical instruction : I insist upon it : I hold the neglect of it to be alike uw-evan- gelical and of mischevous consequence, and 1 believe that to • See Note D. 20 ;i! be truly faithful, a minister must so preach as will, in many places, subject hira to the charge of not preaching the Gos- pel, as Scott, (although his views are, in some instances, marked with no faint tinge of dissent,) has well observed that if Christ were now upon earth, there are many quarters in which he would be called a legal preacher : But, this being understood, what, I ask, is to be the pro- minent and primary object, what is to be the gr, nd and leading theme of the christian preacher ? what is to be the pervading vein which is to run through all his teaching of every kind ? Is it not to magnify the name of the Lord Jesus 9 to act as the ambassador of Christy beseeching men in ChrisVs stead, to he reconciled to God ? to testify the Gospel of the Grace of God ? to preach peace by Jesus Christ 9 to preach the unsearchable riches of Christ ? to know nothing, com- paratively, among the hearers, but Jesus Christ and him crU' cified ? to preach Christ crucified as thep ower of God and the wisdom of God') — We have to deal with men, in the execution of our message, not as righteous, but as sinners whom we are to call to repentance ; as spiritually sick to whom we are to be the instruments of applying the remedies ot the physician who alone has power to heal and to save, — the reme- dy of his blood to wash them clean from the leprosy of their guilt, and the remedy of his Spirit to work in them repentance unto life, to give them a new heart and a new spirit, to strengthen them with might in the inner man, to fill them with peace and joy in believing", and to cause them to bring forth the fruits of righteousness which are by Jesus Christy unto the glory and praise of God. — It is very true that we do not address baptized attendants upon the christian ministry as if they were Heathens, we do not address them (at least we com- mit a great mistake if we do,) as if they had never heard all these things, but we have to address a vast proportion of the company of professed christian worshippers, as if they had never felt and applied them ; as if, with reference to any home-felt and personal application on their own part, of the glorious and tremendous truths which we proclaim, we were bringing cer- tain strange things to their ears. We do not address them (at least we are very wrong and openly fly in the face of our own Church, if we do,) as if they had never been made partak- ers of the privileges of the covenant, but we must address them as if they had not irriproved their privileges, as if they were ' \ 21 not following up their obligations ; as if they were not, as a matter of course, still remaining, according to the language of the baptismal Office, in the number of the faithful and elect children of God ; as if, although they are qjf Israel^ they were not Israelites indeed. This high ground of Gospel truth is a ground which we must unflinchingly, unswervingly keep — nothing, if we would share in the hopes of the Apostle that nothing should divide him from Christ, nothing must divide us from it, in life or in death : we must hold our followers here and carry, always in harmony with these views of Religion, our monitions and exhortations, both private and public, as well to the sick as to the whole, — taking heed at the same time that we are EXAMPLES, to the believers in word, in conversation, in chari'i', in spirit, in faith, in purity. Unless we are faithful, earnest, exemplary, heavenly-minded, devoted ministers of Christ, it is to very little purpose either to charge upon men the doctrines of Grace or to vaunt the Apostoliiity of our Communion. Alas! when we all look at our deficiencies and compare ourselves with the exalted standard which is proposed to us,* — if there be one who has the task allotted to him of charging his brethren, can he fail to find an echo in his own bosom to the words of St. Bernard, Non qudd ego ista faciam dico : sed quod facere vellem et non fecisse pcenitet et non facere piget. \ Nevertheless, this is not all. To sound the trumpet of good tidings and to carry on the direct warfare against the devil, the world and the flesh, in teaching and in personal example, is not all. We should desire, with Chillingworth, to have no enemies but the devil and sin. But so it cannot be. There are errors to be combated : there are differences to be dealt with, within and without ; there is a swarm of prejudices, mis- conceptions and misrepresentations perpetually to be beaten off, and perpetually returning to the attack : there is a side to be chosen and a stand to be maintained upon certain points which are made the subject of question and the test of party : there is a system and train of prescribed ordinances to be carried out, in all patience, watchfulness, fidelity and wisdom, /or the edify- * We may trust that a remark made by the great Montesquieu upon the Christian Clergy, the Clergy of the Church of Rome being in his view, will at least, in the sense here in contemplation, never derive support from what is to be seen among ourselves. He speaks of the zeal of the Jesuits pour one Religion qui humiliebien plui ceux qui Vicoulent que ceux qui la prcchent. t Medit : cap. vr. s :il If •22 ing of the body of Christ, — a series ol acts laid down, in wliich we are to lielp on the individual souls committed to us, step by step and stage after stage, in their journey, and in none can we say that there is neither adticrsary nor evil occurrent : — there are many subordinate features of our system to be defend- ed and upheld : there is tiie plausible fallacy to be encountered that because they are of subordinate importance they are, therefore, of none. With reference, indeed, to points upon which men differ within the Church itself, there are some, and these I shall first touch upon, which are considered, by common understanding, as open questions, in relation to which the Bishop, conse- quently, cannot assume a dictatorial tone nor insist upon this course or upon that ; but upon which, I do not know that it is interdicted to him to state his own opinion upon an occasion like the present, however it may happen to conflict with that of persons entitled to iiis utmost respect — but at least he may offer advice upon the manner in which those who think with bim, should sustain the side which they have embraced. In fact, be, perhaps,' owes it to his Clergy, while he continues to preset ve a marked line of proceeding in any question which divides the Church, to put them in possession of his reasons for doing so, and they, correspondently, owe the same kind of explana- tions to their people. I think, then, that with reference, for example, to the Bibk. Society, — that dazzling institution which undeniably has effect- ed extensive good, — we should take care to counteract any such impressions as that if we decline to support this Society, it is because we are determined to keep up old prejudices and party spirit ; because we are indifferent, if not hostile to the free circulation of the word of God ; because we want to sub- stitute human authority for divine ; or because we are afraid of the effect of an unfettered recourse, to the Scriptures, upon the set of principles to which we are attached. We ought not, in the jealousy which we should manifest over every thing which can affect the estimation, and, consequently, the profita- bleness of our ministry, to be content with feeling that we have good grounds for what we do, and so let men think and say what they choose : we ought to make it understood, (that is, so far as it is left in our power to do so, for we know, unhappily, that there are parties who do not choose to understand us, and will not let us be understood any where, if they can help it;) — 23 ', it and to the sub- fraid upon t not, thing ofita- have id say is, so and we ought to make it understood that, whether we are riglit or wrong in declining to su|)|)orl the Bible Society, we do not de- cline upon any such grounds whatever, as these. To mc, 1 do confess that it has always ap[)eart'd a great fallacy to say that the Bible Society rests simply upon the common acknowledg- ment of the Bible. It appears to mc rather to rest upon an as- sumption that God has provided nothing else but the Bible for the work of Religion upon earth ; tbat there is the Bible, and every man is to make what he can of it, and tliat is the way in whicli the Christian Faith is to be propagated over the world. — Whereas in the Bible itself, we find that there are sacraments ordained and a ministry constituted, and here the questions j)re- sent themselves in limine^ who is to dispense those sacraments and where and what is that ministry. If it be really not agree- able, if it be most plainly in opposition to what we find in the Bible, that there should be an infinite diversity of christian teaching, and an unrestricted multiplication of sects, and a still accumulating creation cd libitum of new ministries, without any necessity of tracing up their title to a distinct and authen- ticated source ;* — if, as we believe, there be no authority, which can be produced from the Bible to shew that, provided men agree (supposing that^ argumenti gratia, to be /}ossi6/c,) upon a certain well understood standard of essentials, all these divi- sions and subdivisions and varieties and irregular formations, in some of which the sacraments are dropped out or altered in their application, — are to be regarded as collectively making up the proper idea and exhibition of the Christian Church — then I apprehend that we may warrantably stand aloof from any amalgamation with so heterogeneous a mass, and may be permitted calmly and charitably to state that, by taking our place, as one among many, in the aggregation of sects, we should conceive the act to imply (and surely it is difficult to escap*? from such a view of the question,) a recognition of what we believe that the Bible does not teach, and to be equi- * What the early Church thought respecting the necessity of a regularly war- ranted title to the Ministry, (although even the Schismatics and heretics of that day never dreamt of such a deviation from original order as that of dispensing with Episcopal Church Government,) appears, among numberless other instan- ces, from the following words of the martyr Bishop, Cyprian :—Hi sunt qui u ultro apud temerarios convenas, sine divind dispositione, praficiunt, qui se prtB- positoi sine ulld ordinationit lege conttituunt , qui, nemine episeopatum dante, epitcopi tibi nomen assumunt. Tract : de simpuc : praelat. WW 24 M valent to giving in our adhesion to a system of operations ditTer- ent from that by vvhicli the Apostles planted the Faitli among the nations. We conceive that we should commit ourselves to a vast deal more than merely assisting in the circulation of the Scriptures, — for, if this were all, we would be behind none in our desire to promote the work. While we unreservedly and cordially subscribe to the language of our own Articles, Homi- lies and Ordination-service, respecting the sufficiency of holy Scripture alone, for the basis of all saving truth, we conceive it to be a wholly untenable ground to take up, that no human help for unoierstanding the Scriptures, is appointed or needed — an idea of^en expressed by those who are themselves specially anxious to give a strong extraneous bias to the readers of Scrip- ture, but expressed just in such a manner, that men, to be com- monly consistent, ought to give to their unlettered brethren the Bible in the original tongues, and to tell them that they want no Church nor Ministry to translate it, for they have the promise that they shall be all taught of God^ and they must not lean upon man. In fact, it is not unfrequently seen that, under the colour of standing fast in the liberty wherewith Christ has made us free and calling no man our father or master on earth, appeals are too unscrupulously made to the lurking old Adam in the bosom of man, and his natural pride and impa- tience of restraint are the more dangerously fostered, because the occasion is ministered to him,of clothing them with the sem- blance of a certain spiritual enlargement and elevation of mind and a conscientious and manly assertion of his christian birthright. These remarks apply generally to all those mixed operations in Religion or religious education, in which the Church loses her distinctive place and character, and, by so many degrees, sinks in one great element of her efficiency in the world, while other parties who have nothing to lose of the same kind, are naturally rejoiced to bfing her down to their own level, and perfectly appreciate their advantaiije in doing so. They apply also to all those occasions of daily occurrence, in which men flatter one another with the persuasion that they really are liberal and enlightened, if they attach no importance to ditFerences in Religion and can fluently run off certain phrases respecting denominational preferences and sectarian views, under which term they would, by a singular inver sion, comprehend the consistent preservation of Church-prin- ciples and the conscientious and well-examined maintenance, ■^■"■"">i-t^?a-^.^^,^ .»i.. . '^5 with no breach whatever of cliuritable leeling, ol the lino of distinction between the Church and Sectarianism properly so called.* I am happy to believe that it is not necessary for me to spend much labour in insisting or enlarging upon notions at once so shallow and so perilous' as those which I am here combating: but as they prevail very extensively in the world and are perfectly accommodated to the spirit of the world and are echoed right and left by the daily press, — with no small share of odium thrown upon those who entertain contrary senti- ments, we have here a duty to perform in endeavourir;g to cor- rect this tendency in that portion of the public mind which is accessible to our influence, and seeking to infuse sounder principles, and habits of thinking of less hurtful consequence. Many most sincere Christians are led into errors upon these points in which they stand upon common ground with the worldling and the sceptic who are indifferent to all Reli- gion, and who, while the God of this world hath blinded their eyes and hidden from them the light of the Gospel, look down from an imaginary elevation, upon the proceedings of those who earnestly contend for the faith once delivered to the SaintSy as upon a squabble of mere party zealots. Few, very few men know how to preserve a clear and discriminative line in rtasoning and in forming their conclusions upon ques- tions, great or small,which are agitated in the world ; and thus many are seen to confound the principles of toleration with the want of all principle attaching to latitudinarianism ; many • Touf Se ^€j)/or^ouf (pivytTi wf app^iic r-axwK says another martyr Bishop nearer to the Apostles, (Ignat : ad Sriiyrnaeos) and he only echoes the language of St. Paul and of the Lord himself. I have in different former publi- cations, endeavoured to indicate the mischiefs done to the cause of the Gospel, by the divided and disjointed state of the Protestant world, but so far as what 1 have said is at all known or remembered, it will be observer' fhat 1 have always acknowledged the faults of oui own party, and have been willing that we should bear our just share of the blame. In going back to the fathers and applying their testimonies to things around us, it is sad indeed to observe with what close and remarkable exactness the follow- ing passage from Lactantius, exposing the discordance to be witnessed among the ancient philosophers, as contrasted with the unity, in its own proper subsist- ence, of the Faith which they opposed, will now serve to describe the separa- tions among Christians themselves, in their effect upon the cause of Christ in the world : Sedcum inter se ma/^na concertatione dissideant,secumqaeipsiplerutn- que discordenl , apparet eorum iter neqiiaquam esse direclum : siquidem. sibi quiqiie proprins vias impresserunt, confusionemque magnam quareniibus verltaicm reli- querunt. Alas! that any enemy of the Faith, Mahometan or Pagan, Jew or Sceptic, should be able *o turn against ns. a pnpsage like this and to say — Suo sihi liunrjiignio gfihlio ! n i 26 are led to tliink that because persecution and compulsion in Religion are equally unchristian and unwise, therefore^ (al- though some will impose one limitation and some another upon such a principle,) all forms which religious faith may a^ssume, are equally to be esteemed, encouraged and supported. Whereas, in point of fact, an idea like this, if properly examined, will be found only to begin and end in infidelity. There is somethmg plausible, something soothing to our self-love, something which flatters the mind of man with a false idea of its own oxpansive- ness and superiority, in the sentiment which we find embodied in the standard poetry of our language, and which corresponds very closely with language often used by zealous believers, with little suspicion of its real ultimate tendency, to express their views of liberality and love, — " For modes of faith let graceless zealots fight, His can't be wrong whose life is in the right," a statement of the case, which, in a sense somewhat different from that intended by the poet, is correct ; because a truly christian life would be the evidence of a true faith and is not to be found apart from it among men — but, accordii;g to the notion meant to be conveyed,* it is only by a few steps remov- ed from the language of the same poet, in his well-known universal prayer, — " Father of all, in every age And every clime adored, By saint, by savage, or by sage Jehovah, Jove or Lord," and what christian can fail immediately to perceive the cha- racter of infidelity stamped upon these lines, in which the idea of a real Revelation from God as distinguished from the inven- tions of men in Religion, is plainly, although inferentially, ex- cluded and the filthy abominations and revolting cruelties of hea- then superstition, whether among the great and polished nations • I am well aware that the celebrated Bishop Warburton, both in the notes of his edition of the works of Pope and in a series of letters (which last, "^owever, I have never seen,) published expressly for the object of defending the Essay on Man, has undertaken to vindicate his friend from the imputation of disparaging Revelation in these two lines. But what it is intended here to shew, is that these latitudinarian views in Religion, tend to infidelity, and that the sentiment of this distich is only a stepping-stone to the sentiment of the Universal Prayer, It is rather a singular account of the Essay on Man, which is found in a bio- graphical notice of Warburton — " It is universally believed that the author had, in the composition of it, adopted the philosophy of Lord Bolingbroke, whom, on this occasion, he had foVowtd as his guide, vtithout understanding the tendency of his principleit,'^ \\f 27 [)pu1siun in re/ore^ (al- [luiher upon [lay assume, I. Whereas, led, will be } something thing which I oxpansive- id embodied corresponds is believers, , to express /hat different ause a truly 1) and is nol rdiLg to the steps remov- well-known ive the cha- hich the idea Xi the invon- entially, ex- elties of hea- ished nations h in the notes of h last, ^-owever, ing the Essay on n of disparaging ew,is that these sentiment of this it Prayer, s ibund in a bio- t the author had, igbroke, whom, ding the lendenci) of historical renown, or the various shades of barbarism and semi-barbarism which develop themselves in different branches of the human family, are placed upon a jjiir with the grace and truth which came by Jesus Christ. What the world calls liberality, therefore, is something which, as the commissioned guardians of God's eternal truth and the appointed dispensers of those remedies which he has provided against the curse and venom of sin, we should at least be cautious in adopting. We ought to consider, if we open one barrier after another, what we are doing and where, in other hands to which it must pass, it is likely to stop We must evidently draw a line somewhere, even with reference to those who profess and call themselves Christians, in our recognition of what is safe and solid in Christianity, and if we conscientiouslv see reason to narrow the circle more than our dispositions would prompt us to desire, we must not be afraid of the charge which will be thrown against us, of intolerance and '3xclu£ive- ness : — if we conscientiously see reason to narrow it more than is judged necessary by others who are our own brethren in the ministry, we must be content to bear the pain caused to our feelings by that difference — but we shall do well, if we cannot convince them that we are r'ght, at least to satisfy them that we act from honest and not unexamined conviction, ourselves. The same remark is appropriate in the question respecting Temperance Societies. Very hard things are sometimes said of our Clergy, because, in the vast majority of inst.inces, they do not unite with these Associations — and these hard things are not likely to be softened by our seeming quietly to acquiesce in the imputation, as if we could not rebut it, that we do not choose to take our part in the movement, because we do not choose to forego our own indulgence. Still less are they likely to be softened by our railing against the Temperance Societies or denying that they have effected any good, or venting mere sarcasm and ridicule against these institutions, of which very excellent men among our own Clergy and more of the same stamp, among the Episcopal Clergy of the United States, are members and champions. I believe there may be cases in which, upon the Apostolic principle that it is good neither to eat flesh nor to drink wine, nor anything whereby thy bro- ther stumbleth or is offended or is made weak^ it may bo right for the Clergy, if no obstacle he found in the effect upon their health, to adopt the rule of t!io Temperance Societies in h K 5 r i !' 28 their own personal practice, vvliicli, of course, does not imply that they must join in membership. But there are other cases, in which, upon the very same principle, and in the right and commendable exercise of the wisdom of the serpent, they will avoid, by any needless austerity and rigour, to damage the influence which they possess for good — and, with a single eye to the glory of God, the good of the Church and the good of souls, will rather expose themselves to be, in some quarters, called wine-bibbers, with their divine master, than to be brand- ed, in other quarters, as fanatics, for following, in this point, the discipline of the Baptist. In taking such a course, how- ever, upon thf^se or other grounds, they ought to be prepared to justify it ; and men ought to know what their grounds are. — Men who do not know it, ought to know that there are a great number of holy and exemplary persons, who decline connection with theTemperance Societies, and that both clergymen and lay- men, far from being chargeable, upon this account, with a tena- city of personal comfort and indulgence, a charge which is the precise echo of that which is brought against the marriage of the Clergy, by the champions of Rome, may have strictly conscien- tious scruples respecting, not only the expediency, but the very lawfulness of these Societies. They may conceive that what they have to teach mankind by precept and example, is, to know, in all points, how to use this ivorld as not abusing it, how to practise discretion and self-control without renouncing the objects which atlurd exercise to those qualities : how to par- take of the good creatures and gifts of God, of which wine having the power of intoxication, is manifestly represented in the Bible, as one,* without passing the bounds befitting a fol lower of Christ. They may conceive that it is wrong and of hurtful consequence, as a general principle, to impose upon men the necessity of forswearing what, if formed in the school of Christ, they ought to know how to make use of and apply to iis proper purpose, in moderation, — such moderation being a pervading maxim of the life of faith. They may urge that the love of money is said to be the root of all evil : yet we do not teach men that the use of money must be extirpated we teach them to use it rightly and beneficially. They ma}i view with a distrust and alarm which ought not to be lightlv treated, the inroads of a system which, professing to eiTect • Soe Note K. 29 does not imply are other cases, in the right and pent, they will to damage the nth a single eye and the good of I some quarters, han tobebrand- ig, in this point, a course, how- to be prepared to grounds are. — there are a great ?cline connection ergymen and lay- )unt, with a tena- arge which is the e marriage of the strictly conscien- ncy, but the very nceive that what I example, is, to J not abusing it, ilhout renouncing ities : how to par- , of which wine ly represented in Is befitting a fol- is wrong and of , to impose upon med in the school use of and apply noderation being ey may urge tha ^ all evil : yet w ^st he extirpated ially. They ma}| t not to be lightlj fessing to effect vast moral renovation among mankind, and, in a manner, to regenerate them by masses, without making the Gospel its in- strument either directly and exclusively or by neccasary con- comitancy, opens a door to more extensive and more serious consequences, than can, at the moment, be discerned. They may entertain very decided objections, which cannot be justly resolved into mere prejudiced or interested opposition, to the exaction of pledges to man, to a particular effect, which effect, if it be really nothing more than the observance of Temperance^ has been long before comprehended in the pledges given to God himself by every baptizetl person who by subsequent acts has recognized his baptism ; or, if it be something more than the Temperance respecting which St. Paul reasoned be- fore Felix, then outgoes the demands of the Gospel and seems to exalt another standard above it. They may judge that the first display of his miraculous power winch the Lord Jesus was pleased to make upon earth, appears to be set in a questionable light by the language held at Temperance meetings and in Tem- perance publications. They may be strongly inclined to asso- ciate with tendencies to error in Religion, quite unsuspected by men who, from the best motives are eager advocates of what is called the Temperance movement and the Tempe- rance cause^ proceedings which have something evidently in common with those of certain authors of schism and propaga- tors of false opinions in the early Church who fulfilled the pro- phetic descriptions* at which I have already glanced, and of whom the following account is given by the learned and accu- rate Bingham, in his Antiquities of the Christan Church : — *' Many Hereticks, such as the Manichees, Priscillianists, and others, pretended to be more spiritual and refined, because they abstained from wine and flesh as things unlawful and un- clean ; and upon this score censured the Church as impure and carnal, for allowing men in the just and moderate use of them. If any Clergymen, therefore, so far complied with Hereticks, as either in their judgment to approve their errors, or in their practice by an Universal Abstinence,^'' — (observe the expres- sion,) — " to give suspicion of their siding with them, they made themselves obnoxious to the highest censures. The Apostolical Canons order, that if any Bishop, Presbyter, or Deacon, or any other Clerk, abstain from marriage, flesh, or wino, not for exerciso hut ahhorrenro ; forgetting that GOD r; ii, '\. Found in I. Tim. iv. 1 o1 sr(j. j 30 made all tilings very good, and created man male and Icmale, and speaking- evil of the workmanship of GOD : unless ho cor- rect his error, he shall be deposed, and cast out of the Church." I shall simply add, upon the cubject of Temperance Socie- ties, that if, upon grounds like these, we feel it our duty to stand apart from them, we must remember that we stand apart from a movement which, as there is reason to believe, sweeps in many religious teachers by the mere force of its popularity ; which is caught at, among them, as an engine of influence to further particular interests and designs ; and which is applauded and countenanced by many laymen who are sufficiently remov- ed from all intention of joining these Societies them.selves or practising their rules ; and that we are consequently called upon, in a powerful manner, to live-down, according to a common expression, any obloquy or misconstruction to which we may be exposed by the course which we have taken. We have here an additional incentive to that ceaseless circumspec- tion which should prompt us, in our love to the cause commit- ted to us, to take heed that the adversary shall have no evil thing to say of us, — and to that watchfulness over ourselves, in constant recourse, by prayer, to the '•uccoursof the Divine Spirit, which is necessary to our exhibiting the devotedness to our work, the holiness of life, the humility of temper, and the religious subjection of the flesh to the spirit, which should emi- nently characterize the man of God, and without which he cannot be worthy of the name : without which he will only hurt the Church, by any high-toned assertion of her principles. So far with respect to some examples of what are generally admitted to be open questions in the Church. But there are other points in which liberties have been assumed and devia- tions have been practised and defended, wholly incapable of being justified upon any sound and safe principles whatever, and irreconcileable with our obligations as Clergymen of the Church of England. 1 shall not repeat here what I have felt myself called upon to say upon former occasions respecting those views and leanings of which the depreciation of the word of God, as the guide of man,* is one dangerous feature, and of • 'nrfO(xi)(iiv li Toii; w^ofy^ruti i^oci^iru; Sfc tcJ iiayyihiu is the rule for counter-working mischievous influences in the Church, left to us by St. Ignatius, who will never be charged with nol being sufficiently high in ihe assertion of Clmrch authority. I >ii 31 Icniale, he cor- hurch." I Socie- duty to id apart sweeps lularity ; uence to iplauded remov- elves or y called ,ng to a to which en. We cumspec- ! commit- 3 no evil iclves, in ne Spirit, 8s to our , and the ould emi- which he II only rinciples. generally there are nd devia- capable of whatever, jen of the have felt respecting the word re, and of left to us ntly high in ;vi which the extreme development has been the attempt actually to force, — ut Serpen, "s avibiis geminentur., tigribus agni, — the Anglican Confession of Faith into an accordance with the decrees of the Council of Trent. It is not at all necessary, I am happy to persuade myself, that upon points of this nature, I, in this Diocese, should come back again and again to the charge. 1 should certainly feel it my duty to do so, if I were to see in our horizon, indications of the danger here in questi >n. Others, so predisposed, may possibly descry it : for it has always and everywhere been found that to raise the cry of approximation to Rome, however utterly causeless and unjust and even opposite to the fact, will serve the purpose of blinding the eyes of men against a discernment of the reality of the case, by the ready use of a word of charm which, in a manner, unties the winds and at once en', elops the whole ground of discussion in thickening clouds of dust. Such a practice, therefore, is much too tempt- ing and too easy, to admit of the expectation that it can be over- looked by parties openly or covertly opposed to what the Church of England truly is — parties possessed by the burning and irre- pressible love of controversy, or anxious to maintain some par- ticular views in which the Church, rightly and fairly regarded, stands much in their way, or animated by a latent desire, natu- ral to the human heart, to pull down constituted authority and to substitute an influence over the minds of men, in the wielding of which they can be personally made prominent. And, therefore, the ready and convenient alarm about Rome will be insinuated or declared. Yet, in honest reality, the correctives which we of the Clergy hav^e occasion, so far as may be permitted to us, to administer to the prevailing tone and tendency of pub- lie sentiment, in Church matters, in this Diocese,— far from being applied to check an overdone spirit of Churchmanship, an over-strained appreciation of outward ordinances, an exces- sive veneration for order, for authority, for unity and co-herence, for maintenance of rule, for love of ancient usage, and proper ecclesiastical effect in the arrangements of the house of God,* — ought precisely to be calculated to work in an opposite manner, for I almost think that our people, taken as a whole, are behind all the world, at thi^ day, in the favorable change which has passed over the Church of England in a proper regard to all the points just indicated as capable of being carried to an extreme t • See Note V. ill S2 w \ i iiii !c 'il i i- ' A regaril, which, if kept within due bounds, is more closel)' interwoven than many persons will consent to believe, with her zeal and with her efficiency in the exalted task to which she is called ; — with the prospect of her advantageously recommend- ing the truth as it is in Jesus, — (in magnifying the native power of which, it is quite a mistake to exclude the effect of auxiliary and subordinate influences,) — to the world of nominal believers, to the classes of men in christian lands who look with a disdain- ful or doubting eye either upon the Faith itself or upon our pro- fession of it, to the blinded idolater of Paganism and to the dimly seeing disciple, in the east or in the west, of any of the debased and superstitions forms of Christianity. Tiie dereliction of Church principles, then, in another r' rec- tion from that of assimilation to the standard of Ron/^, — although I do not anticipate among my brethren of the Clergy, the prevalence of any other than an acquiescing sentiment, in what I am about to say, — may challenge some few brief remarks. Men who are uninformed upon the subject with which they undertake to deal, charge us with Popery or Trac- tarianism, by which they mean a modification of Popery, if we uphold the essential difference between our Church and any form of Dissent, the Apostolic succession of our Bishops, the legitimate application of the term Regeneration to the perform- ance of baptism, the efficacy of the Sacraments, il rightly received, as vehicles of grace, the expediency of the frequent iteration, — the daily iteration if it can be fairly established and maintained, — of divine service, — the solicitous provision made for reverential and solemn and touching effect in the worship of God, in the points of Architecture, Church-music, the whole conduct of our liturgical performances, the whole spirit of our regulations established for the work of the service in the house of the Lord. If there are men who conscientiously oppose us in these points, let them oppose us ; and if they cannot be con- vinced that they are mistaken in doing so, let them remain in their opinion — only do not let them say that they are attached to the system of the Church of England, — that they are, in heart and in affection and in judgment members of that Church ; for in every single point which has been enumerated, I have stated what is distinctly and prominently, plainly and undenia- bly characteristic of that Church. If they agree with us, as many bodies of Dissenters do, in some leading points of doc- trine, — that will not make them Chuicli of England men, il' iUey dissent iVom us in the points here in question, even if these did not, as they do, involve points ol doctrine : — the very utmost that can be then said, is that they are only parti- ally Dissenters, but certainly Dissenters to a sufiicient extent to fall within the category of Dissent. I shall, however, forbear from any further remarks, except upon one of these points. I mean the use of the word Rege- neration as applied to Baptism. I say as applied to baptism^ f»r if any man who cordially consents to such an application of it, yet considers that it may also bear an application to an ulte- rior change which, alas ! in a vast proportion of baptized sub- jects, is too evidently needed, — witii him, I anj not prepared to maintain that we have a right absolutely to quarrel, provided he carefully guard his use of the word, (although we might prefer another, ourselves,) against doing any prejudice to views exhi- bited in the formularies of the Church and against giving any enci)uragement to the establishment of certain tests of conver- sion, of which it is not unfrequently the effect to make the heart of the righteous sad tvhom God hath vot made sad and to strengthen the hands oj the wicked by promising him life. 1 do think, my brethren, that there are two extremes to be avoided in representing the effects of baptism, and that there are passages in Scripture relating to the baptism of adult reci- pients of the rite, containing expressions which it is not safe to apply, in an unqualified manner, to the case of infants. But with reference to those who would wholly tlisjoin Regenera- tion from baptism, who would forcibly put asunder what God hath joined together, the being born of water and of the SPIRIT, i would observe that they not only refuse to hear the voice of the early Church and repudiate the distinct and posi- tive declarations of the Church of England, conveyed partly in the form of solemn prayer to God himself, in her Offices of Baptism and Confirmation, her Catechism, Articles and Ho- milies, but openly desert the doctrines oi the Reformation at lar.;e, and set themselves against the whole array of theologians who, in that crisis, digested into system the capital truths of the word of God. 1 may be permitted to state thai I have exa- mined fifteen Confessions of Faith of that date, drawn up in Latin, being a coHertion of the Confessions of Faith of the Reformed countries, including the British Isles, — and that with one very obscure exception, I find them all employing the lan- guage of the Church of England, or language closely accordant V. :.( li^ :j| ¥ '\ with hers, witli ret'urence to regeneration and ailoptum in bap- tism/ I also find Calvin in his Institutes distinctly admitting the same view of the case. 1 find it again in the baptismal Liturgy of the French Walloon Churches, a copy of which, published a century ago, is in my possession, i meet with it once more in the " Litanies of Baptism," in use among the Moravians or United Brelhren. And it has been pointed out to me by one of my own Clergy here present, tiiat it appears in the celebrated Westminster Confession of Faith, drawn up by the Assembly of Divines, as also in their larger and shorter Catechism which are incorporated with that Confession. — Another, also here present, has furnished me with the copy of a hymn of which Charles Wesley was the author, prepared for the occasion of baptism in the Wesleyan body, in which the same sentiment is poetically expanded. We are not bound by any of these authorities, except our own Churcli. But it is useful to shew the error of those who suppose that, in this and in other points, the Clergy of the Church of England are speaking the langunge of the Church of Rome when, in point of fact, they are speaking that of their own Church and at the same time of the oracles, in many in- stances, of the very parties, who bring ihe charge against them. I believe that there are few greater mistakes, among the mul- titude of mistakes into which, throngh the infirmity of fallen natn e, men are betrayed in matters of Religion, than the mis- take of supposing that, by maintaining the views of the Refor- mation upon this point, we are endangering vital and spiritual Religion and teaching men blindly to rely upon the opus opera- turn of the Sacrament, as if the business of their salvation were done once for all. The prayer of the Church ihat the baptized child may ever remain in the number of God's faithful and elect children, and the charge to the Sponsors respecting its training, may, of themselves, suffice for an answer to such a supposition. It is indeed a sad although a very common error, in running away from formalism and superstition and the ascription of merit to ceremonial works, to run into the opposite extreme and to hold it for an evidence of spirituality to depreciate the ordinances of the Faith, as well as the stated observances of the Church, f And let us beware how we so dangerously tamper with words or rather so violently wrench them to our purpose, as to force on * See Note G. t Spe iVote H. 35 m in bap- aclmittir.g baptismal f which, it with it mong the oir.tcd out it appears drawn up nd shorter ifession. — ) copy of a ■epared for which the except our those who rgy of the Church of at of their in many in- ainst them, ng the mul- ty of fallen lan themin- the Refor- nd spiritual ypus opera- ation were e baptized ul and elect ts training, supposition, in running on of merit erne and to ordinances } Church. t th words or to force an escape irom the doctrine of the Church upon the point herein question, either in a broad and general view of the subject, or by recourse to the contingency of i)articular circumstances, sucii as faith or the want of it, in the Sponsors, upon which we may ima- gine the effect of the performance to depend. Surli a notion as that at which in particular, I have here glanced, appears to be of close affinity with the Romish doctrine of intention on tlie part of the Priest — but in its consequences to be worse, in- asmuch as the parties are multi[)licd upon whose state of mind, die efficacy of the Sacrament is presumed to depend ; and one manifest consequence would be this, that we could not know with certainty who has been efficaciously, and, therefore, who has been really baptized, and who has not ; and the baptism of some among ourselves here present, who are commissioned to baptize others, might, for what we know, have been null. Can it be reasonably supposed for one instant, that baptism was solemnly instituted by Christ to leave men, with reference to the benefits attaching to it, upon a footing, so utterly precarious as this 7 — Or can any man deliberately believe that such an idea was in the contemplation of the Church, when, for exam- ple, with a double afhrmation of the indubitable nature of the truth so declared, she declares it " certain, by God's word, that children which are baptized, dying before they com- mit actual sin, are undoubtedly saved" ? I have detained you too long, and must omit many p'-infs upon which I should have been glad to speak ; but I have yet one or two intimations to make to you, which I will endeavour as briefly as possible, to dispose of. In my last Charge, I recommended that, where more could not as yet be done, in the way of observing the appointed holi- days of the Church, the observance of three particular days (be- sides Christmas-day and Good Friday, which I took it for grant- ed to be observed everywhere without exception,) namely of Ash-Wednesday with the use of the Commination-Service, Ascension-day and AH Saints, should at once be introduced. And I stated my I'easons tor this recommendation. I now re- quest my brethren to receive it in the light of an injunction, and F propose to make it the subject of enquiry in my periodical Visitations. The Law in this country is exceedingly defective upon the subject of the solemnization of Marriage, and the rules of the Church cannot he cnforccfl respcrtinregoing extracts ; but the work must be consulted to aeo !u)W this point is maintained at large. The question of now wearing the copCy in Pariah Churches, in the administra- tion of the holy Communion, (for which, however, there is far more shew of authority than for preaching in the surplice,) will be found to bo settled, according to the argument of the Arch- deacon, in the negative. 1 nm glad to leave the subject, I hope for ever : for although, when such questioni. do agitate the Church, it is necessary to throw nil the light upon them which it may be in our power to contribute, we must enter into the sentiment of the great Hooker, expressed in a passage which is quoted by the Arch- deacon, with refoi-ence to tstrife and argument about Church- vostments and minor ceremonies, that, when troubled with these doubts, " we would more willingly be resolved of a greater doubt ; whether it be not a kind of taking God*s name in vain, to debase Religion with surlj frivolous disputes, a sin to bestow time and labour about tliem." I trust, however, that I have made no remarks which can engender asperity of feeling ; and I will merely add that, to me, although I speak, as I have already intimated, without any purpose of exercising interfer- ence, tho Question has always appeared to have been treated as one much less simple than it actually is. T\w principle is insisted i!pon, of folloieing the Prayer- Book. A doubtful, unsettled and disputed question presents itself. Tho principle of fol/ouHng the Prayer-Book determines that such questions shall be referred to the Ordinary and dis- IxvMbHl of by his authority. With reference to the notice taken, in mv last Charge and the off repe the effec the 57 the notes upon it, of the combination, in the received method of performing our Liturgy, of different services in one ; the repetitions thence created in a manner which is at variance with the intentions of those who compiled it ; the testimonies to this effect of Dr. Bisse, Dr. Heylin, and Mr. Johnston, (author of the Clergyman's Vade Mecum,) and the bearing of all this upon the question of using or omitting the admirable prayer for thj Church Militant, when there is no Communion, 1 have seen no reason to alter the views which I then expressed ; and I only notice the subject here, for the sake of mentioning the fol- lowing incidental testimony of Bingham, (Book xiv., c. 3., sect. 12) — *' The old Gallican Liturgy, (from which our Eng- lish service is thought chiefly to be derived and not from the Roman, by learned men,) !iad distinct offices for morning and Communion Service as ours now has. ...... . ...... ...... which probably were designed at first for distinct offices, though they are now commonly read together in the greatest part of our Churches." Bingham died in 1723, his death synchronizing exactly with the publication of Mr. Johnston's book. The last volume of his great work here quoted, was published in the year preceding. I^otc H #' ill 58 NotcE. Pag€*2S. ,' I Tho following announcement appeared in a Quebec paper, apparently transferred from the columns of some English jour- nal, on the 3d of January last : — " A Vegetarian Society has been established at Ramsgate, headed by John Brotherton, Esqr., M. P., who has been an abstainer from animal food for the last thirty-eight years." This Association is not likely to spread like the Temperanre Societies, nor could the same plea be urged for it, founded upon the amount of evil produced by the abuse of the divine grant. But in spirit and principle, the two Institutions will be found to correspond, inasmuch as both exact the renunciation of what God has given for the use of man. I have not thought it necessary to notice the attempt to prove that the wine of which the use is made lawful in the Bible, was not wine of an intoxicating quality. There is probably no unpre- judiced and well-informed person who does not see, at once, that this is one of those expedients to which men are driven when they have a favorite hypothesis to maintain and find an authority in their w^ay, from which they acknowledge that there is no ap- peal. I am tempted, however, to record here the sentiments and reasoning upon this point, of one who being dead yet speaketh — one of our martyr-clergymen who contracted the fever last year at Grosse Isle, a truly amiable and devout Christian, and a person of a very extended range of attain- ments. In a familiar letter addressed some few years ago to myself, he speaks thus : — " The argument on the total abstinence question, to which your Lordship has adverted, was furnished by the advocates of the total-abstinence system themselves, but with a manifest tendency in favour of the opposite side. Not having an origi- nal text of the Biblia Sacra in my possession, I cannot now refer to the precise places where the two words pathah and oinah are used, upon which the force of the argument is made to rest ; but if the fact be as they say, that pathah means the expressed juice and oinah, in Greek ofvoc and in English tome, the fermented liquor, their argument is lost to them, unless our translation can be shown to be erroneous, and to have? transposed the terms." No 59 l!ll JSote F. Page 31. The general question respecting the wisdom and the dut> of providing, wliere the means exist o< doing so, stately and seemly and sumptuous huildings for the worship of God, and giving even with a hand which some would call lavish, 'ill proper ecclesiastical eflfect to their interior arrangements, is one long ago disposed of by Hooker and other great writers of our Com- munion. The remarkable extract from Chillingworth's Pre- face to his Religion of Protestants a safe way to Salvation^ furnishing a quotation from the writings of Sir Edwin Sandys, whi'^h was appended to my last charge, deserves, wherever this question is agitated, to be kept in remembrance and to be made the subject of renewed reference, where it may be at command. In this Diocese, as in mjiny ether parts of North America, a sort of false gothic was at one time in favor, of which many specimens remain, exhibiting the pointed arch in conjunction with characteristics utterly at war with every principle of the stile of architecture to which that name is familiarly given. Great flaring windows have been seen, flush with the wall, with no mullions and with white-painted wood-work, surmount- ed by a gothic arch which is filled up by a green wooden blind. In other instances where there is a nearer approach to the gothic, it is still a vicious gothic ; and when one step more is gained, we are apt to be left still with sl faulty gothic. I am afraid that in this Diocese, we have not one specimen to which this last epithet will not, in some points, apply.* The subject has received very little attention either from the Clergy or the Laity among us, and the comments which are passed upon some of our own more successful attempts, with the praises given to some shewy but exceedingly incorrect and inconsis- tent productions of the Gothic school, afford evidence of our unformed tastes and our backward state of information in this department of research. There are also many of those preju- dices to be overcome which prompt men to confound the I'eco- very of the true principles of an art, after false principles have become almost inveterate, with a spirit of innovation or per- haps with a violation of common sense. • It is sometimes impossible to avoid considerable faults, as, for example, where we are confined to a site which does not admit of preserving the right proportions of the building; and few fatilts are greater in a Church, than that of too much width in proportion to Iho len;ftli. ii »; 60 The tide is, however, turning, and it may not be useless to suggest the titles of one or two modern works which are calcu- lated to afford, in a familiar manner, and some of them in a small compass and at very moderate cost, a just acquaintance with Ecclesiastical Architecture, as well as to excite a feeling of interest upon the subject, such as A Glossary of terms used in Grecian, Roman, Italian, and Gothic Architecture, with beautiful illustrations in wood, 3 vt»ls. 8vo., Parker, Ox- ford ; Brandon^s Parish Churches ; Timber Roofs and Analysis of Gothic Architecture, Bell, Fleet Street, Lon- don ; Bloxam^s Manual of Gothic Architecture. This last is published by the Society for Promoting Christian Knoia- ledge. The Chapel erected at Fredericton, by the Bishop oi' that newly created See, is exquisite and may be called a perfect specimen of the early English stile of Gothic Architecture. The Cathedral which is in progress upon the same spot and under the same auspices, promises to be a noble structure. These two objects will, of themselves, well repay a visit to New Brunswick. Nde ■* A.. . *-,'u^". iL^^aftist- '^ useless to re calcu- lem in a jaintance a feeling of terms dtecturey ker, Ox- wfs and etf Lon- This last n Knovj- >p 01 that I perfect hitecture. spot and structure, a visit to Note iif 61 Note G., Page 34. The Collection of Formularies of Faith to which reference is here made, as exhibiting the sense of the Reformation upon the point in question, is the Corpus et Syntagma Confessionum Fidei^ quce^ in diversia regnis et nationibus, Ecclesiarum Occidentalium nomine, fuerunt authentice edilcBy ^c, SfC. ; published at Geneva in 1612. The following extracts will be seen sufficiently to sustain what I have said : — 1. From the Helvetic Confession of 1666, subscribed by the Ministers throughout Switzerland :— " Baptizari in nomine Christi est inscribi, initiari et recipi in fcRdua atque familiam, adeoque in hareditatem Jiliorum Dei, id est appellari filium Dei, purgari item d sordi- bus peccatorum et donari varid Dei gratia, ad vitam novam et innocentem Obsignantur hsec omnia ba^^tismo. Nam intus regeneramur, purificamur et renovamur h Deo per Spiritum Sanctum : /om autemaccipimusobsignationem maxi- morum bonorum in aquii, qua etiam maxima ilia beneficia reprsesentantur et veluti oculis nostris conspicienda propo- nuntur." In the preceding chapter which treats of the two Sacraments, conjointly, their efficacy is thus described : — " Et vt Deus sacramentorum auctor est, ita perpetu6 opera- tur in Ecclesia, in qua rit^ peraguntur sacramenta : adeo vt fideles cum a ministris sacramenta percipiunt, agnoscant operari Deum in suo institute, ideoque sacramenta perinde ac ex ip- sius Dei manu percipere, et ipsis ministri vitium (si quod insigne ipsis insit) non obesse, quando agnoscant sacramento- rum integritatem dependere ab institutione Domini." This last passage will be seen to correspond exactly to the 26th of our Articles of Religion, and to have a direct bearing upon what is said in the Charge respecting the faith of other parties as supposed to affect the efficacy of the sacrament of baptism for the benefit of the recipient, and respecting the doctrine of intenticn. 2. From the snmmarv Helvetic Confession, drawn up at Basle, 153G :— " Signa, qiifn in Rcolosia Cliristi, Sarramrn(a vnrantur, 02 duo sunt. 1. Bnptismus. 2, Eucharistia. Hsec arcanarum rerum symbola, iion nudis signis sed signis simul et rebus constant. In Baptismo enim aqua signum est, at res ipsa Regeneration Adoptioque in populum Dei." 3. From the Confession of a branch of the Helvetic Church, taking its name from Basle or Mulhausen, 1532 : — " Et sicut Baptismo (in quo nobis ablutio a peccatis^ quae tamen a solo Patre, Filio, et Spiritu sancto perficitui, per Mini&trum Ecclosiae offertur) vera aqua manet : ita etiam in Cojna Domini," &c., &c. 4. From the Gallican Confession, 1349 : — " Baptismus, nobis testiflcandie nostrae adoptioni datus, quo- niam in eo inserimur Christi corpori, vt eius sanguine abluti, simul etiam ipsius Spiritu ad vitae sanctimoniam renouen.ur. Illud etiam dicimus, quamuis non nisi semel baptizemur, fruc- tum i len Baptlsmi ad totius nostrae vitae cursum pertinere." The Anglican Confession is next given in two forms, the first laken from Bishop Jewell's Apology, the other in the form of the thirty-nine Articles : — 5. From the Scottish Confession, 1568: — " Itaque vanitatem eorum, qui affirmant sacramenta nil aliud qucim mera et nuda signa esse, omnino damnamus. Quin potius, certo credimus per baptismurn, nos in Chrisio Jesu inseri : justitiaque eivs per qua omnia nostra peccata teguntur et remittuutur, participes fieri^ 6. From the Belgian Confession, 1561 : — " Sunt enim sacramenta signa ac symbola visibilia rerum internarum, et invisibilium, per qita, ceu per media, Deus ipse virtute f^pirittis Sancti in nobis a git.'*'* 7. From the Confession o';* Strasburg and the four Imperial cities, 1530* : — " De Baptismate itaque confitemur, id quod passim Scriptura de illo praidicatj eo sepeliri nos in mortem Christi, coagmentari • In this instance the date of the original composition in the vernacular tongue of the people anu that of the translation into Latin, were the same : in the foregoing instances, the translation and, in some of them, the public confir- mation of tlio Formulary. tollo\vf('. after tlio interval of a good many yoars. 63 ircanarum f et rebus : res ipsa c Church, liis, quae citui, per i etidtn in tus, quo- ne abluti, noueniur. lur, fruc- Jrtinere." Tms, the the form nil aliud Quin iio lesu teguntur a rerum eus ipse mperial 'riptura mentari macular ame : in ic con fir- El li. in unum corpus, Christum induere ; — esse lavacrnm regcncra- tionis, peccata abluere, nos salvarey And then follow seme necessary explanations to guard this statement of doctrine against abuse or misapprehension. 8. From the Confession of Augsburg, 1530 : — ** De Baptism© decent quod infantes per hap- tismum Deo commendati, recipiantur in gratiam Dei et fiant filii Dei." 9. From the Confession of the Churches of Saxony, 1551 : *' Et dari Spiritum Sanctum in haptismo^ ad- firmet ad Titum cum ait, Per lavacrum regenerationis et renovationis per Spiritum Sanctum ; et in Joanne dicitur, Nisi quis renatus fuerit ex aqud et Spiritu, non potest intrare in regnum coelorum." 10. From the Duke of Wirtemberg's Confession, laid be- fore the Couiicil of Trent, in 1552 : *' Credimus etiam et profitemur quod Baptismus sit mare illud, in cujus profundum, sicut Propheta ait, Deus projiciat omnia peccata nostra et condonet ea propter Christum Jilium suum, per fidem Docemus eum qui baptizatur in nomine Patris et Filii et Spiritiis Sancti fieri mem- brum Christi per fidem et donari Spiritu Sancto," 11. From the Confession of Frederic III., Count Palatine, &c., printed in 1577 : — *' De virtute et efficaci^ sacri Baptismi credo et confiteor, liberos nostros cruentse mortis Domini nostri Jesu Christi, omniumque ejus bonorum qu(B ille morte sud acquisivity participes fieri, idque hoc modo, quod quemadmo- dum externum sigillum sacrosanctum Sacramentum, nempe elementarem aquam a ministro verbi divini, extrinsecus in corpore recipiunt, ita quoque simul a Christo ipso, effuso illias sanguine, in animabus suis, hoc est intern^ baptizan- tur et per Spiritum Sanctum de integro, seu in novas crea- turas regenerantur^ 12. From the Bohemian Confession, about 1535 : — This Confession of Faith speaking (like the rest) of the loss of all benefit from baptism, if not followed up by a consistent 61 christian life, describes baptized subjects as persons qui regene- rationis lavacro^ Chrislo inaeruntur.^^ 13. The Confession of the Synod of Czenger, printed in 1670, is that which 1 have mentioned as affording a solitary excep- tion. Upon the efllect ofbaptism, the doctrinal definitions of this Synod are rather obscure aud perplexed, and although various meanings of the word baptism are given, in one of which it is stated to be taken " pro regeneratione et causfi, regenerationis," it appears from the context, to be in a figurative sense that the word is understood to be thus applied. It is tlien said to be taken " pro signo regenerationis et lavacri interioris, quo d a Christo institutmin est," and tiiis seems to be the nearest approach to the doctrine exhibited in all the other Protestant Confessions of Faith. Among the Ministers, generally, of Poland, according to its then existing divisions, with Lithuania and Samogitia, there was a Conciliation of opinion upon a point of doctrine res- pecting the Lord's Supper, agreed upon at Sendomir, in 1570. This document contains only incidental notice of baptism, in these words : — " Et baptismus et coena Domini sunt pignor a et testimoniu gratice ,,,,,. et ostenduut beneficia Euangelii ad singulos pertinere^ qui his ritibus utuntur Per baptismum singuli inseruntur Eccksiie. It will be observed that an expression used in the Scottish Confession of 1568, justiti(E Christi participes fieri^ corres- ponds with language used in our own Homilies, in which justi- fication is spoken of, as an effect of baptism. It has been seen how strongly the Belgian Confession affirms the agency of the divine spirit in the sacraments ; but at the same time, (as an exemplification of what is said in p. 83 of the Charge.) the term Regeneration is, in that Confession, applied to the effect of Faith. " Credimus veram banc fidem, perauditum verbi Dei et Spiritus Sancti opejationem, unicui- que nostr nous recevons une double grace de notre Dieu, pourvu que nous n'an6antissions pas la vertu de ce Sacrement par notre in gratitude. Premierement, nous y avons un temoignage certain, que Dicu veut nous etrc un Pere propice, et nous pardonner toutes nos fautes et nos offenses. Secondement, qu'il nous assistera par son Saint Espsit, afin que nous puissions combattre le Diable, le peche, et les convoitises de notre chair, et en rem- porter la victoire, pour vivre dans la liberte de son Regne, qui est la Regne de la justice. Puis done que c'est la grace de Jesus Christ qui accomplit ces deux choses en nous, il s'ensuit, que la substance et la vertu du Bapt^me sont aussi comprises en Uii. En effet, nous n'avons point de purification qu'en son sang, ni de renouvellement qu'en la mort, et en sa resurection. Mais comme Dieu nous communique ses richesses et ses bene- dictions par sa Parole, aussi il nous les distribue par ses Sacrtmensy* The communications upon this subject with which I have mentioned, in the Charge, that I was favoured by two of my brethren of the Clergy, are as follows : — " In reply to your letter of the 13th inst., which I have only just received, I would observe that the doctrine of Baptismal regeneration is stated in Chap xxviii. §. 1., of the Westmins- ter Confession of Faith, in the following words : — " Baptism is a Sacrament of the New Testament, ordained by Jesus Christ, not only for the solemn admission of the party baptized into the visible Church, hut also to be unto him a sign and seal o^ i\\Q Covenant of Grace, of his ingrafting into Christ, of regeneration^ of remission of sins, and of his giving up unto God through Jesus Christ, to walk in newness of life." It may be remarked that the references are an integral part of the Confession of Faith ; and the reference from the clause * The Catechism of the same religious body, which is distributed exactly in the same order and succession of subjects as are seen in our own, treating of the Creed, the Commandments,the Lord's Prayer and the Sacraments, as the ground- work of instruction, but which is divided injo fifty-five short portions, to be used OR so many successive Sundays, one for each, contains the following passages, in speaking of Baptism : — " Le Ministry. — Voulez vous dire que I'eau en soit seulement une figure 1 " V Enfant.— C^esi une figure, mais d laquelle est joinfe en niSme tems, la veriti. Cor Dieu ne nons proniet rien en vain. C'est pour- quoi il est certain que la remission dcs pechh nous est offerte,dans le Bapteme et qno nous I'y recevons en effet " M. — Comment cette i^race nous est elle applique dans le BaptSme 1 ■' R. — Kn ce que noim soinines rei-elux de Jrsux Christ ft nous ij recfvons ton esprit.^' il li UM 68 stating that Baptism is a sign and seal of regeneration in the above extract, is to Tit. iii. 5., which fixes beyond doubt the meaning of the Compilers. The same doctrine is stated in Quest,l65, of the larger Cate- chism, and in Quest. 94 of the Shorter Catechism, which are both constituent parts of the Confession of Faith. The only drawback in the whole Book on the doctrine of Baptismal rege- neration is in §. V. of Chapter xxviii. where, no doubt, influ- enced by their opinion of absolute reprobation, they seem to think it possible that some who are baptized may not be rege- nerated. The reference is to Acts viii. 13, 33." " Hymn 740, page 668, Methodists' Collection :— 1. God of eternal truth and love, Vouchsafe the promised aid we claim, Thine own great ordinance approve. The child baptized into thy name Partaker of thy nature make, And give him all thine image back. , 2. Father, if such thy sovereign will, if Jesus did the rite enjoin, Annex thy hallowing Spirit's seal And let the grace attend the sign ; The seed of endless life impart Take for ^ .Qishops, by parties whose revtrence for the Canons, in whatever way they may stand affected towards Bishops, is possibly not very profound. It is, of course, easily shewn to be inappLcable. After the expo- sure of its inapplicability has been forgotten, is is brought up again. And so of th« attempt to institute a parallel between the case of the Church of England in Ireland and in Canada. nt w It will be and Apos- he question . 50 of the I, of whom speak, have re had hard elped ihera ision for the [he bread of 5 country by their doors, rces at their objects, and And there as not strong jrvice. But gthening the England, by frying on the stributing her lits and more lave, — not to )rs of Protes- more towards madian mind could be anti' regular efforts contemptuous eir eflfect and cause which le by irres- thcse Bishops whether any- ; is done for been brought for- )r the Canons, m possibly not very After the expo- again. And so of uch of England m the Church, is done for souls, and done, it may at least be charitably believed, for the fake of souls, in its pros- pective no less than its immediate eftects. With reference, in particular, to the hands in which the administration of this Diocese is now lodged, it is happy for the servants of God, ( unprofitable servants chough they bo,) that to their own merciful master they stand or fall. An examination of the places indicated in the pub- lications above-mentioned, might serve, perhaj.s, to shew that, although the views of the author may not exactly accord with those of other parties here in question,* res- pecting either the course which the Church can or that which she ought to take, his own course has not been dic- tated by mere unconcern for the souls of any particular section of his fellow-subjects. And were it necessary for him to appeal to the past or the present, he could perhaps, although very con- scious of hpving done but little, and that little not so well as it might have been done, say something of having, according to the measure of his ability, served the cause of Protestantism, through the press ; of having been willihg to encounter odium in making a stand, upon a marked occasion, for Protestant principle ; of having lent his personal aid, when the estab- lishment of a Service in French for the Guernseymen and Jer- seymen at Quebec, was thoujjht to open the door, at the same time, if they would avail themselves of it, to those of the same tongue but of another faith, f (an addition to his labours, which, if it be worth while to mention so trifling a circum- stance, has been known to cost him an entire night without retiring to rest at all, in preparation of a French sermon) ; he might say something also, of having assisted in revising a translation into French, of Bianco White'^s Preservative, which was printed for circulation in Canada ; of having, more lately, in his episcopal capacity, taken pains to give every pos- sible facility and help at his command, to one of the missiona- ries who is doing all that the care of his own charge will permit ♦ A good deal may turn upon the opinion which men entertain respecting the tolvability of members of the Church of Borne. I have no backwardness in avowing that I range myself, upon this point, with such men as Hooker, Bax- ter, Doddridge, &c., who hold the affirmative of the question, t One of the country Missionaries, since dead, gave JEIOO towards the Cha- pel opened partly for this object, and begged that it might be called the French Chapel. One previous convert attended, with his sons who were boys. No such effect followed as that which is here mentioned. I( d II !« 78 fur some Frc-ncli Canadian ncigliLours seeking instruction intlie Crospcl, (for whom it is hoped to do something more \\hen tlie time shall serve) and finally that about tiie time when, without any suspicion of the fact on his part, parties jjere were in communication with parties in England, respecting the absence of all interest lor the French Canadians in this Diocese, he was putting matters in train to obviate some ditficulties which stood in the way of his ordaining an excellent Swiss minister, whose maintenance had been provided for, by a zea- lous lady of fortune, for a Congregation of French Canadians, existing in another part of LowerCanada: that he^strained a point to give speedy effect to this arrangement,* and that upon the subsequent admission of this gentleman to Priests' Orders, mat- ters were concerted to increase the interest of the ceremony, by conducting the whole of tiie Services at the Ordination in French, — upon which occasion a public recantation of one of the converts was received by himself, being a repetition of an occur- rence of 1846, as recorded in the Journal above-mentioned, when he received the first which, as it is believed, was ever made in a formal and public manner, in Canada. (Some others were received in the intervening time by the Clergyman upon the spot.) It is not the object of these statements to afford satisfaction to any of Jiose parties who, if the phrase must be used, are known to trade upon the presumed deficiency of the Church. It is probable that they will never see them, and that if they were to do so, they would not suffer themselves to be influenced by the perusal. In fact, there are, upon occasion, examples to be found, as cannot fail to be apparent to men of observation who have seen the working of these matters in the religious world,of persons who, — if the con- viction could be operated upon them, that the Church, with reference to this or that religious object, although she might benefit by their suggestions or their help, is quietly doing or seeking to do, in the best and safest way, what they themselves want to be done, — would be prone to feel in their hearts, what is described in these words of Horace : — Pol, me occidistis, amici, Non servSstis, ait : cui sic extorta voluptas Et demptus per vim mentis gratissimus error. • Immediately afterwards an application was made from the same quarter on behalf of this Clergyman, to the Society for Promoling Christian Knowledge, '- — -.li p .. . 79 >n in tlie hen the when, es liere ting the Diocese, ificulties t Swiss ^ a zea- nadians, d a point jpon the srs, mat- nony, by ation in neof the n occur- mtioned, /as ever le others lan upon isfaction je used, of the ; them, it suffer ct, there fail to be )rking of the con- :h, with e might doing or mselves ts, what quarter on knowledge, It is too much to ex|)ect tiiat persons thus impresscu and thus biassed, (of whom there are not a few) will over, unless in some severely sifting hour, he brought to believe that, by taking u stand apart, preserving an independent course, and substracting their individual weight and etKciency from the labours of the Church, while they still avow their adherence to her Commu- nion, instead of identifying themselves with those labours, whatever faults and deficiencies may attach to them, and of con- tributing to their correction, they have committed onk gkeat MISTAKE THROUGH LIFE. But there arc other parties for whose sake it may be proper that these matters should be rightly ex- plained. And professed Churchmen, zealous for God, who are not so prepossessed in favor of a particular class of schemes, as to be inaccessible to fair and simple representation on the other side, should be led serious.^ to enquire, with respect to religious undertakings generally^ whether any line of proceed- ing which tends to the encouragement of schism or the embar- rassment of operations conducted by the Church of England, and which affords (as in many instances,) implied sanction to all which carries the comprehensive name of Protestant, in- cluding, together with much that is truly respectable and excel- lent in other Communions, a lamentable amount of error, extra- vagance, irregularity, unsoundness in the faith and practical evil fruit, in forms much too palpable to admit of question, — whether any such line of proceeding be not, at least in one of its effects, auxiliary to the objects and subservient to the interests of the Church of Rome.* Certainly it would subserve those interests and cause a loud ovation in that Church, that anything so glar- ingly anomalous should take place, professedly in the Church of England, — anything so utterly subversive of her plainest principles, so manifestly irreconcileable with her essential fea- tures, as the importation by members of the laity, of Clergymen in holy orders of that Church and still professing to belong it, for a supply of French Bibles and Prayer Books. The Secretary kindly took the responsibility, as the Committee do not transact business in the summer recess, of authoriz-ng the immediate shipment of the Books, for the object of their being receivei before the close of the Navigation. An extract from the letter to the Secretary, with the Resolution of the Society upon it, may be seen in the Ecclesiastical Gazette for October. * It is well known that, in the great Rebellion in England, theie were Je- suits in disguise, in that country, personating fanatical preachers. So iho- roughlywas it understood by the politic conductors of the Romish interest, that Rome had no better friends than those who .vere bent upon pulling down thi* Church of England and laying her dignities and her establishment in the dii.«t 80 IX iliPi^ il»i who are to be disconnected from the Bishop of the Diocese in which they would labour and independent of his authority. Tliese persons would, in the real effect of such a proceeding, cease to be Clergymen of the Church of England. Nothing, indeed, can be more evident than that in some cases of this na- ture, the name of the Church of England is only used in order the better to work in opposition to her, by gaining access in quarters which would not be open to the name of dissent. The honest simple course would be to assume the latter name at once. It can hardly be necessary to expose such an idea as that if men use the liturgy and preach, (admitting argumenti gratia, that they would do so) the doctrine of the Church of England, in an understood sense of that word,» that alone, with the fact added of their having been ordained by an Anglican Bisliop, would constitute their identity with the Church of Eng- land. For it is surely sufficiently obvious that the system of the Church of England is not only a certain form of public worship and a peculiar system of doctrines. It is also a peculiar system of Church Government, with a known centre of union and fountain of authority in the person of the Bishop, — it is a pecu- liar system of Church-membership, and it is a peculiar system of Church-ordinances, It may not be amiss at the close of this long note, to adduce a quotation from one of our Primates who was noted in his day for moderate views : — " It was a principle among the ancient Romans, a brave and a wise people, to give up and sacrifice their private enmities and quarrels to the public good, and the safety of the Common- wealth. And is it not to every considerate man, as clear as the sun at noon day, that nothing can maintain and support the Pro- testant religion amongst us, and found our Church upon G rockj so that when the rain falls, and the winds blow, and the floods beat upon it, it shall stand firm and unshaken ; that nothing can be a bulwark, of sufficient force to resist all the arts and attempts of Popery, but an Established National Religion, firmly united and compacted in all the parts of it ? Is it not plain to every eye, that litth sects and congregations can never do it r but will be like a foundation of sand to a • I do not undorstand ynur distinciion saiil Samuel Wesley to his brother, for xurely Episcopacy is matter of doctrine too. (This is quoted from memory.) -■■■■M«LW " T«'^-»'..'A«^^ T^^iM' '^ jg aw ^ W fe h JI 81 and mities »mmon- as the le Pro- rockj ind the that all the tional it? Is :ations d to 3. weighty building, which, whatever show it may make, cannot stand long, because it wants union at the foundations and, for that reason, must necessarily want strength and firmness." — Archbishop Tillotson. It is a point of wisdom to profit by the conjunctures which seem to be indicated by Divine Providence, and to know when a door is opened to us and when it is not. We are all, how- ever, liable to err ; but the first step towards making any effectual impression upon the Romanists of this country is, in my judgment, to check, so far as in us lies, the progress of Schism, and to promote, by every possible nieans, that system which will best enable the professors of the pure faith of the Gospel, to present a face of some coherence, consistency and stability before the world, and to challenge the Romanist himself in an appeal to antiquity. Persons who advocate such a mode of operations as that invoked by the correspondent of the Colonial Church Society, must, of course, be prepared fir retaliation and could not com- plain of it. They must expect an " organization^^ to be created in the Church of Rome for the express object of con- verting the members of the Church of England, and Romish Missionaries, appointed for that task, to be openly sent among our people. With the enormous resources at the command of the Church of Rome in this country, and the overwhelming majority of its population, — I do not say that I should fear any extensive defection from our standard, but I do ask whether such a state of things would be really calculated to piomote the interests of Religion. 82 JVb/tf I. Page 36. ■i 'i 1 The injunction to solemnize marriage only in the house of God, (when it is within reasonable reach,) according to the excellent and known rule of the Church, had been issued be- fore, in the Cities of Quebec and Montreal ; and such an in- junction was in accordance with the wishes of Clergymen of the Diocese who, desirous of observing the rule, naturally felt that they ought to be sustained in insisting upon it, by the episcopal authority. Some of the Clergy had, however, for many years before, enforced its uniform observance in their Parishes. I believe it c«n be hardly necessary to combat a notion so entirely groundless, as that the Licence can make it compvhory to celebrate marriage, if desired, in a private house. There is no Law, of force in this Province, which compels the Clergy to violate the rules of their Church. And the Church, both with reference to Banns and Licence, as may be seen in the Rubrics of the Marriage Service and in the 62d Canon, directs that the ceremony shall be performed in the house of God. The dispen- sation from this rule which is procured by a special Licence from the Archbishop of Canterbury, (and from him alone,) serves only to covfirm the rule in a more pointed manner, in the case of banns or that (-f any other than such special Licence, — since nothing but svch special Licence ran gi\ e exemption from its operation. 7'hat extmption is tlio precise object of a special Licence ; and no Licence not specially issued for that object, can possibly have the same cfltct. The observance, therefore, of the rule of the Church in (his behalf, is certainly lawful, and it is certainly honest, i. e. seemly and decent and not conlru bonos mores ; and, beint:;;- lawful and honest, it falls, of course, when enjoined, v;iii)in the mailer of the oath of canonical obedience lo (he Kishof), which the Clergy who oificiiile in ihe Diocese, have U\\n\\. But Ihis is a point wl)i( h I am confident (hat I liavc no need to urce. w li d ti o l> h ti ^. as fa 1 1 83 use of to the id be- an in- of the t that scopal years es. I ntirely iry to e is no ergy to ih with Hubrirs that the dispcn- Licence alone,) ner, in special m (live precise iecialhj In delivering and in publishing with the Notes which have been appended to it, the foregoini^ Charge to iny Clergy, I have made a great effort,*' in weakness and in fear and in rnucii tremb- ling," to face a variety of questions more or less difficult, and to dispose, as I am best able, of some points of a thorny and conten- tious aspect. Let me hope in God tliat I have — in this department of my duty, at least, — exhausted the task ; and that if I am permitted to meet my brethren again in the same way, I may have the comfort of confining myself to topics of sim.ple edifica- tion in the plain and unquestioned duties of our huly calling. My earnest prayer to God, with reference to the lest as well as to the daily close of my labours, may be expressed in tiie familiar words of good Bishop Ken, — That with the world, myself and thee, I, ere 1 sleep, at peace may be ! |i m this f/, i. e. I, 6f /y'.ir within iViyhop, taUtn. ho nceil i