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JAMES' CHURCH, TORONTO, ON WEDNESDAY, JUNE 14, 1865. BY THE REV. H. C. COOPER, B.A„ HECTOR OF CHRIST CHURCH, ETOBICOKE. TORONTO: H. ROWSELL, PRINTER, KING STREET EAST. 1865. 3 '/ 6' 1 SERMON. f PsAiM cxxii., V. 3.—" Jerusalem is built as a city that is at unity iu \i3QU:'—(Pra!/er Book Version.) In addressing a congregation such as I see before me, it seems to me that it is hardly my province to read lessons of Christian virtue to those who are themselves teachers of the people in the way of righteousness, or to dwell even upon the great doctrines of the Gospel to those who are themselves preachers and heralds of salvation. Advice "nd instruction will come with greater weight from authority higher than mine. Forbearing, therefore, from more accustomed topics, I purpose to take up some points relating to the condition of the Church in this country, and to give expression to some thoughts which appear naturally to suggest themselves on the assembling of one of its periodical councils. There are many features in the present state of the Church in Canada, which are well worthy of notice. The first, and probably the most obvious, is its remarkably independent position. Hardly, perhaps, since the days of primitive Christianity can we lay our finger upon a Church in a similar position. At any rate, in the history of the British Church, we must go back to a period anterior to the arrival of Augustine : for however many blessings attended his mission, it was accompanied by the assertion, and led to the acknowledgment, of a foreign supremacy of nine hundred years' duration — a supremacy which made the Church of England merely a province of one great spiritual empire, almost coterminous with the civil empire of ancient Rome. Freed from that dominion at the Reformation, it could hardlv be otherwise, considering the circumstances of the times, than tliat the Church sliouM becomo so united with the State, so much part and parcel of it, so blended with, and incorporated in, the civil institutions of the kingdom^ that while undoubtedly mucli strength and prestige accrued to the Church by this union, one thing was inevitable, namely, that she lost the power of acting independently of the civil and national authorities. While her laws were the laws cf the land, they had to be made like other laws, and to be enacted by the same legislature. While bound to the State, the Church could not move without the State. Upon the various complications, not to say evils, arising out of this condition of things in the Mother Church, I will not dwell ; nor need I pause to consider how such anomalies may be removed, or such evils remedied. Never, perhaps, for some centuries past, have those difficulties presented them- selves in a more trying form than of late years— in a form, indeed, threatei^ing the vitality of those sacred truths which are the very life-blood of her existence. But while we cannot be blind to the dangers attendant upon, and arising from, the peculiar position of the Church at home— seeing them, indeed, all the more cl arly from our distant stand-point— while hoping and pruying that, under Divine guidance, the wisdom and piety of her rulers and the Christian zeal of her people, never more conspicuous than at present, may be blessed to the discovery of such measures as may both preserve the Church in its high position a8*e unaltered determination, as expressed in the Declaration of the first rrovinclal Synod, (1861) *' iu dependence upon the Divine aid to preserve those doctrines, and that form of Church g).:rnment, and to transmit them to our pos^terity." While- thankful to be thus exempted from various difficulties attendant upon the present position of the Church in Ei);Tl;in(l, our sentiments of rev. v-ence and attachment to tlie Clini^h htrself need in no de^jree be impaired or diminished ; nay, rather, they should be strengthened ; for the connection is now unhampered by many vexed questions which have hitherto encumbered it. The maturity of power, and the position to which we have now attained, need not weaken or extinguish the filial afl'ection which* is due from us to that Church from which we sprung, which fostered us in our infancy, to whose Bympathies we still appeal, and whose hand is still open to aid our Christian enterprises. The mutual bond ia of a higher, holier, and more enduring nature than if it rested only upon old acts of parliament, or upon questionable decisions of judicial committees. Neither is our acknowledgment of the Queen's su^ .emacy affected by the surrender i- our uvor of her Majesty s ecclesiatical prerogatives. "We still," to quote the same declaration, " maintain the ancient doctrine of our Church that the Queen is rightfully possessed of the chief govern- ment and supremacy over all persons within hci dotmnions, whether ecclesiastical or civil, as set forth in the o7th of the Articles of Religion ; and we desire that such supremacy should continue unimpaired." The difference will henceforth lie in tliis— that in an appeal to the Crown arising out of any important Church difficulty, the question will be settled by reference to our own Church regulations, and no other. ^%^ t 10 All that the Crown would be required to decide would be, whether the Church here, in its executive capacity, had rightly administered its own laws. But now, ray brethren, there are other and very serious , considerations arising out of the position in which we find ourselves. With increase of power comes increased respon- sibility. We assemble for objects connected with the highest interests of man. And though a Church Synod may not be surrounded with the outward honors and ceremonials of a secular parliament, nor occupy so high a place in the public estimation, nor be watched with so much interest, nor give rise to so much popular feeling and excitement, yet its utterances, compared to the whirlwind of political agitation, may be as the " still small voice," indicative of a higher presence ; its actions may have a deep pervading influence, operating, though indirectly, not less powerfully, upon the moral and religious tone of thought among our whole people. It behoves us, then — need I say "how ueeply it behoves us — to conduct our deliberations in a spirit of Christian forbearance and Christian courtesy, to set aside personal and selfish considerations — to act as before God, and only as we may conscientiously believe to be for the good of His Church. To this end all mere party feeling must evidently be kept in abeyance. We meet not to struggle for pre- eminence. We are not constituted, like some other assem- blies, of a party in power, and a party out of power. We do not expect to see a minority pertinaciously opposing and harassing the action cf the rest, nor a majority recklessly over-riding, and setting at nought, the wishes and feelings of the smaller raumber. Not unfrequently men forget that the highest test of character is not success in obtaining power, but the way in which they use it when obtained. Especially must we school ourselves to admit of each other that men may be sincere Christains, good Churchmen, faith- ful ministers of Christ, and yet on many points hold opinions varying from, perhaps diametrically opposite to, our own. 11 Willie retaining our own honest convictions, let us not quarrel with others for doing the same. All men's minds will not run in the same groove ; probably it was never in- tended that they should. The accidents of education, train- ing, reading, and early associations will give a set or leaning to the mind, without materially, if at all, aiTecting its practi- cal reception of the essential doctrines of the faith. In the management of our deliberations, as in the spirit with which they are conducted, we are undoubtedly learning and improving as we proceed. It could hardly be expected that such unaccustomed powers would be managed to pei fection at ^rst : and indeed under a system so utterly new to English Churchmen, it would not have been strange if we had found ourselves not altogether equal to our new responsibilities. Yet under the judicious and impartial presidency which we have enjoyed, the character of our deliberations has been open to very little exception ; and their results are gradually consolidating themselves into a most useful and efficient code of Church laws. Much have we to be thankful for. Undisturbed by the weak fondness for medieval superstition^ which has exhibited itself so painfully else where— untainted by a neology which threatens to culminate in practical infidelity — we are solving a problem which has exercised the prayerful thoughts of many, namely, how, under a monarchy, can the Church be worked in- dependently of the State ? And I think we are bidding fair to arrive at a satisfactory solution. Let us go on, then, as we have begun, profiting by every years's additional experience, and casting away no right or privilege because some difficulties may attend its exercise. To manage our new powers aright, is the duty which Providence has assigned to us ; and to give back any of those powers, or to transfer them to other hands, asking others to do for us what we ought to do ourselves, is hardly in character with the high and honorable position which the Church in Canada now occupies in the eyes of the Church Catholic. Lastly, and again, as regards ourselves, let us not fortret that we are one hj the profession of a common faith, and°in the ministry and membership of a common Church. Let us, therefore, endeavour the more to avoid and discountenance whatever may generate or foment division or ill-feelincr • for undoubtedly the strength of our Zion will be found in 'this, that she is "as a city which is at unity in itself;" and if we are to do our Redeemer's work, it must be done in the spirit of his commandments. ■ H. ROWSBLt, PRINTER, KING STREET, TORONTO.