IMAGE EVALUATION TEST TARGET (MT-3] fe 5^ <' "fPr ^ a'^' Is MX (/a ^ 1.0 I.I 1.25 28 144 2 5 ""'== |||2,S 122 2.0 1.8 14 IIIIII.6 p>. / ,^'^>/ ^<# m / o / Photogi'dDhic Sciences Corporation 2 J Vit.-a\ MAirv SiKCCI WEBSTER, N.Y. 14580 (716) 872-4503 CIHM/ICMH Microfiche CIHM/ICMH Collection de microfiches. GiliacKan ln»tltuta for Historical MIeroraproductions / Inttitut Canadian da microraproductions historiques % vV Technical and Bibliographic Notes/ Notes ternniques et bibliggraphique* Thp Institute has attempted to obtain the best original copy available tor filming. Features of this copy which may be bibliographically unique, which may alter any of the images in th« reproduction, or which may significantly tflftflfft the usual method of filming, are checkod iMlSowr. 1,'lnstitut a microfilme le meiileur exemplaire qu il 'ui a ete possible de se procurer Les details da cat exemplaire Qui sent peut etre uniaues du point 0*0 V^ ti^^t0^y^V PUBLiaHED AT THE REQUEST OF THE CLERGY. tSuebec: PRINTED BYT. GARY, Buade-Street. n « V Tk& following Charge having been considered by the author, too long to be delivered entire, it has been thought proper towards the Clergy, who requested the publication of It, to distinguish the passages which were omitted in the delivery, (although containing no matter but such as wUl be found to harmonize with the whole,) by placing them between crotchets. U 1 w ■I'i A CIIAJUIE, S*Ce, ^C. Mf Reverend Brethren, first ILjecfwhLrst"™!^ ^^' ««^»«»y the "pon this c^casTonraftlfSeL^'L^^ ^« '"*'«' have lost our conneof.vTn «rfir^ ^\^ reduced Diocese and labourers ?u t^e "rme fTh.."'^." ^ ,^^ "''^ ^^^^^^«"' ^« f^^l^w- Three Seesof ?heThurfh of S^^^^^^ ^^ ^^^^ ^^«^i«<^«- Canada, the whoL of wLh fi^^?'^ ^'' "^'^ established in vinces, was comnrehpn^i ;v, '^" ^*''"'^"- *^'« separate Pro- was fi/sualled tH"^^^ .^^ ^^'" i"nsdict/o„, when I See, since we last met Imhfpn ?^^TT\^^°"- ^"°ther couraginc? prosnects wfth.n ! i « " ^^tabhshed, with very en- AmerL,^S wiirn ^/ ] ^'^'.''"* P^'^^'^" ^^ British North pervision, was Ven ^o^^^ '""^ ^^^^^^ ««- own episc^; ^'^SsXn7 -to the range of my prospect, in Canada i self -and -f 7"^^^, ^"bd^visions are in these proo-ressive arrutl^Ll! / '^ sufficiently apparent that the advandnrdeS^'J^fl: rV'N"""'' '^"^^^P P^«« ^^th even ia I^w?r SadfaloL ^n?^^^^^^^^ '¥' the Church. »? "^mu/^mi^vixam immmf-imm f i^ V. <: The r^citt erection of the See of Montreai, of which the en- dowment has been provided by the liberality of Chnrchmrn in England, — KlthougU it leaves to lis a far more extended suriuco of country, lias taken away from us, bnsidos the larger half of the Clergy, incom]);t.rably the more advanced and tlourishing and woaltliy portion uf Lower Canada, as it respects the Chnrch dt' England population. In these points of view, it is, by nuuiy degrees, the more iin|X)rtant section of the Diocese which has now passed away from my hands — and I am content — more than content, I am exceedingly thankful that it should be so, when .[ see to what other hands it has been transferred. The new Diocese of Montreal opens with the most higldy promising auguries, and by the blessing of Him who s^ivcth the incrcasCf we may look forward to the advancement of the cause of Christ within its limits, by the ministry of the Church. We must feci it, therefore, to be a subject of congratulation, that the measure has been accomplished, which, as I intimated upon a former occasion of this nature, I still kept in view, while I re- tained personally, as my titular distinction, the stile taken from the See of Montreal. This title, as you are aware, originated in my appointment to act as a kind of Suffragan or Co-adjntor to the late venerated Bishop of Quebec ; and upon his decease, fourteen years ago, I might have assumed at once, the title de- rived from the old See of Quebec. But the nominal See of Montreal was kept up, till the arrangement was brought about by which it was constituted, once for all, an independent episco- pal jurisdiction. The vine which the riaht hand of the Lord hath planted^ we may well hope, is deepening her roots, from day to day, while she is stretcliing out her branches and will hear fruit ttpuardf more and more, to the glory of that Lord and the good of his people. Yet, in the worldly aspect of the case, we have little to lift us up in heart, and much to abase us : Reserving here the consideration of some special circumstances which painfully aflect the Church of the Empire at large, or which affect it in the same manner, within the Province of Canada in purticii- Jar,— we see ourselves here, in this Diocese, a straggling, and, in many points of view, a feeble band: we may fix, in one in- stance, up(m a Missionary, with a handful of followers and some little detatched posts of duty to be occupied upon occa- sion, — who has to look more than a hundred miles in one dikcction, and something approaching to three times that distance in another, for the near^H fellow-lahourers of his own faith— and allliongh this is a pfcnlior cnse. we know ' r • ~mn-i!^siinimam 3mmmri9>mm»^m ^'»il^Ba;,,:«*«^»i#^f«BK'»,«l».«»«a««®*WHH^g^pep3»^l^^i^WflM^Warr»'^^SS^E1W^»*is ■■'SWiv-'Ssi!.^ f ■' that it may I^ (I> '-ribcdi not» indeed, as the invarialifai condition, but yet as a characteristic condition of our clergy, to be scattered, often at wide intervals, over u vast ex- tent of country, and to minister to flocks of slender resources — the people content or, if not content, comjK*llcd to worship in wooden Churches, perhaps standing, for years together, unfinished, unfurnished and unconscorated, although in use — with no adequate provision for the education of their children, who are filling up the settlements and to whom we must look as the hope of the Church, — the means of communi- cation and the accommodations of life all miserably backward, and the opportunities of intercourse with more favoured por- tions of the population, iufrequent and impeded. We stand, at best, in disparaging contrast with the splendid endowments; the snbstantiul provisions, the imposing institutions and the multi- plied engines botii of religious and political inlluence which dis- tinguish the hierarchy of the Church of Rome. And yet we believe that all that proudly and wonderfully constructed fabric, and all its peculiar appaiatus either of poweror of fascination, are but (in an allowable variation from the original meaning and connection of the words') — res Roman fc porituraqueregna; and we know the utter fallacy, as we cannot fail to see the secular character of that test of the true Church which has heer put forward by a celebrated Romish champion,! that amplitude, duration and worldly prosperity, should be found to concur as its characteristics. Let us, then, take courage, whatever be our comparative local insignificance, in the recollection of the question — Who hath dcs^nscd (he day of small thivgs? Fear not, little flacky for it is your Father's gacd pleasure to give you the kingdom. The advances which we have been permitted to make, are pledges to us that, if wc keep our holy faish unreproved and our lamp burning in the briglitness of unalloyed fe^criplural truth, our Cod has purposes of mercy tons and to his pf^ople by our ministry. Our Dioceses, we see, arc multiplying ; uur own number of Missions has incrensed considerably, since we last met in Visitation ; and our College, poorly as it is endowed, and destitute up to this day, among other wants, of the appendage of a Chapel, is m.ost fortdnate in its establishment of Professors, and has proved itself an efficient nursery for the Church, having sent forth, since it was oitened, not seven years ago, twenty-cne • It will be remennbtred, triat the r«s Romatnf are set by V;rgil in the origi- tie! passage, in opposition to the jitrUura rtgna, f Bossuet. This is quoted from nirmoiy. e young men, who went through their coune of piepamt! lu for tht? ministry, in whole or in part within its unlls, and who, cojl- Jectively regarded, are labouring in the field of the Gosi' I, \\ it^^ decided fidelity and eift'Ct. We have had small but valm I u i I ditions to our number, from home — and we Itave youths of very excellent promise now in training within the institution just mentioned. It is difficult to make menlion of any of our Collegiate In- stitutions in the Province, without ixausing to admire ihe wonderfully energetic and successful manner in which every- thing has been put in train to repair, in the Diocese of Toronto, the loss inflicted upon the Church, the foremost body, in every respect, in that Diocese, after she had been dislodged and driven out by the hand of ])0\ver, from her occupation of those halls of learning which it would have been happier for the country to have seen left in her hands, and in which she would have dispensed the advantages of secular education to all de- nominations alike* If we look away from our own merely local interests, to contemplate the condition of the Anglican Church, m a whole, we encounter the same mixed and conflicting aspect of things. Our holy and ve.ierated mother stands, as it werOj before «s XaKjpycti' yi^dttraira : there are many cir- cumstances to gladden her bosom and to enliven her hope,— yet her attitude is that of constiaint and distress :— her sunshine is crossed by lowering and ominous rlouds, her se- renity disturbed by stormy agitations. The multiplication of her Churches at home, unparallelled in all ecclesiastical history ; the vast extension of her labours abroad, witii much actual fruit of a pleasing and interesting kind, of which the Reports and Quarterly papers, of the Society for the Projjagation of the Gosjiclf if we look no farther, themselves supply us with speci- mens ; the planting of her standard, — ** the meteor flag of Eng- land'* in a sacred application of the words, — firmly set and auspiciously floating, in various and remote regions of the earth ; the noble instances of munificence among her wealthier members, in the promotion of religious objects : the gradual yet effective reformation of some old abuses and the repair of many past neglects : the improved scale established of clerical attain- ments generally, and the more consisteni and elevated tone given to clerical manners and deiwrtment — the growing number of her genuine and intelligently attached disciples, than whom there are not more sound, stable, humble-minded, exemplary and benevolent Christians in the world, — these and many other ^^^^' -"'SSSI^ •^rmM »~^^5^Mi m 'II 1 [ eirci ! I iited out, aflord gfoundt of en Ml ! kf Illness to Gud. Mor« than 111 Hviue of contmeitsl I'liir."", ii,.^ ..^ ■ ■ jHf then onlyseven ] t' age, to events which were i)as.n the theatrf u( \\\r \, ii1, usef' these remarkable words : Ikholu, God hat ctiiunlv rrnt designs with England, and it is a mighty in- ■striiiiit 111 111 his hand, to establish his kingdom upon earth,"— the cft'ect of which saying upon the mind < !* the childf resulted in his passing over, after his College coursr, to EngiamI ami pfoceeding, in the service of the Society for rromoting Chris- tian Knowledge, as a Missionary to India.* How infinitely more marked and mnltipKed have been the indications, since that day, of the high and solemn vocation of the Church of England in propagating the Faith of Christ over the world ! How little must we be either alive to our own responsibilities or aware of our privileges as Ministers of that Church, if we do not intimately feci and practically recognize the eminent ap- plication to ourselves, in that capacity, of the Redeemer's solemn words : Ye are the salt of the earth ; . . . . Ye are the light of the teorld. A city that is set on a hill cannot be hid : — your office is to preserve from corruption, the mass in which you mix, and to dispense by your ministry, the light of divine truth in a world darkened by sin and error ; and, in the execu- tion of this task, you occupy a position so conipicuous that, as the success of your faithful labour will redound, far axid wide, to the glory of God, so your faiiurc^ and deficiencies will bring shame upon your heads and damage to the cause entrusted to your hands. My Eeverend Brethren, it is by this estimate of our task and by a survey of those encouraging particulars to which I have adverted, but, above all, by our faith in the presence of Gnd with his Church and his protection of her interests, that we must be sustained in the contemplution of evils and difficulties, on the other side, which else might make our spirits sink within us. Things might be, (as they often have been,) incomparably worse — the struggles of the Church imcomparably more severe — her prospects incomparably more gloomy and menacing, and yet all would net he too much for God. She might be overrun by the rankest weeds of error j she might be outrageously per- iiecuted and seemingly prostrate : &nd yet destin d to revive in • See Abstract of Report! and Cortflspondence of that Society, frotu th^ eomnMncement of its East India ojierationsi in 1709, published in 1814 page 681&ieq. 8 greater liislre than beture. But whatever may be the character of that crisis which appears to be impending, we cannot conceal from ourselves that the difficulties of the Church are actually severe, and that many adverse occurrences conspire at this moment to fetter her freedom and eacrs^Y of action and, humanly speaking, to depress her confidence. M'ith all the great things of which she is capable and which nppcaf to be divinely marked out for her ; with all the noble undertakings which she has m hand and with all the evidences of blessing which have rested, in many and marked instances, upon her endeavors, there are, nevertheless, points of view in which we are (liiu to apply to her case the words of the messengers in sackcloth who were sent, in the alarms of Jerusalem, to the Prophet .• This day is a day of trouble and of rebuke and of hlaqjltemy : for the children are come to the birth and there is not strength to bring fmth. Strange and unhappy defections from our standard, — not, in- deed, in any considerable number, compared with the whole body of our clergy and people, but most strange and most im- hr->py defections,— men hanging on and off between two irre- concileable systems, and seeming, in some instances, only to remain with us, up to a certain point, that they may the belter work against us,— only to wait for that opportunity of breaking with us which will most eflectually serve the cause to which they desert,— yet no vigor of power put forth within the Church, to arrest their proceedings or expel them from her bosom,— practices condemned by ecclesiastical authority, over which that authority appears, nevertheless, incompetent to exercise any efficient control— questions agitated which urgently de- mand a solution and a settlement by a presiding power within the community of fellow-believers and fellow worshippers, so constituted as to claim their free and full recognition and to challenge their acquiescence, and no recourse appearing but to a tribunal which, in the gradual revolution of afKiirs, has be- come mixed with elements absolutely foreign and susceptible of the case of becoming hostile to the system of the Church of England :— Men who find it convenient to call themselves the friends of the Church, making their clamorous appeal to a Government so composed, to interfere, with a high hand m oiu ecclesiastical concerns :— the State still pertinaciously refusing, after nearly a century and a-half for which this grievance has galled the neck of the Church, to permit to her the exercise of her inliereiit privilege, indulged to every other religious body mider the whole circle of the heavens, of holding her own formal and deliberative conventions, foi the regulation of her A ( A ( * 9 internal aflairs— and this the more signalized to view, becaitse the General Assembly of the neighboring religious establisU- ment of North Britain, sits, year by year,in solemn and dignified deliberation, under the sanction of the Crown — while, again, the Romish hierarchy ni Ireland Ucm been permitted, without molestation, to hold, with all pomp and ceremony, a conclave in which the presiding influences are those of a foreign power radically and essentially antagonistic to the constitution of England in Church and State : — Professed members of the Church and even men who, by their office, are sworn to be her champions, ill-afFected at heart to her principles, making unscru- pulous advantage of her troublej, and availing themselves of the alarm and disgust created by the traitorous desertions to which I have adverted, to create prejudice against those dis- tinctive features of her system, as if they involved a dangerous approximation to Rome, which, in fact, are among the strong- est barriers and the happiest safeguards of her Protestantism— and the general crowd of the world without, with that vicious, hackneyed, and common-place cant which utterly confounds the ideas and misapplies the terms of liberality and tolerance, ready to ab;uidon all distinctive principles and to breakdown all barriers whatever in Religion, — these, my Reverend Brethren, arc features of cur case, which we must not shrink from contemplating as realities, — for realities they are — ^and sad realities enough. [A remarkable exemplification of the manner in which the Church is hampered, when she is called u^jon to make provision for any exigency which may arise, or to devise any adaptation of her existing regulations which unforseen circumstances may require, is found in the case of the arrangements put in train for facilitating the attendance of foreign Protestants upon her worship, d'lriug the Great Exhibition, in London, of the present year. Here is an occasion in which it is eminently de- sirable, fctr the credit o*" the British name, for the interests of Religion upon earth, for the benefit of souls, and for the honor of Gwl, that the National Church at the Seat of Empire, should sustain the glory of the country in Rdigion, the frst concern of man, and ;hould conspicuously sanctify the whole scene by throwing wide open her stately sanctuaries, with every ample opportunity o-Torded to the men of other tongues who throng the proud metropolis, for uniting, each in his own tongue wherein he teas born^ in her pure and beautiful sei vices, and receiving edi- fication from her appointed teachers. Even to create a favor- able impression of the national system of Religion, in so wnpre- B • «^f&? 10 cedentecl a gathering u( stmngersand one which may Ijc regnrded as pregnant with grent consequences to the human family, is a point of high im|X)rtancc. But, there are laws of the Church, framed without the contemplation of any such conjuncture ns this, which forbid the performance of the liturgy in a foreign language within any consecrated edifice.* And the Church, not being suffered to meet in convocation, has no power, no opportu- nity granted, to make so small an alteration as would be requi- site for effecting the object in question, — as the consequence of which inability on her part, recourse is unavoidably had to t'"^ shift of opening service for foreigners within certain pro- I tary Chapels and unconsecrated buildings alone. An incidental effect such as this upon the estimation and efficiency of the Church, is certainly to be lamented. Worse, howeve., far worse than this, is] the want at which I have glanced, not of any infallible tribunal, which, we well know does not exist and is not to be looked for upon earth, but of some tribunal which can inspire confidence and comfort in the bosom of the Church, when questions of a spiritual character and points of ecclesiastical obligation are to be decided.f Waiv- ing here the attempt, which might be obnoxious to the charge of presumption, to examine, as to its own proper and legal correct- ness or incorrectness, the verdict rendered by the Judicial Com- mittee of the Privy Council, 'n the celebrated Gerham case, and forbearing to speak otherwise than with all due respect of a body comprehending some of the highest Functionaries in Church and State, we cannot fail to see that in its mixed and anomalous composition — (anomalous with regard to the pur- poses which ''i-e here in question), it is liable to be such as can never command the reverence and loving acquiescence of devout and consistent Churchmen. And one very unde- sirable consequence which has followed from the recent memorable decision, is that there are many parties willing to embrace and eager to propagate the wholly false idea of its having been a decision favourable to the particular opinions, the • See in the London Ecclesiasticai Gazette, proceedings of the Society for prcmoting Christian Knowledge in December, 1850, compared with proceed- ings of the same body, in April, 1851 . The hardship and the inconsistency of being encumbered by such ;. prohibition, appear the more strongly, when it is considered that in places where another language is the vernacular tongue of the people, as French in the Islands of Guernsey and Jersey and Welch in the Principality of Wales, a translation of the Liturgy into such language, is U8i>d. t A few words were here added in the ttetivery, to make this sentence com- I)tet«, after the omission of the foregoing passage. n maiiiteiiance of which had origumlly ca,ise<» the ap^lant .ij the case, to be excluded from institution to us rxjuefice, and in a manner, a triumph of those opinions : Whereas it was, m point of flict,-aud this distinction ought on no account to be bst sisht of,~-simply r. decision that the maintenance of such opinions by a Min ster of tiie Church of England, was /..W/y llZissibielwv.s capable in the eye of the law, of a construction fuffTving It to pass according to the latitude which more or less largely In diftbrenJ quarters, is considered to be indulged to the Cler4 of that Church, upon some nicer i)omts of controvei .d dSe. It may, as I ani disposed to believe, be safely affirmed fh^t notonc member of the Judicial Committee, himself bed the precise views in question or regarded them as exhioiting the th^Lst natural and obvious sense of the forms Prescribed by the Church. Certainly we have reason o know, from ,.iib- ished writincTs, that in exceedingly high quarters where the l^.Sv of such views was admitted and pronounced, there were private and personal opinions entertained, by no means ot a similar complexion. u„..,iu, in The views of the appellant in this case can hardly, in- deed br re 4rded as a fair sample of the opinions held by arvparHcular class or school ot' divines within the Church, Smuc la they conspicuously possess that character which n modern phraseology, is described as extreme, and it sca^^ely appears to mf too strong to describe Ihem as extrava. l««r ri am far from intending to follow them in any portion Suh^ir '■details ; but I conceive it to be particularly useful that we should obseve the anxiety which was manifested,~-surely « t^iSed and, as it were, studied opposition to the clear s^^^^^^^^ familiar and reiterated language oi the Church of England -- to detach from the Sac-ament of Baptism the character of a J^gTlar vehicle of Grace,-for the sake of escaping from which S of baptism, recourse is had to the necessity of prevement Gr^e in orde to render the Sacrament efficacious. I am not Sn*^ as will be presently seen, to impos;e or establish the ne- AfFpft of baptism ; but you observe here that, rather tnan sup- f L thX Gmi^^ of the covenant of Christ can be conveyed K meaL of his own most solemnly instituted ordinance of bUr^^ of the Father, the Son and the Holy g£> t^^hich forms a prominent part of his c<«pmis.icm m per- petuity. to the planters and propagatorsof the Faith,-^a Cler^ ?nan of our own Church rei,rt« to the supi^osition that the cinld of Adam, in its state of nature, receives a prior and indepen- 12 dent communiciition of Grace, without which the Sacrament, although it is to be administered, will be a nullity. Why, then, any Sacrament at all f And must it not be, I would ask, painful and disturbing to the mind of the Clergyman, wha thanks (rod, in every instance without exception, tliat the baptized child is regenerate, if he is never to know vrhether those words so addressed to God above, happen to be true or false-— his only salvo being that, in the judgment of Charitjf the Church undertakes to thank God for that as true, which, according to the system here in question, is probably false, and at any rate false, if regarded as the effect of the ordi- nance just administered, though such is broadly and unequi- vocally declared as the view of the Church. There are two illustrations which have been used in differ- ent quarters, to justify this very unsafe evasion, as I cannot help regarding it, of the force of plain and solemn words, neitheif of which, as it appears to my judgment, afford the parallel which they are adduced to establish. I'irst, it is said that in the case of adults, the Church uses the same language in the administration of baptism, although the Minister cannot possibly see into the heart of the recipient ; and that, therefore, it is in the judgment of charity that such recipient is said to be regenerate. But it is to be observed that, in this case, the person officiating, if he does his duty, only administers the rite, after having become satisfied that the subject is in a prepared state to receive it. It is precisely upon the faith of that due preparation of heart and understandmg, that he performs the act. And entertaining this persuasion, he believes that, the water, acting in conjunction with the spirit, the man is so born again — his new birth is so consummated. In the case of the adult these are the grounds upon which the regene- ration of the subject is predicated : — in the case of the infant, there can be na grounds but in the simple effect of baptism. Secondly, the language of the burial-service has been brought forward, in which the Church expresses her hope respecting the salvation of the deceased, although there may have been, (it is needless to say) very evident grounds of fear upon the subject. But surely there is a great difference between a loose and com- prehensive kind of language referring to the condition of the dead who, in all their diversified shades of character and of religious preparation, had professed to believe in Christ and belong to his Church, and the language which applies to the direct and immediate effect of a particular ordinance of divine appointment. In the one case, we may make use of a standing > * f 4 Mi 13 J. « • f form of expression which, M|X)n vagiie and indeterminfite and, in fact, undefinable grounds, implies the existence of liope for the subject, without engaging or committing ourselves to any specific doctrinal consequence whate\'er : — in the other case, we thank God that the child is by baptism regenerate : we specify in a pre- cise and formal manner, an effect which we assume to have been just produced by a sacrament. It IS also to be observed that, if the discipline of the Church were in force, in the manner contemplated by the framers of our burial-service, our Clergy would not be placed in tVie distressing embarrassment which they sometimes experience, in being called upon to use that service over persons who have dishonored their holy vocation as followers of Christ.' Persons who have been thus guilty in a manner sufficiently marked to be cognizable by a human authority, would, if due discipline were more than a name, be excluded from the communion of the Church ; and would forfeit their claim if they should die in that condition, to the prayers of the Church over their remains. As matters actually stand with us, our Clergy are certainly constrained, in many instances, to admit a possibility for a hope, and to resort to the supposition of such a case as that described in the epitaph upon a man who Mras killed, upon the spot, by a fall from his horse : Between the stirrup and the ground, I mercy sought, I mercy found. But it is known that there are scandalous cases, in which con- scientious clergymen are prompted, at whatever risk of i>dium or of difficulty to be incurred by themselves, to refuse what they are constrained to regard as an inappropriate and even dangerous use of our burial-service. Upon the subject of baptismal Regeneration, as upon all other theological points which produce agitation within tlie Church, it ought to be our study and desire, — not to embrace, at all hazards, and to follow to all lengths, the views of tliis or that |iarty, — not to pledge ourselves, through every consequence, to a particular school, set or circle of divines, and to denounce as cowardly compromise or wordly accommodation, whatever more moderate course may offer itself, by which we can hope to pro- mote a mutual approximation of divergent and distracted sentiments, — but, remembering that truth lies usually between extremes, to seek simply what is the truth, apart from all lurking influence of favorite prepossessions, or accidental effect of per- * In the American prayer-hook, other expresisions have been eubstttuted for that pointed language which our own Clergy sometimes And it painful to use. 14 sonal connections. In my last Charge, I stated that I did not conceive it possible, with any safety to our coasciences or in any commonly honest use of words,— (in fact common sense and common honesty with the prayer-book in their hands may be left to dispose of this point,)— to minister in the forms ut the Church of England, if we do not hold that the term Regenem- tion applies in a full and distinct and unqualified sense to the effect of baptism ;• and I took occasion in an appendix to that Charge, to shew, by an accumulation of extracts from different Confessions of Faith and from the writings of divmes m difTerent Protestant Communions, tbat the language of the Church oi ■~ri;ving furnished, as I have here mentioned, a very --?»;<:»»/"<» a'nP'® exhibition in publishing a former Charge, of the language of the KtformaUon aS< rT elltiJl to the effect of baptist^, as harmonizing v^ith the language of ?lie Church of England, it may ',e useful to bring here under one pomt of view, some p incipll delatched examples (familiar as they are) of the language of the Church of England her.elf. in her authorized offices and formularies. upon the same subject. 1. In the Ministration of Public Baptism of Infants. ir Then shall the Priest say, ...... . j Seeing now, dearly beloved brethren, that this child i» regenerate and graftedlnlo the body of Christ's Church, &c., .... And then in the address to the Almighty himself, . .^ ^ . , . ,. . We yield thee hearty thanks, most merciful Father, that it hath pleased thte to regenerate this infant ti-ith thy Holy Spirit, to receive him for Ihine own chUd bjf adoption and to incorporate him into thy holy Church, 2 In the Ministration of Baptism to such as are of Riper Years.. Beloved, ye hear in this Gospel [the former part of John III.] the expiess words of our Saviour Christ, that except a man be born of tcater and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the Kingdom of God. Whereby ye ir?.y perceive the great necessity of this Sacrament where it may be had. And farther on, after the administration of the rite, we have the same affir- mation that the recipient of it is regenerate, with the same thanksgiving to God that he is so born again, as in the Form for the baptism of Infanls. 3. In the Catechism, , „, . . i.u r f^^ by baptism therein I vias made a member of CArotC, a cMia of uoa and an inheritor of the Kingdom of Heaven And in that part of it which treats of the Sacraments, . . re being by nature born in sin and the children of wrath, we are herebjf [by the inward and spiritual Grace of baptism'} made the children of Grace. 4. In the Order of Confirmation. ^. .. Almi<^htyand everliving God who hast vouchsa,<:a to regenerate theie thy servants'^by water and the Holy Ghost, and hast givt.i unto them for giventtt of all their sins, ^c. 5. In the Articles of Religion, ..... ... Art XXV.— The general effect of Sacraments is laid down, and they are declared to be effectual signs of God's Grace and Good-will towards, by the which he doth teork invisibly in us, S^e. . Art. XXVII.— The subject of this Article is Baptism, and it is alhrmed to be a iign of Regeneration, or new Birth, whereby, as by an INSTRUMENT, they that receive baptism rightly are grafted into '.he Church, &c. ? 15 £ii<:^land in this pointi acconts with tlic general Umguage of the Reformation. But I jstatetl also that misconceptions appeared to mc to be sometimes created by applying tiniversalhj to iKiptism what is said m Scripture, sjxjciaUy of the baptism of adult subjects ; and that I saw ijo binding necessity for abso- lutely confining the application of the term to the effect of baptism, (although admitting- it to be often most hurtfully used, and liable to be falsely applied in a personal way, in describing an ulterior work of grace, by those numerous persons who deal in morbid views of Religion, or who establish fallacious tests, ministering all too well to the spiritual pride of some religious exchisionists, of conversion and spirituality of mind). — I pomtod out, upon Ihat occasion, in what manner, the term might, in itsclfy be suitably and significantly employed to describe u pro* cess in the soul a id a change in the man, long posterior to the date of his baptism ; and necessary to a large proportion of baptized subjects ; and I indicated some exauiples of Scriptural language which appeared to me to justify such an extension of its force beyond its manifestly proper application to our sacramental admission into the covenant of Greece. As this is a point of some importance, I have ventured to return to it now, partly for the sake of di-ecting your attention to two or three addi- tional texts* which appear to me rather remarkably to my pur- If it can bethought that there is any annbignity respecting the antecedent of by the which, in Art. xxv., it is removed by a reference to the Articles ia Latin. And «o of the whereby, in Art. xxvii. 6. In the Momilies. Homily /or repairing, keeping than ami tomely adorning of Churehe$. And shall we be so mindful of our common base houses, deputed to so vile employment, and be forgetful toward that house of God, wherein be intreated the words of our eternal salvation, wherein be ministered the Sacraments and mysteries of our redemption 1 The fountain of our iiegenerntion is there pre- sented to us, the partaking of the body and blood of our Saviour Christ is there offered to u« [the baptismal font and the Lord's table being, in these words, indicated.] Second part of the Homily on Fastin*:, For the order or decree made by the Elders for washing ofttimes, which was diligently observed of the Jews, yet tending to superstition, our Saviour Christ altered and changed the same, in his Church, into a profitable Sacra- ment, the iacrament of our Regeneration or new birtk. The sentiments of our Great Martyrs and other divines of the Reformation, as testified in their private and individual authorship, have been sht wn, by different writers, to have been pointedly to the same effect. • The texts to which I referred before, were John, L 12, 13. I. John, iv. 7 and V. 1. Those, as well as the texts now brought forward, can hardly fait In have been urged in the controversies respecting Uegeneration, although I do not, at the moment, remember any such particular ui>e of (hem. 16 pose. As where we are told by the Apostle James, that God of his own will begat tts with the word of truth ; by another Apostle that we arc born again not of cornq^tihle seed but of incorruptible^ BV the word of cod, in both which passages the tvord is spoken of ay the instrument of Regeneration ;— and by another Apostle still, that ivliosocvcr is born of god doth not contr' mit sin, for his seed remaineth in him and he cannot sin because he is born of God, — which last j)assage should, no doubt, be re- garded as having so far a connection with baptism as i/u's,— -that, without baptism, wc have no right to expect the Grace which preserves us from the dominion of sin — for cxccj)t a man be born of water, (which we all know that the Church of England un- derstands of the water of bajytism) and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdoyn of God, It is im2)licd, therefore, that the subject here described as born of God, is a baptized subject — yet tht t the expression ^orn of God refers, in this instance, directly to baptism, can hardly be maintained — for no man will be found to hold that whoever has been by baptism regenerated in his infancy, cannot commit sin, (in whatever qualified sense that declaration is to be received.) It remains, therefore, that the expression born of God, being, it is needless to say, equiva- lent to the word regenerate, is susceptible of a use which has no direct reference to baptism, A:id it is remarkable liow freely and how undoubtingly some of our best standard divines are found to employ the term Regeneration to describe a work of Grace posterior to the Grace of baptism, who, nevertheless, are perfectly clear and strong, and decided, in maintaining the Church of England doctrine of baptismal Regeneration, and applying to it the declaration of the Saviour, that to be barn of water is an essential pre-requisite to our admission into the kingdom of heaven.* The sermon of Bishop Bradford, upon baptismal and spiritual regeneration, published as a tract by the Society for rromotini^ Christian Knowlcd<^c, appears to me to possess a singular value," as affording to all reasonable parties the benefit of a mutually recognized comprehension in orthodoxy. Men who may enter- tain vievvs of a stronger and higher colour respecting the effect of baptism than those represented by the Bishop, still ought not to *»-^act fiom their brethren anything beyond his exhibitiou of the case, — because his language is very evidently — I think un- * Whitby, in his Commentary, may be taken as an exception. Cf. his re- marks upon John, iii., and upon the texts here cited from James, Peter and John, ^Tam» I., 18. 1. Peter, 1 , 23, and I. John, iti., 9.) i 17 dcniably — recoiicilcable with tho forms of the Church. In fact, if any man unreservedly admits that there is a sense — a sense accordant with the opening words of the Catechism, in which Regeneration describes the effect of baptism and that in this sense the term apphes to every child who is lawfully baptized,— however freely he may use the term Regeneration in another sense also, — I do not see what we can insist u^wn more,— always supix)sing that, in that other sense, he does not employ it to de- scribe anything in itself erroneous. And those persons, on the othe • hand, who would repudiate the explanation of the Bishop, upon any ground of its being objectionable to apply the word Regeneration to baptism, have so evidently no proper place in the Church of England, that we can only wish th'lm as speedily as possible withdrawn from it. I feel it necessary to observe that what has been here said with reference to the lutitude permissible in the use of the word Regeneration, will not in the least serve to justifv the views held by the appellant ir' the case before the Judicial i^ommittee of the Privy Council. I think it will be seen by all persons not too far prepossessed to examine the subject with advantage, to have been merely by recourse to a sophism, that the mainte- nance of such views has, in any quarter, been conceived to bo defensible by means of the adduction of passages from good authority in the Church of England, in which the word in question is used independently of baptism : For the question, in that celebrated case, was not whether the word could ever b« used in a sense disconnected from baptism ; but whether a clergyman using and sworn to abide by the forms of the Church of England, could be justified in refusing to acknowledge the word as describing a simple efiect of baptism.] It is matter, my Reverend brethren, for great thankfulness to Gocl, — and you feel it, I am sure to be so, — that in this Diocese, although there are, of course, shades of difiference among us upon minor points of opinion, there is no contention within the bosom of our* Church, — no parties pulling one against another — no unwarranted practices, in any sinp,le instance, introduced in pub- lic worship — no manifestation anywhere of Romanizing tenden- cies. Ar.d we have to bless God that, since the contagion set in, within a certain circle at home, of apostacy to Rome, there has not been one such defection from the ranks of our Clergy, in all the North American Colonies. Nor has any impression of a character in the least degree conspicuous or formidable, been produced upon the laity of our communion within the same limits, by the agencies of Romish zeal. In fact when we i 1 considet the prodigious resources and the eager aiid untiring spirit of proselyiism, unfettered by such restraints as are recog- nized among ourselves, which distinguish the Church of Eoine» together with the many favoring opportunities which she pecuharly enjoys for the purpose, — it is a subject of some wonder no less than of gratitude that so few of our people have fallen away to her standard. Very, very few indeed of any particular intelligence or note.* We are, however, to remember, whatever local exemption we may enjoy from internal controversies and discussions, and whatever comfort we may take in having been preserved from alarming inroads proceeding from the quarter just mentioned,— We ar»to remember that we are part, although we may be but a humble and obscure part, of a great and important whole ; and well may we feel in our own experience, with reference to what is here in question, that, if one member sufer^ all the members suffer toith it. If the heart is affected, the consequences are made sensible in the extremities ; and, in every movement, in every struggle, in every crisis of the Church at home, we must feel ourselves herCi, identified with her condition. We must contribute our share in giving impetus to the advance of every desirable consummation in ecclesiastical affairs, or in gaining ground, step by step, towards the relief of the National estab- lishment from any existing obstructions to its efficiency. It had been my hope, and I had dwelt upon it with peculiar pleasure, that, upon this fifth occasion of my meeting you ns we are now met, I should have been permitted to abstain from all contentious topics ; and I had so planned my address to you, vi some prospective imaginations, as to avoid all return to the subject c' our duty in the maintenance of our own distinctive principles, or any thorny discussions of whatever kind. I had thought to confine myself to some solemn contemplations of our ministerial responsibility and debt of love to our divine Lord and Master, and some affectionate exhortations to a still increasing watchfulness and zeal in every department of our labours. And most gladly would I have here followed this course,— not only because I shrink, in a manner instinctively, from the com- motions of controversy and debate, but because it is with great diffidence and self-distrust that I approach those difficult and complicated questions which now disturb the Church, and that • I cnnot forbear from recommending to the particutar notice of all persons •ngageu in enquiries respecting the pointi at issue between ♦*>« Romanists and OttTMivet, the Letters to M. Condon of th« Rev. Christopher Wordsworth, O. D., RivtDgtons, London. 19 I assume the responsibility of s^iidl;.^ ar influencing, so far as my official po&Uion is concerned in doing so, the opinions of my brethren Mix>n the jpoiuts at issue. Circumstances, however, according to the iucfgmcnt which I have formed of my own duty, have forced upon me a different line of proceeding. Of these there arc some which I have already noticed, and there remain others which I cannot pass without remark. Without are Jightm^s^ icithin are fears. The Cliurch is surrounded by adverse iniluences abroad; and within, although, as a Church, «»he is still thoroughly sound at heart, and never, ujwn the whole, and balancing all considerations which affect her condition, was in a more satisfactory state, we have had occasion to observe that she is thubly in perils among false brethren : for that, while there are those among her sons who would betray her to Rome, there are those, on the other side, who, hoMing their charge and commission under her warrant and eatmg her bread, would break down her bulwarks of ancient order and reverend autho- rity, and would ungenerously make advantage of the natural excitement and the just alarm caused by the mancpuvres and encroachments of those who manage the Romish interest, to create pirojudice against both principles and observances which are genuine and most important characteristics of the Protestant Church of England, — characteristics, ueverthelesa, of which these, her own sons and servants, whose affections are not with her, desire to be rid. It may be worth«whilc, — for it is of consequence that we should watch and understand the state of the public mind upon questions affecting the religious interests entrusted to us, — to advert to some few examples of the manner in which the Church of England, her constitution and her ministry, are treated by popular writers, disposed of by speeches at public meetings, and dealt with by certain religious persons and others associated with them in religious proceedings/who seem to have tlieir own views to answer, in professing adherence to her com- munion. We have all seen something, no doubt, of a history of Eng- land, by a distinguished living writer, which has had a vast cir- culation and been read with avidity by all classes, being published in a variety of forms. So far as I have had opportunity of becom- ing acquainted with it, that history, if not written with the very object rather of advocating a particular set of political prin- ciples than of sifting out historical facts and recording them in their simple reality and truth, has been put together with a strong bias of this nature, acting, unconsciously to himself^ upon r 20 the mind of the mUlior. I do not wish to speak the laiigtiage ol liar.shness,Jiml, certainly it cnii very litllc concern /m/t how he is spoken of v[m\ this occasion, at all— hut it ditl not, by any means comport with his views to give a favorable picture of the Church. And the language of the world will ahcays Ic some- thing very different Irom the language of the Church of GoJ. Vet it couid hardly have been anticii)ated that a man of high Imputation, of eminent gifts, of <'uli and varied information, en- joying the most extended opportunities of research, would I^ave so far suflercd his prepossessions to operate in the execution of his important task, as *o forfeit, in all just estimation, his credit as an historian upon that subject which is the first concern of human life> the subject of Religion. It is not likely, perhaps, that, twenty years hence, very much will bo be heard about this book—bul, for the moment, it has its run : everybody reads it everywhe, t ; and it is probable that a very large proportion indeed, of the persons who do so, receive from it, without question, their impressions respecting the foundation of cur Episcopacy according to the views of our Kcformers, the relation established, in our Reformation, between the Church and the State, and the character of the Clergy and Gentry of the Church, in certain periods of our historv since that memo- rable epoch. To whatever extent such an efl'ect may have been produced, it has been a serious mischief to the Church of God. The notions which are propagated in this history, float- ing up nr.u down the public mind in the 5!( niblance of recog- nized facts, — friends and enemies alike are led *o cu iceive false ideas of the title of the Church to respect rijid venei .tion : they misconceive what the Church of Euglancl is, i s a body cons;, i- tuted to carry on the work of the Gospel upon earth ; and what she has been, a? a body, actively engaged in the pf-rformance of that work. The extraordinary inaccuracies and *iiisrepresenta- tions into which the author has fallen, upon the subjects here in question* '^ay almost be entitled to a place in the Curiosities of Literature, if any farther series of that collection should come forth ; and will be found convincingly exhibited in two pub- lications, both of very moderate price and bulk, which I am • One of the most extraordinary features of the case is that the author, in a manner not very "ilike the proceeding of the Innkeeper, described in the Spectator, who, by a few touches, made the likeness of Sir Koger de Coverly, upon his sign-board, serve for the Saracen's Head, appears to have rpet with a picturer of parties assignable to his own school in politics and religion, which supplied such a reprcsei.iation as he desired to give of those belonging to an opposite sd ,oZ— and he has accordingly, mutatU mutandi$, given ii a» the por- trait of the iat.er. , ^^I'jfK- ■..-■-^iSSP^WIW^!*'^ '■ ' ' ^1 destroiia of recommending to your attpnli«>n and tlirouch yo|), my Reverend Brethren, to the attention of others. 1. 2he Hrformers of the Anglican Church (conipurcd witli tlie ac- count Riven of them in the history in f.ucstion,)/^y-E. C. Har- tinman, .J.A., Chancellor of the Cathahal Church j Exeter i and 2, The character of the Clergy in the latter part oj the Seven- teenth Century, (as compared with the same lustuy) 6?/ a urchin Badv^on, M. A„ Fellmv of St. JMs ColUg^ Ciiml/ridi'c.\ ^ , . , 1 1 *i r The kind of estimate which is formed in the world— the rch eions world, in this instance, but the religious, world has its points in co.timonwith the woild in a more comprehensive lense,-of the principles held and acted upoi? I y coiisistent Churchmen, appears conspicuously in the account ot a 1 iibhc Meeting in London for the Missions of the Church of Scotland, where a speaker holding i\ most commanding position in feo- ciety and offering to the meeting cert: inly some just and excel- lent remarks of a general nature, lakes of'asion to speak j1 the Church of England. He treats as characteristic of a tendency to Romanism, the strict maintenance of episcopal principles in the Church, adding these words : » The principle which led to the withdrawal of sympathy" [with non- episcopal communions] "i^ that a uniformity in adherence to a certain oltwrri priesthood is of greater importance than concunonce in a umty of Sine :^greater importance, I mean as constituting the character of co-members of one conr.mon Christian Church. Now here is precisely the chord touched which is calculated to meet its response in the breasts of a popular Assembly— yet I would ask you only to consider the words close y and to pro- nouncc whether it is not essentially a fallacy which they pre- sent—for the question is not at rdl between the comparative in?- mrtance of adhering to an apostolically constituted r^inistry, fcalled here a certain outward priesthood) and of concurring in iinity of doctrine : the real question is whether if men hold as a principle, the episcopal constitution of the Church, invoivin^' and evolving the chain of the Ministry, it be not a violation or comproialseofthat principle to establish .he equal recogn..ion of ministries, one after another, resting upon a difiere.it founda- tion, and thus to alter the whole face of Church-order and unity, and to make them consist in something very plausible in the eye of the world , but very different from what is, in our persuasion , the safe and the primitive system. It is a mere pcLitio rrinapu to f The latest editions should be jrdercd. 22 osSMTwe that the consi^snt retention of our principles af^^^f^s of this phant accommodation and then to say that because we do not consent to adopt it, we make our adherence to a particular organization more important than our real or supposed identity of doc rine with other religious bodies ;~for if, in the mean- tinie, the consistent retention of our principles, apart from all balanciiig of the importarcce of this or that consideration, abso- lutely and m itself Joes 7iot admit of such accommodation, then, however important may be identity of doctrine and however highly we may appreciate it to ourselves, cadit quemo —there ?s nothing more to be said upon the subject. These observations may be illustrated by a supposed case in political life. A man who is the subject of a monarchy, and we } sjiPpose him connected by office with his own government and attached to its institutions, may feel that the promotion of civil and rehgxous liberty is of greater importance than the difter^nce between a monarchy and a republic— and yet, livinjr where these blessings are enjoyed, he would be withheld from uniting with an association professing to advance them, which, should directly do prejudice to the monarchical principle. It IS a remarkable feature in that estimate of things in Reli- g^on which is popularly described by the name oi Liberality, that the Anglican Church is, at least within a certain circle of religious denominations, the only religious body whose particu- lar principles this generally complaisant liberality does not respect and to which the benefit of such liberality is, in fact, denied. Men may at pleasure, part off from our communion manifestly by that separation condemning us :— to find fault with their doing so, is held to be the height of illiberality-but If loe, from attachment to our principles hold ourselves apart from ho^x^^ so parting from us, and condemn their more than im- plied condemnation of us, no similar allowance is made for our prejudices or peculiar views. We find uo mercy : but are set down at once as intolerant bigots. The reason of this unequal measure dealt to us if it were analyzed, would be found perhaps to yield a latent tribute to the value of something to be found m our system, which is not to be found elsewhere But the alarm and excitement to which I have adverted, as consequent upon certain unhappy apostasies from our pure and holy faith and upon the ill-omened encroachments of Rome, have developed a spirit and brought to light a set of opinions amona professed members of our Communion, relative to the constitu° tion of tne Church, the commission of the Gospel-Ministry and the character of ecclesiastical authority, which vastly go be- f 23 yond what I have thus far brought befoie you. At a great popular Meeting, held in London, of lay members of the Church of England, having reference to the causes just noticed, of dis- turbance in the public mind, and comprehending the object of invoking (although they did not gain this result,) the direct and arbitrary interference of the Royal authority, — i. e., in effect, of the Government a i now composed of mixed religious ele- ments, — with the proceedings of the Church, the following spe- cimens of the sentiments entertained upon Church-matters appear (according to the newspaper report) in some of the speeches which were delivered. I pass over the ridicule thrown by certain of the speakers upon the Apostolic succession ; the slur cust upon the language of our own and the other reformed Churches, upon the subject of baptism, as if it were to be identified with the maintenance by the Church of Rome, of the 02ms operatum, in the sacraments ; the groans and hisses and tumultuary movements of reprobation, with which, — in a religious, a Christian assembly, characterized as it ought to have been, by a devout, a meek, a charitable and an orderly spirit, — an assembly in which eminent and excellent Christian men did actually take part, — the names of certain of our prelates were saluted, who, whether they have justly incur- red blame or not, in their manner of dealing vdth the errors of the time, Avould, I believe, lay down their lives at the stake, for the faith sealad by the blood of our martyr-bishops in the days of Queen Mary, and would have stood their ground with the seven confessors of our prelacy who were committed to the tower by the second James : — I pass over such an assertion as that the spiritual liberty of the Church of England was vmdi- cated in the result c >'the Gorham case before the Judicial Com- mittee of thr Privy Council : — I pass over the reference as to a recognized standard, to Daubign6, the historian of the times of Lather, who, whatever may be his acknowledged merits in cer- tain points, is found, in his ideas of Church-authority and the value and efficacy of Church-ordinances, most signally at variance with Luther himself,* and has appeared, in subsequent writings, to have corrected his owfa views in these particulars : — I pass over the recommendation of withholding su])port from Institutions, — notwithstanding any partial good which they may have confessedly effected and which may be made the ground of an appeal in their behalf and notwithstanding their ♦ In the notes appended to my last Charge (1848) 1 have given an extract from Luther, rather strikingly illustrating this difference. 24 being supported by Archbishops and Bishops, — which, accord- ing to the views of the speoker and his party,arc not conducted upon sound principles— rvhich recommendation, if I understand its object, is levelled, in particular, against those great Societies of the Church, without vrhose pious munificence and watchful- ness, the Colonial Empire, at this day, would have been, in a manner, a vast spiritual waste and the mass of our people in this Province, instead of being fed, as they have extensively been, with the unadulterated bread of life, would cither have been left without the very name of Religion among them or would have been absorbed into the population professing the faith of Rome. But I desire to draw your attention in an especial ♦nanner, to the declaration of one speaker, (the mover of the address to the Queen,) received, at this avowed Church of England meeting, with great cheering^ that there is nothing whatever vested in a minister of our Church which is not vested in other men ; and to the following declarations which proceeded from another : " t acknowledge the Queen, says the orator in question, and I believe that our Protestant Faith acknowledges the Queen as the eupreme spiritual head of our Church,?— now, observe, not because she is supreme over all persons eccle- siastical as well as temporal, in virtue of her being, in the Pro- vidence of God, the Sovereign of the realm, to whom, accord- ing to the Apostolic charge, we are all to submit ourselves, a supreme — not so — but because tlie Monarch, by a new and sin- gular process of transmutation, is made out to be the imperson- ation of the democratic principle, or, in the speaker's own words— *' because sh«» U the representative, the embodiment, the executive embodi- ment of the whole mass of tha laity who exercise, and always have exercised, supreme dominion in the Church of Christ since its first formation,'*— (this affirmation was rev ' ":d with protracted cheering,) — with more to the same or a similar effect. My Reverend Brethren, if there arc anywhere In be found among the Clergy of the Church of England, themselves, men who would echo such language as this, who would adopt and uphold such views as these, of their own vocation before God and the world, or suffer themselves, in a temporizing spirit of accommodation, to be carried along with such a stream of popular sentiment — they are, assuredly, not the men to be re- lied upon as the " messengers, stewards and watchmen of the Lord," if his Church is called to any arduous part : — if she be in perplexity, if she be in peril, if it be reserved for her that 25 men sftould ride over her head, and tliat she should go thrwgh fire and tvcUer : No ! — we may then energetically say, and we may say it now j No— Non tali auxilia, nee defensoribus istis Tempus eget, I am not and never have been the advocate of any over- strained claims on behalf of the order of rnen to which we belong, or any extravagant views of ecclesiastical authority : — it may be sufficiently known to you that, so far as my poor testimony is concerned, I have uniformly and distinctly put for- ward, as furnishing the principle for our guidance in the exe- cution of our charge, the maxims of the Word of God, We preach not ourselves but Christ Jesus the Lord and ourselves your servants, the servants of the laity,— /or Jesuf^ sake—and again, Not for that ive have dotninion over your faiih — but are helpers of your joy. And I have all along encouraged the introduction of what, in modern phrase, is called the lay element, in the opera- tions of the Church. But when it is affirmed, in the midst of vociferous plaudits, by parties actually assuming to speak the voice of the Church of England, and moving the government of the country to take action in her affairs, that there in nothing tvhatever, vested in a Minister of our Church which is not vested in other men — and that the ivJiole mass of the laity exercise and always have exercised sujjrem. dominion in the Church of Christ since its first formation, — observe these words, for they include even A^wstolic times,— we are led to enquire whether there really is no such thing indicated in the Gospel as a Ministry bearing a commission to dispense, from age to age, the Word and Sacra- ments of God, and to preside over ecclesiastical affairs. And when we find in that Gospel, the plain and undeniable account of such a ministry, with multiplied intimations of a provision for permanent authority and government in the Church, — an au- thority given, like the higher authority of the Apostles them- selves, for edification and not for descruction, of which one of them declares, that if he were to boast of it somewhat move, he should not be asliamcd, — and when we read, in the words of in- spiration, that as they, the Ministers, on their side, are not to erect themselves into lords over God'^s heritage, so, with refer- ence to spiritual matters, the charge is addressed to the laity, on theirs, — obey them which have the rule over you and submit your- selves, for they ivaichfor your souls as they tlmt must give ac- count, — then it is time for us, in the comparison of all this with the principles upon which I am here taking the liberty to com- ment, to look wuither we are tending j and we can hardly come 26 to any other conclusion than that Churchmen who proclaim or who applaud such priuciples, would do well to pause and ask themselves wJuit manner of spirit they are of } whether, in the heat and hurry with which they sufler themselves to be carried away, they are "ot breathing a spirit allied to the old rebellion of man's nature, and very remarkably akin to that which prompted the too memorable protest,, (although I do not, of course, mean to claim for our Ministry, the power of Moses or the sacerdotal characteristics of Aaron,) Ye taJ:e too much •upon yoUf seeing all the congregation are holy, every one of thenif and the hord is among them : wherefore^ thcnf lift ye up yourselves above the congregation of the Lord f As clergymen of the Church of England, we should, indeed, be found in a false position — w e should, indeed, be seen to stand in a strange and anomalous predicament, if we could think, for one moment, that such views of the Christian Ministry as these, are the views of men Vf\io understand what they say or whereof they affirm. For what is the Church of England I I she not a Church asserting in the strongest possible manner, in a manner the most solemn which is conceivable, the Divine con nission of the Ministry — conveying that commission and framing all her ordinances and appointments, upon the assumption that authority to govern the Church and to administer her discipline and to dispense tha Word and Sacraments, is lodged in the hands of an Order of men, in its different gTades, constituted from the beginning of Christianity, for that end ? — a Church carrying upon iier face, in all her formularies and all her offices, the unequivocal re- cognition not only of a regularly constituted Ministry, which itself would be utterly irreconcileable with the language here in question, but of that particular Apostolic Ministry which she enjoys in common with some other branches of the Reforma- tion ? Considf^r only pome two or three examples. Consider that in tiie doctrinal articles of the Church of England, where the Clergy are spoken of, as a body indicated in the Word of God, they are spoken of as Bishops^ Priests and Deacons ;* that i.^reface to the Ordinal of our Prayer-Book opens with the declaration, that it is evident unto all men diligently reading the Holy Scripture and ancient authors, that from the Apostles' time there have been these Orders of Ministers in Christ's Church, Bishops, Priests and Deacons ; and, in the Ordinal itself, it is said, in solemn • This and some few of the wmarkii immediately foUo^jng have, in substance and nearly in the same words, appeared in print, fuin my own hand before,— but not in any pubUcatioa nor in any ehape to cause them to be extensively circulated. «7 I piuyer to >* that He has by His Holy Spirit, appoisted DIVERS OnjJERS of Minbtew in the Church, under warrant of which Divin6 Institution it is that W6 proceed to confer the jiowers assumed discriniinatively to attach to the respective grades of this Ministry. Consider that, in precise accordance with all this, it has passed into the settled principle* and pfer- fectly understood practice of the different branches of our Church in England and her Colonies, in Scotland or in foreign America, not to allow, under any circumstances or upon any pretence, the admission within their pale of any ministrations tut those of clergymen ordained by Bishoi^ who derive their authority, in an unbroken liiie from the original fountain-head. And what is the language upon the same points, of the most saint-like among our MasUrs of Israel^ the deepest of our learned theologians, the most illustrious of our Piotestant champions, of differing shades of opinion, perhaps, upon some other questions of theology,— the Jewells, the Hookers, the Halls, the Chillingworths, the Taylors, the AadrewsV the Bar- rows, the Beveridges, with au array of other bright constellations and a continuous galaxy of luminaries, which gem and mantle our Anglican firmament ?— what, to take an example from one of those here enumerated, whose great work on Ecclesiastical Polity has been called, by a distinguished scholar of the last century,! « the everlasting possession and the impregnable bul- wark of all that this nation holds most dear," — what is the challenge addressed by Hooker to the defenders of a non-episco- pal Communion 1 we require you to shew but one church UPON THE FACE OF THE WHOLE EARTH THAT WAS ORDERED BT your discipline or NOT ORDERED BY OURS, THAT IS TO SAY BY EPISCOPAL REGIMENT, SITHENCE THE TIME THAT THE BLESSED APOSTLES WERE HERE CONVERSANT. Or what, again, are the grounds, which, within the recollection of living men, have led three hundred or more minister*- of other denomina- tions, in the United States of America, through the process of patient search and often of most painful struggle, to seek repose ill the bosom of episcopacy, and so to minister under what they then first felt to be a thoroughly satisfying and indis- putably assured title ?| My Rererend Brethren, one of two things must be the con» elusion which we reach in the survey of these questions: Either • The rule b strictly and expressly laid down in tiie Preface to the Engliih and American Ordinal. f Mathias, author of the Pursuits of Literature, t See Appendix. 28 the principles which our Church affirms and acts upon, respect- ing the Ministry, are a mere fable and fictitiously founded l)retension — or they are a solemn and important reality. In the former case, we make a figure sufliciently unhappy and if we consent to remain in the exercise of our ministrations, must do so; (unless we are callous against such impressions) not only under a painful sense of moving in a system which constantly jars against our private sentiments, but under a consciousness of something not far removed from the degradation of being tricked out in false colours. In the latter ^ w«» have a responsibility lying upon us before God and man, far higher and more sacred than that of mere religious teachers whom this or that particular body of believers may have agreed, for their convenience, to appoint in that capacity, or to follow as finding them so ap- IX)inted. And it is upon this elevated ground and behind these strong defences, that, with the sword of the Spirit in our hands, which is the Word of God, we must make our stand against the aggressions of Rome, Never, most certainly never, by exhibit- ing a promiscuously assorted aggregation of sects of which '.ve consent to be called one, to constitute the Protestant Religion as distinguished from that of the Church of Rome. [Independ- ently of the obvious consequence that by this proceeding, we voluntarily identify ourselves before the world, with some of the worst and most dangerous forms of religious error, (such as abound in some parts of this very Diocese,') including the absolute rejection of vital and essential truths,— nay with every conceivable fo=:>n of error which is held by men repudiating the Romish faith, and thus that we, in a manner, become parties to the recognition of opinions against which we are as much bound to be Protestants as against the dogmas and the practices of Rorne herself, — independently of this most important con- sideration, how does the very fact operate of presenting the cause under an aspect of division, without order, without co-herence, without limitation or even definition of the power to manufacture ministry after ministry and to set up altar against altar. — without any such common understanding of the Bible, as can bring men to range themselves under one rule and in one disciplined body ? Is not this precisely the triumph and does it not preeminently constitute the strength of the Church of Rome ? Are we not doing her work, serving her interest, aid- ing her proselytism, when we would merge ourselves in a con- fused chaos of sects, without form and void, and self-complacently sooth ourselves, the while, in what I cannot, according to my • In one part of this Diocese, there are to be found within the snnaU compass ofas'ngle township, nearly a dozen sects ; some of them entirely unsound in iajth and others holding the most extravagant tenets. 29 I own convictions, describe otherwise than as the unhappy illu- sion that Ucauu men may differ in matters of mere form, certmony or local usage, in Religion, and stili agree, as brethren, in the reception of essential and saving truth, iherefort it is quite immaterial and to be acquiesced in ns a matter of course, — truly a most unapostolical acquiescence, — that they should break off, ad libitum and ad infinitum^ setting up new standards, devising new systems and creating independent organizations, all founded, — (or upon what else can they be founded ? — upon the imputation of such grave defect to the body, whatever it be, from which they part, as dictates a necessity for separate com- munion : Immeasurably outgoing the parties and distractions condemned by the Apostle, when men were for ranging them- selves under the standard respectively of Paul, of Apollos or of Cephas ; and utterly losing sight of his earnest injunction there there should be no divisions among believers, — that they should all speak the same thing and all be perfectly joined /o- gether in the same mind and in the same spirit. If we were in the pay of Rome, we could not better advance her cause than by encouraging the pliant easiness of principle and disjointed laxity of practice upon these points, which now hold so exten- sive a sway in the world, — and by echoing the cant of the common press which makes a lectarian temper and a carnal spirit of division chargeable not upon those who create and foster schisni in the body, but upon those who resist it and stand aloof.] It is an ascertained and instructive historical fact that when England, in the frightful troubles of the great Rebellion, was deluged by diversified exhibitions of fanaticism, all fiercely opposed to the established Religion, (but certainly differing a great deal from the dissenting sects of our own day,) the watchful and sagacious agents of Rome* were so perfectly aware that the Protestant assailants of the Church of England were among their own best friends, as being assailants of the great fortress of Scriptural faith, as actually to assume the mask of fanatical preachers and to hold forth in the pulpits occupied by dissent. And, at this day, if we have in any measure to thank the Romanizing party in our own Church, for the recent aggressive movement of the Papacy ,t (which however is quite sufficiently • They were Jesuits, See, inter nlia, Dr. Wordsworth»8 Letters to Mr. Condon, end of Letter 8, and Massingberd's English Reformation, ohap. 26. ♦ The real character of this interference (independently of many other strong and decided grounds upon which it ought to be withstood) appears to have been «et in a correct light by those who have supposed the case that the Sovereign of England should undertake, without consulting the Pope, to eroct bees in the Roman States and appoint Bishops to them, with titles under Letters Patent, taken from different cities in those States, for the benefit of Britii-b residents in Italy. 30 accountcU for by the policy of the Imperial Government for the J^VT ifT"'^ i *' ••*^'^ '^ ^^ remarked that, going a littS fnnn7. ^f ^"^ ^^''' Romanising tendencies themselves w.li^ found to have been engendered and enlarged by the overspread- ing irrup ion of tho.e loose and latitiidina?uta notions re3w w'iiarj'v ''^'' 'f ^ observance of rule and primitive prSent^ which give a shock to many well-constituted mi ids : and rl'L^^^rt/'^'Vl^'^''"^'?^"'^^^ *<> ^he Scripture and dii Chur^i f h" ^n"''' ^""^ ^^ '^"^^ men inti the arms of a Church,-^shutting their eyes to her monstrous and accumulated Fr^onlJ' therefore, there is any discussion, as there is now in SStl! /;fP^f "^S a fom;,r./i.„«an,~nny scheme agitated v/ithin the Church, which has for its object, or among its object^ teauTf ,f .^h"«^^^"\^«ached to a variety of deifomina ions we ought to know in xvhat it is meant to consist, and what arc it'v r ir?o h"^" ^'/.'. '' \^^ ^ ^^^^^^ -^^ by whaVautSS^ Iwiiir ^^TT'*^?'^^^^- A comprehension in one, of A , Z^fff ?i '^ flocks, for whom .Ae good Shepherd v;ho gZ tl\ft//^ them prayed that they might be one Ln as He ^iZ ThLf ^ ^""^^^ """' ^^''/•-tl^is is an issue for which every Christian bosom must ardently yearn, and every cand d and Zf.nf ' '"'r^'^'V^^P^^P^^^^^^ *^^^ke the KstcLe^ sions and sacrifices which conscience and reason will permit tW«niT''"y*^'^?l'*'^^^^^^°^^"^ ^^«"» the admission thai there are changes which are called for, in the Church. But it IS something worse than merely visionary, to conceiVe of Si actu".rnf .r i- ^ '""^p"^* "."^""^ ^^^^■s^^"^ ^»^«' i^-v4 existenc?L/n^'' divergences of religious opinion, a separate toip W f. n f '^P^'i^*! ^'Hiistry, each W the other, to act S nnt? ""'" '^r*' ^"V^ ^'^^-"^ themselves in a combi- l^/iZ T/r """^ «»^\"^«ie, for example, as that of the Evan. f^lZtifi Tit- ?''^^ "" "''*^'^" ""^ *^"^ «^ ^he Church of God, or R l^otf 1 character, is, with the practices resulting fwm It, something unknown to the primitive ages of Christianity-^in T^LT P^^"'^"' to modern times-~but it now passes with mpv^uf/f'" "^ Ti"^''^"^.^ of quarters, because it liappens to thl^} V-^ T'^'^ ' ^"^ "'^'^ '"^^ *^k« things as they find worTd;;;;th*tv K^ very great extent, in that ^portion oV the world with which we are more immediately concerned, the reisrrung system ; and the same class of minds which acquired Viv!! l'''^'' "* ^^^ universal sway of su,)erstition and ecclesi- f^stical tyranny, acquiesces in the rciffuinp system now. ' ( ^mmmmM • # ( 31 [A fusion, however, into one, oflxxlics continning sepamte upon the very ground of their having difTcrences which require and can serve to justify a separate Ministry and a separate Communion, is a practical paradox, and upon the face of it, n, contradiction m terms. If mat^^rs are in a state, amoni? the several parties, to admit of such a fusion, the grounds of sepa- rate communion must have ceased. We find, in the neighbor- ing republic, a Baptist and a Congregationalist Minister, officiat. ing upon the same occasion, in the same place of worship— and thi^ sounds, no doubt, in many ears, hke Christian tolerance anu charity : but to what does i., in reality, amount, if weighed in the balance of the sanctuary ?~.Here is an ordinance of God m question : one party, according to his principles, believes and maintains it to be the purpose and pleasure of God that infants Should be the recipients of this ordinance : the other, according to Ats principles-, believes and maintains, that such a practice i? a prostitution of the Sacrament :~what, then, is their minis- tering together, but u compromise, on both sides, of their princi- ples and a mere worldly accommodation by which they sink what theybehevd to be important truth and rashly commit themselves with regard to their conscientious administration, according to their differing convictions respectively, of a di- vinely instituted .ite 7 Again, to take a stronger case, we may find in the same country, Ministers of one of the Presbyterian denominations, attending, by invitation, and according to the nnders andmg of an established reciprocity in such solemnities, a Unitarian Ordination : nothing, in the eye of the world and according to the sentiments which are in fashion in this our day, could be more enlightened and liberal than such a proceed- ing : but m the eye of a Christian, who knows the vrants and the wounds of his own soul before God, and looks for restoration and eternal life through sanctification of the Spirit and appli- cation of the blood of sprinkling to his heart,~who knows no other way of salvation thr in the access, through Christ, by one Spirit, to the Father, and no other God as the object of his worship than this Trinity in Unity,~-it will appear, that the consent to such an interchange of religious compliments is ali too hastily afforded, and that it involves something like a sur- remter, for the occasion, of the Faith of the Go^-pel.] For myself, if, of myself, it be worth-while here to speak,— lirmly as my principles and attachments hold me to the Church, 1 have always repressed, so far as may have depended upon my influence, a boastful, and, what, if the use of so familiar a term ne here permissible, may be called a swaggering stile of Church- » 32 manship, which more hurts our cause than hel[>6 it $ and far from regarding in any disrespectful iight the non-episcopa! National Churches, or indulging in any contemptuous feeling towards the separatists from the Anglican Church, I have, all my life through, intensely longed for their comprehension in one com- munion with lis J and the language which I have uniformly, and, perhaps, a4 fastidiuvit with reference to those whom I was addressing, employed upon this topic, has been that of a dispo- sition (as it would bp ef»sy here to shew,) to yield all which could be safely yielded, for the object, as well as to admit and deplore whatever faults and abuses within our own establish- ment, have contributed to the multiplication of dissent — hoping, at the same time, that the disciples of dissent will be sorry for the causes of co:iiplaint, and they ace not small, which we have against them. Supposing, — although I shall never see it in my own day and generation, — such a comprehension to be not only seriously agitated, but actually put in full train, there would be an evident necessity, in limine^ of providing for the revival of Convocation, in order to deliberate upon the question j and it must be quit« needless to say that tho rtn^>erial Parliament as now constituted, could never be recognized as the authority to deal with the subject. There would be many details of which the adjust- ment would be a difficult, yet it might be hoped, »)ot an imprac- ticable task, and upon what are commonly distinguished as doctrinal points, the acceptance of the thirty-nine Articles would perhaps present no obstacle, with reference had to any religious bodies of whom the admission could be contemplated at all. — But it is plain that it must l>e taken as an indispensable basis of the whole negociation to retain intact our three Orders of the Ministry and to restrict the convtyance of title to the Ministry, to the channel through whicii it has passed to ourselves and by which we shall continue io pass it on. This would, manifestly, bo a siju gud non : and even if it were possible for us, in con- sistency with our received principles, to admit of any deviation in this particular — what other rallying-point can any man indi- cate, by what other standard could it be calculated that Epis- copalians and those whose ministry we regard as irregularly constituted, but who have, very generally speaking, loose and free ideas respecting the title to the ministry, themselves, could be brought to abide in agreeing to carry on together, the work of the Gospel I Or in what other communion can it be thought by any mind unwarped by prepossession, that what may he de- ' .ribed as the conservative principle in Religion, resides so J 33 I clearly n» in timl which we ilistinctively call the Church ? It is true, I speak '»s an Hebrew of the IJtbrews : — Iraiiutl [roni iniancy, by one vuo held and cmijiently adorned the oflice which I have been called to hold myself, and linked in many associations of I't'e, and !)y many powerful and cndearinj^ ties, with our own venerable Church, whose whole constitution, system and rit'.ial, as well as her peculiar influence in the for- mation of the Christian character, as seen m her truehcarted son? and daughters, I regard with an attachment and an admiration, and a feeling of gratitude to Clod for the special blessing which I believe that he has vouchsafed to her, still deepening as I advance in life : — Yet if any man could really convince me that I tim wrong in all this, and that these feelings and sentiments are mere prejudices of inheritance — or mere fruits of education and habit, which stand in the way of a consummation so devoutly to be wished as that here in question, and might bear to be sacrificed without sacrifice of principle, then I would cheerfully abandon them and what things were gain to me^ those I would count loss for C/^rist. [There are many prejudices on the other side, which appear to be gradually loosening themselves from the minds of men ; and of which the disappearance or tho diminution, may be taken, perhaps, as an augury that objections to our system which still remain, in whatever strength, may in like manner, one after another, yield to the action of time and the pressure of a favoring tide of circumstances. The representatives of those who, in past times, were rigid Puritans or Presbyterians have, in many places, familiarly adopted the use of the organ :-— Pro- testants of all denominations, even those who seem the farthest removed from all which can correctly or consistently associate their worship with anything approaching to a CaMo/tc charac- ter (in the proper sense of the phrase) or plac<^ it in harmony with ecclesiastical effect, are conspicuously ambitious of an antique and ornamental stile of architectuie in the exterior of their religious edifices, and are found to delight in the rich effect of stained windows : — within my own recollection, the title of Reverend, once perhaps regarded at least with some suspicion, as being held in common with the Romish Clergy, has become the established prefix to the name of the teacher of dissent: — dissenting ministers are now every wht-: called Cler- gymen :♦ — tlie Meeting-house has been first metamorphosed into • In a legal and parliamentary, as well as in a properly ecclesiastical sense, it is well known that the word Chrgy describes only the Ministers of a Na- tionat Church. E : 34 a Chapelt lual lias ftiiully evclvci itsolf in the character oi* a Church, All tliose '.ulvanci's %viiich wo perhaps ri^i^iird with n mere natural ji'aloiisy, — pt^rhaps witii a betttT-roiiiulcd rc- jpugnancc, as teiulin<^ to exalt the protciisioiis and to favor the inroiiiN of Schism and to aid in the obliteration of fences and honndaries wliicii it is important to maintain in a sacred inte- grity and an inviolable dislinctness,— are, nevertheless, in another point of view, to he hailed, perhaps, as hajipy prognos- tics. They may be the prognostics of an equal desire for as- similation and a[)[)roximation to the Church, with the prospect of corresponding rejiults, in points where there is a strong opjKisi- tion to her principles and usages, but where the diherence, between the op[)onents and ourselves, is not more marked than it once was in the instances already cited, in which dissenters have already manifested a disposition to differ from us no longer, but actually to adont or imitate our ])ractice.] The foregoing remarks upon the distinctive claims and character of the Church, afford incide'^*ally, a point of transi- tion to the subject of the Clergy-ileserves— that little but pre- cious and sacred patrimony, with the spoliation of which we are now threatened. In some Journals of the Province, which advo-ate this spoliation, the argument i:j mad(^ to proceed '".j n two assumptions — that the IJational Church of England is only one in the mass of sects—and that the State has^io tight to make endowments for the support of this or any other sect whatever, or to shew favor to any particular religious body. It is assumed therelbre, (and the assumption is one which even in the common science of government, I will venture to call a profound mistake,)— that there is no difTerence whatever be- tween the characteristics of a C •- -,h, which, not to speak of primitive governnient or a trap =jd line of the Ministry, is the stable, settlea, hereditary esta.. .iment of a cou'.try, bound up and identified with all its most venerated institutions, — no difference whatever between the propriety of providing for this and for any and every successive development of religious irr • gularity, which, under the force of particular circumstances, perhaps, with much mixture of pious intention, or from the mere love of something new and exciting, may embody itself in the shape o^a Sect, and assume a distinctive name ;• and it is • A writer in one of the religious newspapers of New York, passing some strictures upon the Form used in his own Communion, (the Dutch Heformed) upon occasion of celebrating the Lord's Supper, and, among other points, upon an admonition to " all who are given II -nise sects or mutiny in Church or State," tJ abstain from presenting themselves at the table, ask^ this question, " fVho would attfind: if all who an given in tniff i H* skonld s(ai/ away ?" 3j farther assimtd, nnd settled by u sUoke uf the ikii, that the entire conslitutiun i»f En^Maiul, iu Church uiul rotate, js Imiihi- meiitiilly wfuug. 'llie vulimtary sy.slom is ivpifsentetl as Ihe true HK'Uiud uf providing I'ur the lelijrious wants olthe lutople,— - special care heing taken, liowever. to exempt (upon grounds which are quite incorrectly slated) the llonian ("athohc Church of the country, with its enormous eutlowments, Irom the opera- tion of this principle. 1 do not purpose to enter here into thiy ur"ument.* if there is any occasion hi which we can be war- ranted in plainly saving, that men who dt-al with i-uhlic inter- ests betray at once a spirit of unfaivness and an utti-r want ol acMuaintaiiee with their subject, there is certainly room for such idain speaking here. And with respect to the proposed mea- sure its.'lf, lor^he confiscation of tlie Reserves, J cannot speak of if at all, without plainly denouncing it,--theonly quahtying remark which I can make (and J am happy to make it), being ^/izs, thtit thorc are, no doubt, many aclvoeales of the measure carried away by empty theory and i^laiisible declamation, vvlio would be sulliciently sorry to bo parlies to ii, if they could see it in its 'nie light :— A measure which cannot justly l)e charac- terised as Slherwise than sacrilegious :— A measure wi ich plainly involves a breach of public !aith :— A measure inf icting the severest grievaieeupon a struggling and ill-provided Uimch, and robbing ^her of means to preach the Gospel (as she has faithfully laboured to do) to the pocr, that class whese special claim is charged upon our altenlion by the ^^aviour, but who arc specitilly overlooked in the working of the ' -lunlary sys- tem ---l measure of which it may empliatica.ly be said, that it is neither reconci cable with any Christian care for the spiri- tual interests and actually existing wants vi' the country, nor iiist,nor o-encrousi::!- grateful— no, assuredly, neither generous nor gratxdul-ibr, .ee what umple revenues are through the miDrccedented easiness and indulgence of the Lritish Government, enjoyed by another Church in the Irov.nce whose members have concurred in the desire to despoil us of our endowmentt— and look at the renovated streets ol this citv, the ran-os of building in an improved stile of comfort 5iud appearance, whic\ have succeeded to the desolat-v.Ms of 1845- See Appendix t The.^^'^aTlaUerly been a turn of ti.e tide in a certain portion of the Pro- vinliVl Pulament up >n th.s ...bW-t ; and since the Charge went to press. rmotVvaS vuJw" avr b.cn exhibited u. relation to it, in .nfluenlial fjuarlcrs 36 whence were they, iii a great measure, drawn, the resources which were made available f( r repinring the havoc of those pwiul conflagrations ?— Did not the bulk of the contributions cue from the hands of English Churchmen, and a vast pro- portion of them from within the very walls of English Churches, upon the appeal made, under the Queen's letter, by the Clergy of the National Establishment? The successive steps which have been taken in this Diocese, or, in concert, by the Bishops of our Church in Canada, with the view of averting, if it so please God, this threatened mischief from the Church, are in part known to you and means will be taken for giving you information of all which has been done in this behalf.* Our Diocesan Church Society at the Anniversary * I had intended to print, at length, in (he Appendix, some of the docunncnts to which leference is here made ; but it will probably be sufficient to emmerale them here, from first to last, simply for the sake of making a record of the successive nroceedings, which may serve to shew that, whatever may be the issue, the Clergy and Laity of the Church have not been inattentive to her interests ov deficient, according to the means at their command, in the pro- tection of her cause : , ,«• • 1. Having first learnt, upon my retui., in August last Irom the Missions m the Gulph, that the Legislative Assembly had addressed the Home Govern- ment in order to the confiscation of the Reserves, 1 addressed, on the 21it ol that month the Circular to the Clergy which appeared in the September number of the Canadian Ecclesiastical Gazette. 2. The Bishop of Montreal having arrived to take possession of his Diocese in September, measures were taken in concert with him, for getting up Pnitions from the BUhop, Clergy and Duly of eaih Diocese, to the Imperial Parliament, copies of which were, in this Diocese, sent round in October, to all the congregations within it, lor signatures. In Quebec, the Petition was adopted at a public meeting, where the measure was very zealously and connally taken up, and the Church-people of the Diocese, generally, responded m a similar spirit to the call. 3. In November I addressed a lengthened communication, entering into many details of matters connected with the whole case of the Church of England in the Province, to a member of the British Parliament who is a known and tried friend of the Church. 4. Early in the present year the three Canadian Bishops addressed Petitions to the Imperial Pardament from themselves alone, in their Episcopal capacity. 5. The same parties also addressed a joint letter to the Members of the English Universities, praying their support of the Petitions. 6. The same pai ties farther addressed a letter to His Grace the Jrchbishup of Canterbury, soliciting his special aid and protection in the matter. 7. On the 26th of May in the present year, I issued a Circular to the Clergy inviting, through tbem, the co-operation of the Laity by means of the appoint- ment of Delegates to represent ihe Lay interat at Quebec, upon the then approaching occasion of the triennial Visitation of the Clergy, held on the same day with the Anniversary of the Diocesan Church Society. 8. The Delegates, with the Clergy, having met, on the day following the Visitation, a series of Resolutions was passed which were immediately alter- vards embodied in the form of Petitions from ihe Bishop, Clergy and the Lay- n "f 37 meeting of this clay, will take up the question anil pursue such action upon it, if it should be judged that farther action can be of any avail, as shall appear best c(;nducive to the preservation of our rights.— And here let me take occasion to urge upon your attention the necessity of an earnest and vigilant and unabated prosecution of the work of the Church Society, in every corner of the Diocese :— for, threatened as we are with the plunder of our patrimony and having received the official intimation from the Socipty for the Propagation of the Gobpel, of its inability to provide for any fresh demands whatever, in the field of Mis- sionary operation within this Province,— where are we to look for the maintenance and extension of the Church, to what quarter are we to turn for supplying the spiritual destitution of our advancing settlements, unless to this Institution formed and fostered within ourselves ?— If we do not, heart and hand, every one of us, promote the cause of the Church Society, we may, humanly speaking, give up the cause of the Church. And if, in any locality, we cannot enlist the feelings of the people in favor of this Association, it is time for us to ask whether they want or have a title to enjoy our services at all. Looking prospectively at the condition of the Church in the Colony, there is no one thing which I feel it more important to recommend to your zealous endeavors, than the immediate adoption of a system throughout the Diocese, of procuring ENDOWMENTS in land, for the maintenance of the Ministry and for other objects connected with the interests as well of our Religion as of Education under Church auspices. A project has been agitated which, if matured and practically carried out, may, by the divine blessing, be of infinite advantage to the coLintry,— the project of gradually establishing schools m various directions, in a bond of Church-Unior, to be affiliated to Bishop's College as the centre of operatic ns. My Reverend Brethren, we must not slacken in any eflort of duty which is marked out for us,— nor omit to repair, if possible, anv breach which has been made in the walls of our Zion, nor leave open and undefended any one point of attack, nor fail to turn to account any one point of advantage. We must stand upon Delegates, both to the Imperial and Provincial Parliaments, and forwai-ded accordinoly. And it was most highly gratifying and encouraging to witness the manifer in which the question .-as taken up by the assembled representa- tives of the Church, at the meeting, and the zeal and good leeling manifested bv the Lav Delesates who came, upon the invitation of their Bishop, Irom different and distant parts of the Diocese, in many instances at the cost ol much personal inconvenience, and discharged their part at once in an earnest and determined and a Christian spirit. un ^^#^.;j^;-r^c ^^^>:<^r":!5«ii ^*-?l^^ 3H our «?<>fc^ rt«f/ set m u^mi the tower and watch to see whai the tord Will mif unto us and tvku ive sftali amiver^ when we tire reproved* We must ..at leiive the reproach boUinti lis, when we are called to our account, that we have neglected to do the utmost which waK permitted to us, in this most critical stage of our aftairs, towards laying a sohd foundation for the future. And if it be oui- duty to contribute to the perpetuation of our holy faith by every wise and provident arrangement of a temporal nature, let us all remember that we can neither look for a bless- ing u^>on such endeavors as these, nor be engaged in directing them to their proper object—nor, in fact, if the efiect vvhich we anticipate beyond our own day, is to be of the same kind as that which we produce ourselves, be doing anything more than to throw all our labour away,— unless we liave directly and cease- lessly ni view, and that with u single eye, the glory of Cod, the benefit of souls, the rescue of sinners from perdition, the blessed extension of the kingdom of Christ. Least though we may be in that kinadom, we are, if we are faithful to our engagements, greater than one than whom, in his day, there had not been a greater born of woman : ibr it is in a more exalted sense and with reference to an actu-.illy accomplished atonement, with all its concomitant and consequent glories and all its train of expanded promises, that we indicate the Lamb of God uhich taketh away the sin of the tvorld. Our vocation is to titrn men fro77i darkness to light and from the poiver of Satan unto God i to beseech men^ in Christ's stead, to he reconciled to God : to preach the ivord, being instant in season and out of season, ivarn" ing every man and teaching eveo-y man, publicly and from hottse to house. Our glory is to magiiify the name of the Lord Jesus: our hope and reward, to present before God and the Father, at the last day, those whom we shall have been instrumental in winning to him from an ungodly world, slumbering in its danger and needing to be roused to alarm by the trumpet of the wrath of God, before it is prepared for the softer accents of loye end peace, through the blood of the cross. In all tl^e difficulties of the Church; in all the discouragements which we en- counter, personally, in our ministry; in all (he embarrassments arising from the politic machinations of our adversaries; in all the deficiencies and disappointments experienced at the hands of men who love the Church just so far as will not interfere with their love of the world ; in all the op^wsitions of the carnal mind to the faithfu' ^ibition of the word of life,-~what have we to do hut, putir'f^' h the whole armour of God, and, over all, takins the sJiield o, ^ ;."v , to enable ourselves to withstand in tftr 4 < \ '^'^^^■-™ :r'^';^'^oints urged upon the persons who were admitt^^d to different grades in the pastoral office.) . « Let us pause, however, for a brief space, to consider the nature of yciir Commission,— the title which you have to shew, for acting on behalf of (^od. * Whom shall I send. . . .Here am I: send me.'— St. Paul having asked the question, * How shall they hear without a preacher r immediately subjoins another question, 'And how shall they preach, except they be SEjjY ]' They may be zealous and eager in the cause, and they may have a gift of speaking, and possibly other quali- fications seeming to fit them, so far, for the task,— but how can they undertake to act as the accredited messengers of God, the immediate servants of the sanctuary, without a war- rant received from unquestionable authority, and distinctly to be traced to a legitimate source 1— since those can hardly be un- derstood to convey a commission duly to others, in whom it cannot be made to appear that any commission resides. It cannot be supposed— I must not say this, for it is not only sui> posed but the supposition is fearlessly acted upon m a large por- tion of the Christian world,— but it cannot reasonably and rightly be supposed, that a p:cty of believers, here or there who miy wish to have some new form of Religion, can, at any time, originate a ministry for themselves,— create a title, to-day or to- morrow, at their own pleasure, and give it to this or to that person, to dispense the Word and Sacraments of God. A man cannot mve what he has not got. * JVo man taketh this honor to him^ »«/f,— the honor of ministering in holy thmgs, but he that %s called of God as was Aaron f—An-r on was consecrated by divine authority to his office, and in his person the succession of 42 r ' ! I!! I the Priesthood was provided for. We must necessarily, there- fore, if we view the subjoct with liiiriiess and deliberation, go up, step by step, to the fountain-head, and see in what ciiannel that stream has been continued which begin.* in the words issuing from the lips of Christ, Jls my father hath sent me, even so send / you. The commission wliieh he S'^ve to teach and to baptize beino' expressly extended to the end of the world, Lo J am with you alway^ even unto the end of the worlds — we see that it is a continuous and unbroken commis- sion, and we must follow the chain, link by link, till we reach the original issue of authority. This, in the Churclies jiroperly called Kpisoopal, we are enabled to do; — it is well known that we guardedly maintain the rule and admit, within oiir own pale, no ministrations which do not carry such a warrant ; and the very facts that, in al. the changes and convulsions of human aflairs, this principle of the Kpiscopal succession, has, from the earliest times of Christianity to our ov/n, been received and acted upon in the Church, and the line of the Ministry, by the very recognition of this principle, safely preserved, — are evi- dences, to a candid and humble mind, that the thing has been providentially so ordered, and that the princij)le is not a human imagination. It has been passed down to us together with the sanctification of the first day of the week, the prac- tice of infant baptism, and the rite of Confirmation : none of these observances stand upon the footing of express institution in Scripture, although all are agreeable to Scripture ; and be- cause they have been so passed down, we accept the passages of Scripture which inferentially favour them when compared with the transmitted practice, as the authority for our own. If, in the violent struggles of the Reformation, and the reaction which, in that memorable day, ensued upon the escape of God's people from the slavery of superstition and from the enormous usurpations of ecclesiastical power, — if it, then, naturally hap- pened that many irregularities were engendered and many extremes were witnessed, the opposites of evils before exist- ing, — we do not judge the parties who, not from their own act, and in some eminent examples, against their own wish, have suffered by those irregularities and those extremes. Their case is in the hands of God — and, although, if we are faithful to our privileges, our case is far safer and happier than theirs, yet, individually, beyond a doubt, there are many among them who are far higher in his favor than many of us. We do not, especially in the absence of express and formal institu- tion, (see note A, at the end) — stand so stiffly upon exactness «l T 4S «ft of rule af« U» deny to utlttTs, liowovcr we may prize our own special ailvatitagi's, the benefit of th.» i-rinciplc, TAt good Lord p'irdon every one — (pardon i^* wiml we all vanl ill drawing near, in any way, lo (UK\,)-~t/iovgh h, bt not cleansed according to the purifying t,f the sanctuary. But, there are two or three diifcrent points of view in which this question should he regarded. The case of men who have been luiavoidably placed under a disadvantage, cannot be cited, as atibrdiiig a plea or a precedent for those who wilfully make separations, or who needlessly take liberties in the Church. And, farther, the state of individuals before God is quite a separate consideration from the effects Jlomng into his Church at large from ihi.". uanuthorized creation or the irregular assumption of the Ministerial office. And, althougl), if it were simply the multiplication of hands in the vintnrard of the Lord, that we had to contemplate, we would say, with an adaptation of the words of .Moses, iCnviest thou for my sake?— Would to God that (ill the Lord^s people ivere prophets and that the Lord would put his spirit upon /hem, yet where Ministries are multi- plied at the will of mnti, and altar is set u]> against altar, and Christianity is exhibited us a disjointed and imsettled system before the world, there we see a plain dereliction of solemn warnings, found in the Word of Cod, and a deplorable hin- drance to the progress of true Religion upon eaith: the infidel scoffs at ns : the heathen, the Mahometan and the Jew refuse to be convinced that the truth can be with with us : the Ro- manist exults over our discrepancies, and his errors are more strongly riveted upon his mind : even valuable men renounce our communion and are lost to us : and the resources of Pro- testants for the maintenance and extension of their Religion are often wasted and misapplied — in fact, it happens often in a new country, that because the settlers cannot act in concert and combine in one object in Religion, they are left destitute of any effectual provision whatever in spiritual things." Respecting what is said in ptige 35, it will not be inap- propriate to give here two or three Extracts from a pamphlet which I felt it my duty to put forth for circulation in print, but not for publication, under the title of Thoughts on Annexation, T 44 ttbotit a year anil a-half ngu, when ihe movenieiit upon that subject was at its height. «* But where f after all'* [this question follows upon a just tribute to the zeal and high character of the American Episco- pal Church, with some notice of its remarkable progress and ex- tension], *< but where, after all, does the Church most flourish, in the United States of America, and in whai Diocese have we witnessed, as it were, the focus of her prosperity beneficially af- fecting her character and interests throughout the Union ? Is it not in the Diocese of New York ?* — and from what cause, under God, has that pre-eminent prosperity and advancement been derived ? — Has it not been from the munificence, in that particular instance, of the Monarchs of England, the fruits of which are still enjoyed at the head-quarters of that Diocese, in the appointed course of divine Providence and in an auspicious fulfilment of tlie prophetic word of (Tod that Kings should be the nursing-fathers and Queens the nursing-mothers of his Church ? And have we heard none among the wisest of her Bishops, her Clergy, and her laymen of note, deploring the want of general endowments and foreboding darkly upon this very ground, for the years to come ?" •♦ A great many men may be found to pick up a set of phrases from popular tleclaimers and newspaper theorists and talk of the development of latent resource which would he brought out by the necessity of the case, and the new vigor of local effort, fettered no longer by an 'labitual dependence upon extraneous aid — but make the experiment — let them have prac- iically to deal with the direction of ecclesiastical afiiiirs — let them feel the responsibilities attaching to the care of all the Churches — put them at the helm — where will they provide for all that has been done fo" us here, as a consequence of our coU' nectirn with England? — Where will they find, within the bosom of the Diocese, after settling, (if they can do that) the maintenance of the ministry, in a stable and satisfactory way, for some principal congregatiors, such overflowings of resource as will answer calls which do not come home directly to the in- dividual, as will supjiort a theological college, as will carry de- vout young men of slender means, through the course of their • f think it wholly unnecessary to advert to any mere passing and accidental cloud over the affairs of that Diocese, which carries no manner of permanent damage, and ha« not forbidden the steady advanre of the Church. i i I I 45 studentshi{)9f as will salary tnissionnries for rude, infant, strug« gling, back settlements, where the people can do nothing, as will help to build Church after Church in the woods I" " That our people, upon the whole, have not helped themselves upon the spot, as much as they ought to have done — that they must, and that very s])ecdily, help themselves u vast deal more, or lose very largely, very sadly, in the enjoyment of religious privileges ; ihis is what, far Iroui wishing to disguise, it is my duty strenuously to insist upon, and, in its practical aspect, officially to enforce — out, we may leap into the arms of republi- can America, if we please — we shall not find, perhaps, that we have made a jump, once for all, into an easy, and comforting and advantageous position for the Church, and found, at last, exactly what we had been wanting — for, whatever may be sp.id of the American Zion, where European endowments may re- main to her, or where she happens to be located among the great marts of commercial wealth, there are, in other parts of that country, at least instances to be found of difficulty amounting to degradation, in the Church, which exemplify the working of the voluntary system' ; and, one of her zealous Bishops, a highly popular preacher and writer, has published the fact to the world, that the congregations of his Diocese had so utterly failed to execute their formal stipulations for the maintenance of his office, as to throw him upon the charity of some kind mem- bers of the Church, out of his own limits, and, in fact, to make him a pti.sioner upon the City of New York.'* To this I may add, as being closely in point, a very brief quotation from the Appendix to my last Charge, in the explan..- tion given of a measure which had been proposed in the Diocesan Church Society, one object of which measure was, • It is known to all persons conversant in any measure witl- the early history of the Church, that the primitive voluntary systenn difftTert essentially and in principle, from a voluntary system which now finds its advocates ; and was wholly clear of that vicious and injurious feature which nnakes the indi- vidual Teacher of Religion directly dependent upon the favor of those who are taught. The faithful contributed to form a common fund, under the circum- stances of the times, the only resource of the Church, which fund was under the control and at the disposal of the governing authorities who located the clergy and assigned their stipends, employing an official and responsible agency to carry out the details, t could have adduced, if I had thought it necessary, many more illustrations which are anything rather than recommendatory in their naturo, of the working of the voluntary Bystezn as it subsists in the United States of America. 16 '* To SK'ciire the greater iiidc|ieiidct)ce uf the Clt*r^y uiiU to remetty one of the chief vices incident to tlie voluntary stystem, which is extensively felt and deplored in a neighhonring coun- try/ — the subservjcjicy of the teacher of Pweligion to those who are taught, consi'quenl njwn his being the direct personal re- cipient of tlie means of his* maintenance, from thiir handit simply according tu their good pleasure. I might have further ilhistrated the question, by mentioning the establishment, to help out the undertakings of the Church, in one of the neigliboring States, of a storcj or what we should call in Kngland a skop^ where miscellaneous articles for the use of the country-people wave sold, which went under the name of the Bishop^s Store. I have before recommende ' *'->r familiar circulation, where correctives of such a nature ii.uy be called fo ■, two tracts puh- lislied by the Society for Promotiny^ mW'tC 47 proacliiii«jr but or* e a month. I'uivcrsalism is preachctl. 'I In- state of sucieiy is doploniblc. Sahbatlj desecrutian» drunken- iif^vs, railing, filthy talkuipr, and Masphomy are prt'valont. The piety of the Cewvvlio possess s;>rions religion is .sickly and dred and advocate most alarming errors. The moral atmospiierc soem» to be tainted. ♦ Evil cumnumications corrupt gootl manners.* fn several of the towju I have visited on the mountains no evangelical ministfr resides. In aomc^ such u minister ^ a non- resident, preaches half the time. Many who once believed in experimental religion, have embraced the views of Mr. Miller, or tho:5e of his foUo^vers. The washing o( the feet of the saints, and the kiss of charity, are tanght as duties, and literally practised as Christian duties. The Christian Sabbath is neglected, and the .Tcwish Sabbath observed by many." " Mr. P , says : — I have laboured during the last three months in a very destitute and irreligious region of country. The town of R is doubtless the most perfect moral waste in the county, except S . We found in R , a multitude of poor, miserable, spirit-drinking characters, and the people generally infidels and Universalists, although there were a few very good people there." t « Mr. C , says :~The people in the town of D have but little regard for the Sabbath, or for the Bible ; it is not an uncommon thing to see a large company of myn out on the Lord's day, with their guns am t fish-poles. But very few fami« lies attend upon an evangelical ministry." "MICHIGAN. I* Thirteen colporteurs have bestowed ninety months* labor on this state, have visited nearly seventeen thousand five hundred families, with more than fourteen t'lousand of whom they have held personal religious conversatioia or prayed. The sales have been limited on account of the scarcity of money, and amount to but eleven thousand volumes. Volumes granted, four thou- sand three hundred. More than three thousand two hundred families were ht^^itual neglecters of the sanctuary, and a still larger number were destitute of all religious books except the Bible. Earnest appeals have been made for additional labor- "% Wi^^^ihP-- .'' I iiiMiiiii ■V'V r :4»fm, and this commission made, in express usords, pt^rpetwd and then found lo be received, understood and followed out practically in the Church, as delivered down, from hand to hand, throii'^h the Bishops or chief ovc; seers, carries an authority vhich it does look something like temeritv to disparage or disregard. And all those who maintain the observance of the hrst day of ilie week, as of drVine obligation, would do well to consider upon what grounds ihey cau assert this obligation, which will not equally apply to the particular commis- sion of the Miiiistiy here in question. td?" In the foot-note, p. 14, under the head No. J, the follow- ing note appended, in the Prayer-book, to the form for the public baptism of infants, ought to have been added : « It is certain by God's word, that children which are baptized dying before they commit actual sin, are undoubtedly saved.'''* By what process is this to be reconciled with the doctrine respecting «reyenfe/?f grace as necessary to the salvation o[ par- ticular baptized infants, the baptism of all others being sup- posed to be inefficacious ?