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FIVE SERMONS 
 
 PREACHED BEFORE 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD, 
 
 BY THE 
 
 REV. WALTER FARQUHAR HOOK, M.A 
 
 PREBENDARY OF LINCOLN, 
 
 VICAR OF THE PARISH OF THE HOLY TRINITY, COVENTRY, 
 
 AND CHAPLAIN IN ORDINARY TO HIS MAJESTY. 
 
 OXFORD: D. A. TALBOYS. 
 
 LONDON: SOLD BY P. MACPHER80N; AND T. DUNCAN 
 AND H. C. LANGBRIDGE, BIRMINGHAM. 
 
 M DCCC XXXVII. 
 
H4 
 
 • ••,•• 
 
 • : • . • • 
 
 • •• • •< 
 
 • • • .• ••• -•.•< 
 
 tALBOVS AND BROWNE, tfelNTEkS, OXtotlb. 
 
TO 
 THE RIGHT REVEREND FATHER IN GOD 
 
 JOHN 
 BISHOP OF LINCOLN, 
 
 THESE PAGES 
 
 ARE MOST GRATEFULLY AND MOST DUTIFULLY 
 INSCRIBED. 
 
 M DCCC XXXVIL 
 
 855539 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 SERMON I. 
 
 PROMOTING THE GLORY OF GOD. 
 I Cor. X. 31. 
 
 PAOB 
 
 Whether therefore ye eat, or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do 
 
 all to the glory of God 1 
 
 SERMON II. 
 
 THE DUTY OF CONTENDING FOR THE TRUTH. 
 
 Matthew x. 34, 35, 36. 
 Think not that I am come to send peace on earth : I came 
 not to send peace, but a sword. For I am come to set a 
 man at variance against his Father, and the daughter 
 against her mother, and the daughter-in-law against her 
 mother-in-law ; and a man's foes shall be they of his own 
 household 25 
 
 SERMON III. 
 
 ON THE AUTHORITY OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 2 Thess. ii. 15. 
 Therefore, brethren, stand fast, and hold the traditions which 
 
 ye have been taught, whether by word, or our epistle. . . 61 
 
VI CONTENTS. 
 
 SERMON IV. 
 
 TRADITION. 
 
 JliREMIAII Vi. ]6. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Thus saith the Lord, stand ye in the ways, and see, and ask 
 for the old paths, where is the good way, and walk 
 therein, and ye shall find rest for your souls 93 
 
 SERMON V. 
 
 THE STRAIT GATE. 
 Matt, vii., the 13th and three following verses. 
 
 Enter ye in at the strait gate : for wide is the gate and ./road 
 is the way that leadeth to destruction, and many there be 
 which go in thereat ; because strait is the gate, and nar- 
 row is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be 
 that find it. Beware of false prophets, which come to 
 you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravening 
 wolves. Ye shall know them by their fruits 119 
 
'^ ^. 1- 
 
 SERMON I 
 
 ICOR. X. 31. 
 
 Whether therefore ye eat, or drink, or whatsoever 
 ye do, do all to the glory of God, 
 
 Christianity, like every other system, has its 
 own end and object ; and this end and object is 
 identical with that for which the universe was 
 formed — the promotion of the glory of God. 
 For this the Father created the world, for this 
 the Son redeemed the world, for this the Holy 
 Ghost still abideth with the church to sanctify 
 its members. Such is the unity of design which 
 pervades the works of nature and the words of 
 revelation, a unity of design which we should 
 expect, a priori, when we remember that both 
 proceed from the same divine source, the one 
 and only God. And this, too, becomes the aim, 
 the object, the design of every man, who, re- 
 newed and sanctified by the eternal Spirit, is a 
 partaker of the divine nature — his ultimate end, 
 
 B 
 
S '^^^ ^^ 'v'^ t ^ PROMOTING THE TsERM. I. 
 
 :fe'^ peiitiliai*. work, his ')(pL(TTLdviKov tpyov, is not 
 mere individual happiness, nor even the benefit 
 of society, but that which is superior to these 
 ends, because it comprehends them both, the 
 promotion of the glory of God. 
 
 I say that this end comprehends the other 
 two, because in what can the glory of the Cre- 
 ator, as Creator, consist, except in the perfection 
 of the creature ? and in what does the perfection 
 of the creature consist ? in what, but in fulfilling 
 the purpose of his creation by implicit obedience 
 to the will of the Creator ? By breaking the law, 
 says the Apostle, we dishonou?' God ^ ; and, there- 
 fore, by keeping the law we honour him. And 
 it is because man in his fallen state is unable to 
 keep the law, unable to render implicit obedi- 
 ence, unable to answer the end for which he was 
 first formed in God's own image ; it is on this 
 account that the human race is condemned. If, 
 by a stretch of the imagination, we could con- 
 ceive the heavenly bodies endued with reason 
 and freedom of will, and the sun were to wander 
 from the centre, the moon to refuse her light, 
 and the spheres to neglect their wonted motions; 
 if, in short, they were, in some way or other, 
 incapacitated for the various purposes for which 
 
 ^ Rom. ii. 23. 
 
SERM. I.]] GLORY OF GOD. 3 
 
 they were first commanded into being, we should 
 at once conclude that, having become useless, 
 they would be blotted out of existence. And, 
 in like manner, we can understand how human 
 nature had in itself sentence of annihilation 
 from the moment it fell from its original state. 
 Those offices, (no matter what they were, for 
 we cannot fully comprehend their nature,) for 
 the discharge of which such creatures as our- 
 selves were formed, could no longer be dis- 
 charged by us, and thenceforth the existence of 
 our race became only a tolerated existence— an 
 existence tolerated, through the mediation of the 
 everlasting Son of God, in order that individuals 
 might still escape from the destruction in which 
 the race, as such, is involved. But we shall 
 escape that destruction — how? only by being 
 brought back to that divine nature which once 
 belonged to our race, and by being thus enabled 
 to render, through all eternity, that perfect obe- 
 dience to the Creator which every creature rer 
 stored to, or not fallen from, its original purity, 
 must be prepared to pay. This was the great 
 purpose of our Saviour's coming — not only by 
 his sacrifice upon the cross to open heaven to 
 all behevers, but by his precious bloodshedding 
 to purchase to himself a pecuhar people zealous 
 of good works, that they might glorify God in 
 
4 PROMOTING THE [[SERM. 1. 
 
 their bodies and in their spirits, which are God's. 
 And if this absolute perfection is not to be 
 achieved, until the body, raised in incorruption, 
 shall be glorious as the renovated soul, and 
 qualified to aid it in its sublimest flights, yet an 
 approximation to this perfection is possible even 
 in this world, such an approximation as receives 
 in Scripture the name of perfection itself ^ 
 - Now — to return from this little digression to 
 what we stated at the outset — it will not be 
 doubted, that in bringing ourselves and others 
 as near as possible to this perfection, we are 
 advancing the real, the permanent, the ever-r 
 lasting happiness of mankind, individually and 
 collectively. And therefore it is that, in the 
 cherubical hymn, the church gives thanks to our 
 heavenly King, God the Father Almighty, for his 
 great glory, since, blessed be his holy name, his 
 glory and our real happiness are so far identi- 
 fied that we cannot promote the one without 
 advancing the other. 
 
 To trace this connexion between our own 
 happiness and the divine glory is most import- 
 ant, since self-love, or a general regard to our 
 own welfare, is a principle so deeply implanted 
 in our nature, and so inseparably connected with 
 
 * See Lucas on Happiness, vol. ii. sect. 1. 
 
SERM. I.]] GLORY OF COD. S 
 
 it, that it would be urging an impossibility were 
 we to exhort men to pursue as an ultimate end 
 what we could not prove to be, at least, not in- 
 consistent therewith. It is a principle of action 
 to which the Scriptures themselves appeal, when 
 they offer a heaven to our hopes and a hell to 
 our fears. And, therefore, when addressing the 
 babes in Christ, the young men of the Gospel, 
 it is needful for us to shew the consistency be- 
 tween human happiness and divine glory. But 
 the advanced Christian, the perfect man, the 
 reXeios, as he was called of old, who is accus- 
 tomed to converse with the unseen world, to. 
 contemplate the perfections of the Deity, to hold 
 communion with the spirits of light, and to iden- 
 tify his cause with theirs, and the cause of cre- 
 ation with that of the Creator, he gradually 
 merges the thought of self in the consciousness 
 of being a fellow-worker with Omnipotence ; 
 and to him, consequently, the promotion of 
 God's glory becomes indeed and in truth an 
 ultimate end of action, an end sought for its 
 own sake, and not for the sake of any thing 
 else; by him God's will is done on earth as it 
 is in heaven. And the merciful wisdom of ap- 
 pointing to man such an end as this will be at 
 once apparent, when we come to consider, that, 
 although self-love, that is to say, a desire for our 
 
6 PROMOTING THE [[SERM. I. 
 
 own welfare be, as we said before, a rational 
 principle of action, a useful principle which leads 
 to the restraint of those passions which we know 
 will interfere with happiness ; yet the vicious ex- 
 treme, namely, selfishness, or an unconcern for 
 the happiness of others whenever it interferes 
 with our own passions or our supposed interests, 
 is a sin of the most demoralizing character, for 
 it may lead to the commission of almost any 
 enormity to which we are strongly enticed. Be- 
 nevolence is indeed co-ordinate with self-love, 
 but to selfishness benevolence must ever be an 
 antagonist principle. If (as is the case in most 
 modern systems of ethics, not based on Scrip- 
 ture) a perpetual reference in all our actions is 
 made to self; if we are bribed to benefit society 
 by having it pointed out to us how particular 
 interests are involved in the general welfare ; if 
 we accustom ourselves, whenever we reason on 
 our conduct, to say, " I will abstain from this, 
 or do that, because, though it occasion a tem- 
 porary inconvenience, I see how it will tend to 
 my eventual good;" if self be thus the centre 
 round which our thoughts are taught to revolve ; 
 if self be thus enshrined as the god of our ido- 
 latry, is it not clear that we are acting upon a 
 principle which must, sooner or later, terminate 
 in the most cold and callous and narrow-minded 
 
SERM. 1.3 GLORY OF GOD. f 
 
 selfishness, which will effectually prevent our 
 grovelling souls from ever rising to the perform* 
 ance of a generous act, or the formation of a dis- 
 interested wish ? And therefore it is, that w^e are 
 directed by Him, who, having made man's heart, 
 must know what is best adapted to the exigencies 
 of our nature — best calculated to give boldness, 
 consistence, and dignity to human virtue, to 
 keep self, as much as possible, out of view. He 
 who takes for his guide the worldly philoso- 
 pher, will ever be found to become more and 
 more sordid as he advances in years. His ge- 
 nerous impulses habitually checked, he .will think 
 that knowledge of the world consists in hardness 
 of heart, and he will pass from this life to the 
 next with feelings which can never be elevated 
 to the love of God whom he hath not seen, be- 
 cause never exercised in the love of his brother 
 whom he hath seen. Whereas, in the renovated 
 heart of him who walks according to the Scrip- 
 tures of truth, the principle of disinterested be- 
 nevolence, such as angels feel for all the works 
 of their great Creator's hands, will grow with 
 his growth, and ripen for eternity. For the 
 glory of his Saviour and his God he will be pre- 
 pared to renounce the dearest enjoyments; his 
 character will gradually assume an elevation 
 which breathes of heaven, and after a Jife of 
 
S PROMOTING THE [^SERM. I. 
 
 self-denial, he will be prepared to glorify God 
 even in his death, if by attesting his faith through 
 a martyr's death, he can strengthen those con- 
 victions, without which there will be no obe- 
 dience. 
 
 And this brings me to remark, that although, 
 strictly speaking, the glory of God is promoted 
 only by the obedience of his creatures, yet, since 
 men will never obey God, until they have learned 
 to reverence, to fear, and to love him, whatever 
 tends to represent him as an object of reverence, 
 fear, and love, is said in Scripture to promote 
 his glory. / have glorified thee on earth, says 
 the Lord Jesus, in the 14th chapter of St. John, 
 and he immediately adds how, / have mani^ 
 fested tiuj name or attributes, to the men which 
 thou gavest me out of the world, — for a real 
 faith in those attributes of justice and mercy 
 combined, of awful justice refusing to pardon 
 sin without the payment of its penalty, of inef- 
 fable mercy devising the means, while punishing 
 sin, of sparing the sinner ; a real faith in these 
 attributes can scarcely fail to lead to sincere 
 obedience. In like manner the Almighty is 
 ^aid to have manifested his glory, whenever, in 
 any unwonted manner, he made a display of 
 his properties and perfections. These men, 
 he says, in the book of Numbers, have seen 
 
SERM. I.]] GLORY OF GOD. 9 
 
 my glory ; meaning those wonders in the land 
 of Egypt which proclaimed his almighty and 
 protecting power. And for the glory of his holy 
 name, that is, that his power and majesty might 
 be known to the Gentiles, the Israelites were 
 taught to ask his help, in their time of need. 
 Without pursuing this subject further, enough 
 has been said to shew what our specific, definite 
 object must be, if we resolve to co-operate with 
 all the uncorrupted works of our Maker's hands, 
 in declaring the glory of God. While, as op- 
 portunity offers, we bring both others and our- 
 selves to the obedience of the Gospel, we are 
 indirectly to compass our end by lauding the 
 name of Jehovah, and magnifying his word and 
 his church, by declaring our conviction of his 
 wisdom and goodness, and mercy and power, by 
 manifesting in our conduct the reality of our 
 faith and the power of his grace, and by evincing 
 our reverence for all that is called by his name, 
 or dedicated to his service : and whenever we 
 perform any action, however trivial and indif- 
 ferent in its own nature, with the view that God 
 may be more known, more reverenced, loved, 
 feared, admired, or adored, we are considered as 
 acting upon the Christian principle, in seeking 
 to promote the divine glory. 
 
 Of all the worthies whose praise is in the 
 
10 PROMOTING THE [[SERM. I. 
 
 Scriptures, whether of the Old Testament or 
 the New, we shall find this to have been the 
 characteristic virtue ; but in none did it display 
 itself more remarkably than in David. In the pub- 
 lic exercise of his sovereign power, with perhaps 
 the solitary exception of his numbering the peo- 
 ple, his conduct was, on this point, unimpeach- 
 able ; and hence he was worthy to be the model 
 of all the future kings of Israel, and the type of 
 Christ himself. Never did he ascribe his suc- 
 cesses to his own right hand, or the strength of 
 his own arm ; and always, instead of being 
 ashamed of the fact, as his successors too gene- 
 rally were, it was his glory to acknowledge him- 
 self, although the king of Israel, to be only the 
 viceroy of Jehovah. Under the holy influence 
 of this principle he descended from his throne 
 to dance before the ark ; he arranged all the ser- 
 vices of the sanctuary according to the beauty 
 of holiness ; and he designed the erection of a 
 temple which might declare to all the nations 
 of the earth the devotion of himself and his 
 people; and when prohibited from executing 
 his design, he rejoiced to anticipate its com- 
 pletion by his son, and consoled himself by 
 laying up in store for the holy work his hun- 
 dred thousand talents of gold, and his thousand 
 thousand talents of silver, his brass and iron 
 
SERM. ij GLORY OF GOD. 1{ 
 
 without weight, timber also and stone. Ani- 
 mated by his example, and guided by the comi- 
 sels which David had been inspired to deliver, 
 Solomon made the temple, what his father de- 
 signed it to be, so exceeding magjiificaly that for 
 its fame and its glory it was the joy of the whole 
 earth. Doubtless, in the age of Doeg and Shi- 
 mei, there were not wanting cold calculating 
 utilitarians, who, though dwelling in their houses 
 of cedar, would be ready, nevertheless, to put 
 the Judas question, to what purpose was this 
 expenditure ? and to suggest the distribution of 
 the collected treasures of the pious sovereign 
 among the poor. But their sophistry had no in- 
 fluence upon Solomon, the wisest of men : he 
 made the temple what it was, all glorious with- 
 out and within, that it might stand as a per- 
 petual text preaching to the people. Reverence 
 my sanctuary, and might tell it out among the 
 heathen, that the Lord he was the God of that 
 great nation which he had made to be a wise 
 and understanding people : he knew that no ex- 
 penditure is to be considered unprofitable, or 
 wasteful, or useless, which, without violating the 
 rules of honesty and justice, or causing the neg- 
 lect of any immediate claim, tends to foster 
 within us a holy fervour of feeling, and an enno- 
 bling elevation of sentiment, to interest us in 
 
12 PROMOTING THE [^SERM. I. 
 
 the cause of virtue and truth, to kindle in our 
 souls that manly enthusiasm which is equally 
 remote from the follies of affectation and the 
 extravagance of fanaticism, or to testify our zeal 
 for the service and honour of our God. 
 
 Such was the wisdom of the heart which ac- 
 tuated our own pious ancestors when they erected 
 those minsters and cathedrals and magnificent 
 churches, which adorn our several dioceses ; 
 these beautiful edifices by whic-h we are our- 
 selves surrounded. It was not for the mere 
 purpose of daily worship, it was not as mere 
 places of assembly that they made the shrines 
 of the Redeemer to excel in grandeur the halls 
 of justice or the regal palace ; it was for the 
 honour and glory of their God, to whom they 
 consecrated their money or their labour, or their 
 science or their art : it was for the glory of God 
 that they endowed his church, and provided, 
 not only for the instruction of the ignorant, but 
 for the more solemn performance of our sacred 
 offices in our larger sanctuaries. They thought, 
 and they thought rightly, that the works of man 
 ought to conspire with the works of nature, to 
 make glorious the praise of him, by whom all 
 things animate and inanimate were created. 
 And for the glory of God they summoned the 
 prelates of his church to sit as compeers with 
 
SKRM. I.^ GLORY OF GOD. 13 
 
 the rulers of the state, and to sanctify, by their 
 presence and advice, the national counsels ; for 
 they never supposed that religion was a mere 
 matter between an individual and his God ; they 
 deemed it the duty of the state to proclaim to 
 high and to low, to the stranger and to the na- 
 tive, to infidel nations as well as infidel men, 
 that verily there is a God of nations ; verily 
 there is a God in this his favoured land. 
 . And sure I am it will not be for the glory of 
 God, if we, in our wealth, permit those edifices 
 to crumble into dust, which they reared in their 
 poverty to the honour of his name : sure I am 
 that it will not be for the glory of God, if we 
 compel his ministers to prophesy in sackcloth, 
 though thousands are, I trust, prepared to do 
 so rather than sacrifice the particle of a prin- 
 ciple : it will not be for the glory of God, if we 
 silence the choirs which morning and evening 
 offer up the daily sacrifice of prayer and praise, 
 not less for the commonwealth than for the 
 comfort of individuals, or erase from our records 
 all reference to his providence. I will only add, 
 that it was for the glory of God, even to edu- 
 cate men of all professions for his service, that 
 our forefathers established this famous Univer- 
 sity, and endowed our several colleges ; and woe 
 were it, to us^ their degenerate offspring, if we 
 
H PROMOTING THE [[SERM. I. 
 
 were to permit Ichabod to be inscribed on our 
 once consecrated portals. Far otherwise will 
 the true Christian act ; in his eyes every thing 
 will assume an air of importance, which, how- 
 ever remotely, has a tendency to evince our de- 
 votion, national or individual ; and nothing will 
 be considered unimportant, the doing or ab- 
 staining from which may be construed into a 
 mark of irreverence or disrespect. Whether he 
 eat, or whether he drink, or whatsoever he does, 
 he will do all to the glory of God. On this 
 principle it is, that the holy church descends in 
 her rubrics to the minutest details, which her 
 faithful children will love to observe, kneeling 
 where they ought to kneel, and responding where 
 they ought to respond ; and on this principle it 
 is, that her faithful minister will pay due regard 
 to every ceremony, nor even array himself in 
 the sacred vestment without a reverential feel- 
 ing. In avoiding superstition we too often fall 
 into the opposite extreme of irreverence. But 
 we may depend upon it, that he is no true philo- 
 sopher, I may add, no true Christian, who at- 
 tends not to little things. 
 
 But, although the promotion of God's glory 
 be the ultimate end of the Christian, it by no 
 means follows that it must be always and imme- 
 diately in view ; although our pef'petiial, it can- 
 
SERM. I.^ GLORY OF GOD. IB 
 
 not be our continual object, for it implies the 
 adoption of means, which, in process of time, 
 must themselves, though subordinate and sub- 
 sidiary, become ends. This is obviously the case, 
 if the truth be admitted of what we stated at 
 the outset, that the glory of the Creator con- 
 sists in the perfection of the creature, and the 
 perfection of the creature in fulfilling the pur- 
 pose of his creation. For, on these grounds, 
 man approximates to perfection in proportion as 
 he acts. in accordance with the constitution of 
 his nature ; and he acts according to the con- 
 stitution of his nature, not by counteracting his 
 internal principles, or by vainly attempting to 
 eradicate his appetites, affections, and desires ; 
 but by preserving them in their right propor- 
 tions and mutual relations ; by bringing them 
 into harmonious co-operation, and by reducing 
 them all under the dominion of conscience, of 
 reason, of revelation, and of grace. Man is 
 a sensitive being, an intellectual being, and a 
 moral being; and by his senses, his reason, 
 and his conscience, properly regulated, he is to 
 be impelled to immediate action. Thus the very 
 fact of our constitution implies the occasional, 
 and not unfrequent, quiescence of our leading 
 principle, since these motives would cease to 
 exist, unless resting on their respective objects 
 
16 PROMOTING THE [[sEKM. !• 
 
 as ends in themselves. The very nature of a 
 motive power would be changed by the interpo- 
 sition of some other object of contemplation, be- 
 sides that to which it immediately impels us. 
 We may go even further, and maintain that too 
 close an attention to our ultimate design may 
 sometimes actually lead to the frustration of our 
 wishes. The honours of the University are not 
 in store for the student who is always antici- 
 pating in his study the questions which may be 
 put to him in the schools; but for him who, 
 kindled into enthusiasm by the strains of the 
 poet, set a-thinking by the reveries of the phi- 
 losopher, and himself philosophizing on the facts 
 of the historian, has made himself a general 
 scholar ; and yet it is the former who has had 
 their common end the more constantly in view. 
 And so, a too frequent reference and appeal to 
 that which is the end of our Christian life, may 
 make a man pedantic or fanatical without making 
 him what a Christian ought to be. For the good 
 Christian is not he who when he acts deliber- 
 ately acts well, (this is the business of the be- 
 ginner,) but he whose very impulses are good, 
 who not only chooses but 'prefers what is right, 
 whose virtue, without immediate reference to 
 his principles, is so habitual as to appear as it 
 were instinctive.. . This is the perfection at which 
 
SERM. I J GLORY Of GOD. 17 
 
 we are to aim ; for this is the kind of perfection 
 of which a spotless specimen was exhibited to 
 us, when to die for our sins the Son of God be- 
 came incarnate. That our blessed Lord and 
 Saviour Jesus Christ, from first to last, sought 
 the promotion of his Father's glory, even if the 
 assertions of Scripture were not unequivocal on 
 the subject, it would be profanation to doubt. 
 He sought not his own glory, but the glory of 
 the Father which sent him. Father, glorify 
 thyself, was his prayer, or if he prayed that his 
 human nature might be endowed with a portion 
 of that glory which, as the second Person of the 
 .Holy Trinity, he had possessed from all eternity, 
 his petition was. Father, glorify thj Son, that 
 he may glorify thee. But still he shewed us 
 that our primary principles and affections are to 
 act as the springs, the exciting causes, the im- 
 pulses to immediate action. Although his mira- 
 culous powers were intended, in the first in- 
 stance, as proofs of his mission, yet how often 
 did pity and compassion lead him to the exercise 
 of them. One while sympathy for the sorrows 
 of those whom he had honoured with his friend- 
 ship would water his eyes with precious tears ; 
 another while an holy indignation would rouse 
 him to denounce the hypocrisy of the Pharisees, 
 or to rebuke an unhallowed zeal in his follow- 
 
18 PROMOTING THE [SERM. I. 
 
 ers. Now zeal for his Father's house would eat 
 him up, and now discretion would induce him 
 to avoid his enemies. Surely these things were 
 written for our example, to convince us that it 
 is no violation of the principle which must exist 
 in every renovated heart, to pursue as subordi- 
 nate ends those means to which we were first 
 guided by that very principle. Let the desire of 
 promoting God's glory determine us, among our 
 other virtues, to cultivate especially a benevo- 
 lent disposition ; yet in pursuing the objects to 
 which benevolence may excite us, not only our 
 piety, but even our benevolence, may be lost 
 sight of under the influence of a generous emo- 
 tion. Let a wish to serve our Saviour, and to 
 extend our sphere of usefulness, determine us to 
 pursue our studies ; yet in the prosecution of 
 them the end will often be lost sight of, while 
 our natural desire of knowledge prevails. The 
 fact is, that when we dedicate our faculties to 
 the service of God, though they receive a new 
 direction, the faculties themselves remain as they 
 were ; and, consequently, when we are told to 
 do all things for the glory of God, it is only in- 
 tended that this end should influence us, as the 
 worldly ends of worldly men influence them. 
 When we call a man ambitious, or covetous, or 
 studious, we attribute to him an end ; but we 
 
SERM. 1.3 GLORY OF GOD. 19 
 
 do not intend to say, that he never does arty 
 thing but with a view to further his objects of 
 ambition, or gain, or knowledge ; what we do 
 say is this, that he will never forego any favour- 
 able opportunity which may present itself of 
 promoting the wish of his heart, nor ever enter 
 on a course of action which is likely to interfere 
 with his ultimate design ; and therefore we can 
 speculate with some degree of certainty on the 
 line of conduct he will adopt in every important 
 transaction. And so is it with the true Chris- 
 tian. Though not always the immediate motive 
 of his actions, the promotion of God's glory will 
 always be the principle by which his actions are 
 regulated. All that is compatible with this end 
 will be considered allowable, whatever is incon- 
 sistent therewith, however trivial it may appear, 
 will be avoided. This will be the centre towards 
 which all his lines of action tend, the point to 
 which they gravitate, the latent energy which 
 sets his wheels in motion. This will be the 
 mainspring of his soul, the pulse of his heart. 
 Although winds may be needful to impel us and 
 waves to waft us on our way ; though the eye 
 be busied on the vessel we have to steer, and 
 our attention directed to our fellow-voyagers; 
 though our thoughts may sometimes turn with 
 anxiety to the billows of a troubled world which 
 
 c 2 
 
20 PROMOTING THE [[SERM. I. 
 
 rage around us, yet this will be the star, the 
 compass, by which we shall guide the helm, to- 
 wards which often and at stated times we shall 
 direct our looks, and contrary to which not a 
 movement will be made. And thus doing, we 
 shall eventually reach the haven of peace, an 
 eternal one in the heavens. 
 
 And now, my brethren, it only remains to re- 
 mark, that if we really and sincerely desire to 
 promote the glory of our Lord, our Saviour, and 
 our God> we must commence, if we have not 
 commenced already, with ourselves. It is with- 
 our own hearts, with our own consciences, that 
 w^e are in the first place and more immediately 
 concerned. Denying all ungodhness and worldly 
 lusts, and dedicating to the service of the Saviour 
 who died to save us, our souls and bodies and 
 spirits, our thoughts and purposes, words and 
 actions, our hopes, fears, wishes, desires, in- 
 terests and concerns, our primary and obvious 
 duty is, by the assistance of that blessed Spirit, 
 without whom nothing is strong, nothing is holy, 
 and to convey whose graces to the Christian soul, 
 the sacraments and ordinances of the church, 
 yea the church itself was instituted by Christ, — I 
 say our primary and obvious duty is, by this 
 divine assistance, to draw near unto perfection — - 
 to endeavour to stand perfect and complete ini 
 
SERM. 1.3 GfcORY OF GOD. 21 
 
 all the will of God. And what though no human 
 eye be on us ! There is no action so secret, no 
 thought so profound, as to escape the observa- 
 tion of those celestial sanctities, the angels of 
 light, who are encamped around the Christian 
 warrior warring upon his passions, and who raise 
 the hallelujah whenever he triumphs over his 
 besetting constitutional sin. In all his heroic 
 exercises of self-discipline, self-command, and 
 self-improvement ; in every step he takes in true 
 grace and virtue ; in every advance in humility, 
 and meekness, and temperance, and patience, 
 and contempt of the world; in justice, in charity, 
 in heavenly-mindedness, the Creator's glory is 
 promoted by the rejoicings of the sympathizing 
 hosts by whom his throne is surrounded, and 
 who experience an accession of joy, even at one 
 sinner's repentance. 
 
 But is this all ? No : though I am speaking 
 in soberness a truth which the church has uni- 
 versally received and the Scriptures unequivo- 
 cally declare, — let the cold and the careless say 
 what they will, — a truth, on which the pious 
 mind, in its meditative moments, delights to 
 dwell, — (for he will never dive into the depths 
 of the Christian system, who does not take into 
 consideration its bearings, not upon man alone, 
 but upon all the countless intelligences whq 
 
^^ PROMOTLNG THE QsERM. I. 
 
 people infinite space,) — although I state a Chris- 
 tian verity, nevertheless it is quite impossible for 
 any man to become a Christian in deed and in 
 truth without promoting God's glory among the 
 creatures of his own species. For where there 
 is virtue within, it will be a shining as well as a 
 burning light ; and, what is more, the very Scrip- 
 tures which proscribe vain-glory as a motive, 
 command us expressly to let our light so shine 
 before men that they may see our good works 
 and glorify our Father which is in heaven. We 
 are enjoined not only to hold fast the profession 
 of our faith without wavering, but to consider 
 one another, to provoke, to excite, to stir up 
 one another unto love and good works; not only 
 to believe with the heart, but to confess with 
 the mouth. And I mention this, the rather, 
 since there are few sins into which the young, 
 and especially the young of our own sex, are more 
 prone to fall than into that mean and dastardly 
 kind of hypocrisy which would make us appear 
 to be less religious than we really are. Knowing 
 their own weakness, young men are so fearful 
 lest they should not always act up to their pro- 
 fessions, and lest they should on that account 
 be considered as hypocrites before their fellow- 
 creatures, that they choose rather to become 
 hypocrites before God ; and thus they soon learn. 
 
SERM. I.]] GLORY OF GOD. 23 
 
 instead of raising their practice to their prin- 
 ciples, to lower their principles to their practice. 
 If there be any here present, in this congre- 
 gation, to whom these remarks are applicable; 
 and perchance there may be some, let them 
 ponder deeply and seriously on this most awful 
 sentence, a sentence rendered ten thousand fold 
 more awful as coming from the mouth of Him 
 who was love itself: Whosoever shall confess me 
 before men, him will I also confess before my Fa- 
 ther which is in heaven. But whosoever shall deny 
 me before men, him will I also deny before my 
 Father which is in heaven. And if Christ deny 
 us, if he be ashamed of us, if he say unto us. 
 Depart from me, for I know ye not, there is none 
 other name under heaven whereby we can be 
 saved : beside him there is no Saviour ; and 
 what will await us but eternal weeping and 
 wailing and gnashing of teeth ? 
 
 Most heartily, then, do I pray, my brethren, 
 whosoever you be, or whatever may be your 
 destiny ; whether you shall be called upon to 
 take your hereditary station among the noble 
 and the great, or whether you shall have prece- 
 dence amid the ranks of the learned ; whether 
 you are to have your part in the disputations of 
 the senate or the bar ; or whether you are to 
 probe the mysteries of science ; whether you are 
 
24 PROMOTING THE, ETC. []SERM. K 
 
 to fill the most important of all offices, that of 
 the student in divinity, elucidating the Scrip- 
 tures and vindicating the ways of God to man ; 
 or whether yours shall be the happy lot of a 
 parish priest, both in the privacy of domestic 
 enjoyment and the busier scenes of active hfe, — 
 most heartily do I pray that the spirit of our 
 God may write on the fleshly tablets of your 
 hearts, there to be worn as a spiritual phylac- 
 tery, this solemn injunction of the inspired Apo- 
 stle, Whether zee eat, or whether zve drink, or 
 whatsoever we do, do all to the glory of God, 
 
SERMON II. 
 
 Matthew x. 34, 35, 36. 
 
 TJiink not that I am come to send peace on earth. 
 I came not to send peace, hut a sword. For I am 
 come to set a man at variance against his Fa^ 
 ther, and tJie daughter against her mother, and 
 the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law ; 
 and a maiis foes shall be they of his own house- 
 hold. 
 
 It is well known that the fact of which we have 
 now read the prediction has often afforded to 
 the infidel a subject for cavil, while, to the ad- 
 vocate of revelation it has not unfrequently been 
 a source of perplexity. And a source of per- 
 plexity it must continue to be, so long as the 
 Christian concedes what the infidel quietly as- 
 sumes, that the immediate end of all religion is 
 the promotion of peace upon earth. If the pro- 
 
26 THE DUTY OF CONTENDING [[SERM. II. 
 
 motion of peace upon earth be the immediate 
 end of all religion, it is quite in vain to contend, 
 that of all rehgions Christianity is the best. The 
 opponent has only to refer to the revolutions 
 occasioned in society by the first preaching of 
 the Gospel, to the subsequent contentions of 
 orthodox and heretic, to the crusades, to the 
 consequences of the Reformation, — when strife, 
 yet unappeased, was excited not only between 
 the Papist and the Protestant, but between those 
 whose object was merely to bring back to its 
 primitive purity the church of their fathers, and 
 those who estabhshed new sects, and, I might 
 almost say, a new religion ; — he has only to 
 produce these facts, and, referring to the bitter 
 controversies still raging around us, to demand 
 where in the history of paganism a parallel can 
 be found. T know that, to meet the objection, 
 we are sometimes referred to the cases of So- 
 crates and Aristotle ; but of these instances the 
 very most that can be made is, that there are 
 on record two solitary exceptions to the general 
 rule of universal toleration. And as to Ombos 
 and Tentyra^ it is mere special pleading to 
 quote the poetical exaggerations of Juvenal, 
 when we can be met by the express asser- 
 
 ^- Juvenal, Satire xv. 
 
SERM. 11.^ FOR THE TRUTH. 27 
 
 tions of the Emperor Julian, who, in appeal- 
 ing to the Egyptians in favour of paganism, 
 states it as a fact universally admitted, that an 
 inter-community of gods was as prevalent among 
 them as among the other nations ^ Equally 
 useless is it to refer, as some commentators do, 
 to the severities practised by the heathens against 
 the primo-primitive Christians. For here the 
 Christians were the assailants, and the heathens 
 only acted in self-defence. The Christians were 
 persecuted, not because they declared that Jesus 
 was the Son of God, but because they made 
 war upon all other religions ; because they per- 
 suaded and turned away much people, saying, 
 they be no gods which he made with hands; be- 
 cause they denounced every thing that exalted 
 itself, and was called a god, save Jehovah ; be- 
 cause their first commandment was, " Thou shalt 
 have none other gods but me ;" because, as Quin- 
 tilian expressly says, theirs was regarded as a 
 superstition which was the bane of all other re- 
 ligions. Thus St. Polycarp was condemned, 
 because, said the people, he is a destroyer of 
 our gods, who teacheth all men not to sacrifice 
 or to worship them. Thus, too, it was as an 
 
 ^ Ap. S. Cyril, cont. Julian, lib. v. See the whole subject 
 discussed, Divine Ijegationf book ii. sect. 6. 
 
28 THE duty: of contending [^serm. ir« 
 
 enemy to the gods of Rome that St. Cyprian 
 was beheaded. So also, because he refused to? 
 worship the great gods, the proto-martyr of our 
 own Church, the illustrious St. Alban, was exe- 
 cuted. " Who forbids you," said the Prefect 
 Emihan to Dionysius of Alexandria, "to worship 
 Jehovah also, if he be a God, together with them 
 that be gods by nature ^" And why, asks Cel- 
 sus *, may not we be permitted to worship an- 
 gels, and heroes, and demons, if we will ? Whe^ 
 ther it be or be not a fact that Tiberius pro- 
 posed to the senate to enrol the name of Jesus 
 among the Gods of the empire ; whether it be or 
 be not a fact that Adrian designed to build a 
 temple to his honour; whether it be or be not a 
 fact, that Alexander Severus worshipped him in 
 private together with his other deities, the cir- 
 cumstance that these stories could be circulated 
 and believed is sufficient to shew that a compro- 
 mise might have been made, and that a system 
 which could regard with complacency the wor- 
 ship of different gods by six hundred na-tions ^, 
 would not have admitted an exception against 
 
 ^ EvTsebius, lib. vii. c. 11. 
 
 * Origen cont. Cels. lib. vii. p. 378. 
 
 * " Six hundred nations," as Dionysius of Halicarnassus 
 tells us, " had taken up their abode in Ronne, and every one 
 observed its own peculiar rites; and the Christians without 
 
SERM. II.3 fOR THE TRUTH. Sft 
 
 Christianity, if the professors of Christianity- 
 would have been contented with mere tolera- 
 tion, or if they would only have exercised a 
 little liberality with respect to the religion of 
 others ; if they would have been satisfied with 
 affirming, he that believeth and is baptized shall 
 be saved; without adding the concluding por- 
 tion of the sentence, which must always ren- 
 der our religion the detestation and abhorrence 
 of all who reject its faith, he who will not be- 
 lieve will be damned. It was this, — this asser- 
 tion of the guilt of original sin, and of the need 
 of a Saviour, which caused them to be regarded 
 (according to Tacitus^) as haters of the human 
 race, — and as such, not as mere religionists, as 
 the reputed enemies to the existing constitution 
 of society ; as persons prepared to turn the world 
 upside down, — as a political party, they were 
 ignorantly persecuted. 
 
 Now if these things be so, we can only ef- 
 fectually answer the opponent by denying what 
 he takes for granted, that the promotion of 
 
 question might have enjoyed the same liberty, had they 
 been content to enjoy it in silence ; but they maintained, 
 and that publicly, that all the deities of Greece and Rome 
 were fictitious, and the adoration of them superstitious." 
 Powell, Discourse X. 
 * Ann. XV. sect. 44. 
 
30 THE DUTY OF CONTENDING [[SERM. II. 
 
 peace upon earth is the immediate end and ob- 
 ject which rehgion ought to have in view. 
 
 What, then, it is asked in a tone of surprise, 
 derision, or anger, by those who, utterly igno- 
 rant of the first principles of Christianity, love 
 to dogmatize on what they imagine to be its 
 precepts ? Is not God the author of peace and 
 the lover of concord? Is not the Gospel the 
 Gospel of peace, and Christ the Prince of peace ? 
 and are we not commanded to be peace-makers? 
 Yes, God is the author of peace, of such peace 
 as passeth the world's understanding, such as 
 the world can neither give, nor, blessed be God, 
 take away ; that blessed peace of mind which, 
 resulting from a consciousness of reconciliation 
 with a once offended Father, in order to be un- 
 derstood must be experienced, for an angel's 
 tongue would fail in describing it, — that holy, 
 happy, heavenly peace of mind which has doubt- 
 less been shed abroad in the hearts of many of 
 those who surround me, and than which I can 
 wish no greater blessing to all who hear me. 
 And to promote peace, harmony, and concord 
 among their fellow-creatures, is an object, and a 
 great object, with the Christian, — all that we 
 say is, that it is not of necessity his Jirst, his 
 immediate object. As much as in him lies, that 
 is, by patience, forbearance, and forgiveness 
 
SERM. 11.^ FOR THE TRUTH. 31 
 
 under circumstances of personal aggression and 
 injury, he will live peaceably with all men, if it 
 he possible ; that is, if he can do so consistently 
 with his allegiance to the cause of truth, — for the 
 propagation of God's truth, this is his first, his 
 immediate object. 
 
 At the expense of attention, meditation, time, 
 
 study and prayer, the Christian is to buy the 
 
 truth, and then, having obtained it, he is not 
 
 only to hold it fast, but to assert it, and not only 
 
 to assert it, but, if need shall be, earnestly to 
 
 contend for it, to strive for it, to wrestle for it 
 
 with those who attempt to pervert it. Unlike 
 
 the ancient heathen and the modern latitudina- 
 
 rian, who ask with Cain, " Am I my brother's 
 
 keeper ? What is another man's religion to me ? 
 
 it is entirely between his own conscience and 
 
 his God" — the Christian is instructed (so vast is 
 
 the difference between Christian charity and 
 
 worldly liberahty) to look, not every man on 
 
 his own things, but every man also on the things 
 
 of another ; to consider others, and to provoke 
 
 them to good works by the manifestation of the 
 
 truth : if any man do err from the truth, we are 
 
 not to leave him in his error as if it were no 
 
 business of ours, but to endeavour to convert 
 
 him, yea to reprove, rebuke, and exhort ; and 
 
 then, if he still refuse to turn from his errors, if 
 
32 THE DUTY OF CONTENDING C|SERM. II. 
 
 he cause divisions and offences contrary to the 
 word we have heard, we are to mark and avoid 
 him, not from ill-will, but for fear of confounding 
 right with wrong, truth with error. 
 
 To the zeal displayed by the primitive Chris- 
 tians in propagating the truth, the whole truth, 
 notwithstanding the persecutions in which it in- 
 volved them, notwithstanding the charges brought 
 against them of being movers of sedition, and of 
 turning the world upside down, we have already 
 alluded. And so extraordinary was the fact, 
 that the heathen philosophers attributed it to 
 the infatuation of obstinacy, — to a degree of 
 contumacy which Pliny pronounced to be in 
 itself worthy of death \ 
 
 And how nobly did our own ancestors act on 
 
 ^ Neque dubitabam qualecunque esset quod faterentur, 
 certe pertinaciam et inflexibilem obstinationem debere pti- 
 niri. Pliny, lib. x. Ep. 97. See also the Emperor Marcus 
 Aurelius, lib. xi. sect. 3, where, aftei* blessing the soul that 
 is prepared to die, he adds, " but let this preparation arise 
 from its own judgment, and not from mere obstinacy like 
 that of the Christians." How utterly regardless of truth the 
 best heathens were, may be seen in Whitby's note on Ephes. 
 iv. 25, where he shews that even Plato admitted that " a 
 man might lie, if he did so in a fit season." The answer 
 which Christians gave to the accusation is thus expressed 
 by Tertullian, Ilia ipsa obstinatio quam exprobratis, ma- 
 gistra est. Quis enim non contemplatione ejus concutitur 
 ad requirendum quod intus in re sit. ApoL c. 50. 
 
SERM. II.3 FOR THE TRUTH. 33 
 
 this same principle, when, to use the words of 
 Bishop Ridley, '' they preferred the antiquity of 
 the primitive church to the novelty of the church 
 of Rome." Without attempting to vindicate 
 every action of the reformers, who were men 
 like ourselves, weak, fallible, and uninspired, we 
 ought never to forget the deep debt we owe to 
 them for the good fight they fought against 
 popery, which they never would have fought 
 unless they had been fully persuaded in their 
 minds that of all Christian duties, the first is to 
 contend for, yea even to die for, the truth. This 
 zeal for the truth was the grand characteristic 
 virtue of that age. And it is because it is not 
 the characteristic virtue of our own age that the 
 disputes of the Marian martyrs, when condemned 
 to a common prison, are too often alluded to 
 with a censure or a sneer. Whatever may be 
 thought of the subject-matter of their dispute, 
 (which related, however, not to doctrines since 
 called Calvinistic, but to others bordering on the 
 Pelagian heresy ^) their behaviour only shews 
 how ineradicable was their devotion to the cause 
 of truth, how precisely they felt, as Bishop Rid- 
 
 * That those with whom the orthodox disputed were Pe- 
 lagians, is expressly asserted by Rowland Taylor. Stnjpe's 
 Cranmer, p. 958. See also Appendix, p. 195, and Annals, 
 p. 207. 
 
 D 
 
34 THE DUTY OF CONTENDING [^SERM. .II. 
 
 ley felt, and said, '' As long as my breath is in 
 toy body I will never deny my Lord Christ, and 
 his known truth." Let those, and only those, 
 condemn them, who, when they argue, argue 
 ¥nerely for victory, not as men valiant for the 
 truth of God upon the earth, but as literary gla^ 
 diators seeking to gratify their polemical vanity. 
 Our answer, then, to the adversary, is not by 
 denying that Chiistianity has been productive of 
 dissension, discord, and dispute, but by referring 
 to our text to shew that the divine Author of 
 our faith did not introduce into the world a new 
 principle of action, did not for the first time 
 establish a dogmatic theology, without clearly 
 foreseeing the consequence of what he was doing, 
 without being able to foretell the incidental and 
 occasional evil, it could not fail to produce in a 
 wicked world, without warning his followers, 
 that although peace upon earth and good will 
 among men was to be the Jinal end, it would not 
 always, or of necessity, be the immediate result 
 of the preaching of the Gospel. If there be a 
 revelation, the infidel will admit that the revealed 
 religion must be the true one, — and if the true 
 one, every modern infidel, not actually an atheist, 
 will again admit that one of its articles must re- 
 late to the unity of the Godhead. But how will 
 those who have gods many and lords many. 
 
SERM. II.] FOR THE TRUTH. §@ 
 
 how will those who exercise their craft in making 
 shrines for their idols, bear to hear this an- 
 nounced? When did the thief ever regard with 
 complacency those who come with lanterns and 
 torches to betray his lurking place ? And how 
 can we expect the sophist, whether philosopher 
 or religionist, to receive with approbation those 
 whose business it is to expose his lucrative errors 
 and ambitious follies ? How can the worker of 
 iniquity do otherwise than hate a religion which, 
 instead of applying an opiate to his conscience, 
 declares the awful truth, that they who do as he 
 is doing will have their portion hereafter where 
 there is weeping and wailing and gnashing of 
 teeth ? Will not the truth be hated by these, 
 and such as these ? If hated, will it not be op- 
 posed ? If opposed, are not they who are bound 
 to propagate obliged also to defend it ? And 
 when one party is eager to attack, and the 
 other bound to defend, then comes the clash of 
 human passions, and then begins that strife 
 which when once begun, is as when one letteth 
 out water. Therefore, so long as human nature 
 remains as it now is, it cannot but be that of the 
 advocacy of true religion, dissension must often 
 be the result; and the ground of the controversy 
 is then changed, and relates to the fact, whether 
 or not a revelation was necessary, and has been 
 
 D 2 
 
36 THE DUTY OF CONTENDING [^SERM. II. 
 
 made — a subject on which it is unnecessary to 
 enter. 
 
 As a stone, through an unresisting medium, 
 would speed towards the centre, so, were it not 
 for the passions of the wicked and the errors of 
 the weak, the promulgation of Christianity and 
 the promulgation of peace, would be synonymous 
 terms; and it is dishonest to bring that as a 
 charge against revelation which ought rather to 
 be placed to the account of human depravity. 
 On the contrary, when we look at the mighty 
 changes for good which Christianity has already 
 effected upon society, directly and indirectly, we 
 shall anticipate with full confidence the blessings 
 which will be then universal when the earth 
 shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord as 
 the waters cover the sea. We are to promote 
 glory to God in the highest by propagating his 
 truth without regard to consequences ; and it is 
 part of our faith to believe that peace upon earth 
 and good will among men will follow ultimately, 
 even though the immediate consequence be not 
 peace, but a sword. 
 
 I would just pause, in passing, to observe, 
 that if what has now been said be correct, we 
 may see at once the error of that opinion which, 
 since the time of Paley, has too generally pre- 
 vailed ; that if there is to be an established re- 
 
SERM. n J FOR THE TRUTH. 3t 
 
 ligion, that religion ought to be the religion of 
 the majority ; that we ought, in other words, to 
 enquire, not what is the true rehgion, but what 
 is the most popular. That in forming a new 
 colony the estabhshed religion will be, most 
 probably, the religion of the majority is not to 
 be denied ; but why ? simply because with the 
 majority there is power to establish it. But 
 suppose by the law of the land, the constitution 
 of the country, the endowments of our ancestors, 
 the influence which the better educated among 
 the people possess in the legislature, or by any 
 other cause, the religion of the minority be (as 
 is the case in Ireland at the present time) the 
 religion established, — surely it is absurd to say 
 that the minority is bound in this instance to 
 give place to the majority. As in the former 
 case, it was a question, not of right, but of 
 might, so is it now, the minority, though fewer 
 in number, being greater in power. And the 
 simple question for them to decide is, whether 
 their present position iS the best they can take 
 for the propagation of the truth among a de- 
 luded majority. If they think that by retaining 
 the influence which the possession of property 
 always gives, and by providing in every parish 
 for the instruction of the people in the doctrines 
 of truth, though the people, by refusing to hear 
 
38 THE DUTY OF CONTENDING [[SERM. II. 
 
 him, do for the present render the office of the 
 minister thus appointed a sinecure, — if they think 
 that by retaining all the advantages and privi- 
 leges of an establishment, the cause of true re- 
 ligion will be furthered, then assuredly nothing 
 but brute force ought to induce them to forego 
 those advantages and privileges. If, an the 
 other hand, any man think that by the retention 
 of these privileges, the cause of truth will be re- 
 tarded rather than advanced, however you may 
 regret what may appear to be an error in judgr 
 ment, you can have no right to blame him for 
 pursuing with the same end in view a line of 
 conduct different from your own. I say this 
 that I may not seem to be trenching upon party 
 politics, when, as a matter of general politics, 
 which is part of rehgion, I venture to remind 
 you on the authority of my text, that every 
 Christian man, whether laic or cleric, magistrate 
 or subject, is in duty bound in this and all like 
 cases, to consider, not what is expedient at the 
 moment for the sake of peace, but what is bene- 
 ficial to the cause of truth. Expedience may be 
 the idol of the heathen, but truth is still the 
 guide of him who, on becoming a legislator or a 
 magistrate, has not ceased to be a Christian. 
 
 But here we are met by the sneering sceptic, 
 who, from the days of Pontius Pilate to the pre^ 
 
SERM. II.3 FOR THE TRUTH. W 
 
 sent hour, has been accustomed to ask, '* What k 
 truth ? It may be all very well to propagate the 
 truth, but, after all, where is it to be found, and 
 what is it ? The Papist lays claim to it, and the 
 ultra-Protestant lays claim to it, and both the 
 Papist and the ultra-Protestant assert it to be 
 what you of the Church of England refuse to 
 admit. Why must they be wrong? and why 
 must you, of necessity, be right ? " 
 
 Now, my brethren, what does this very popular 
 insinuation, that there is no such thing discover- 
 able as religious truth, amount to ? It amounts 
 to nothing less than a virtual denial of the exist- 
 ence of revelation. I say that to insinuate that 
 rehgious truth is not to be ascertained, is to in- 
 sinuate that God has not revealed his will to 
 man ; and he who is guilty of the insinuation, 
 be his professions what they may, is only an in^ 
 fidel in masquerade. If there be a revelation of 
 God's will and word, then it follows as a matter 
 of course that in the record of that revelation 
 religious truth is discoverable. Thus the Gospel 
 is expressly declared by St. Paul to be the word 
 of truth, for truth, as well as grace, came by 
 Jesus Christ, 
 
 But, says the adversary, the question still re- 
 curs, because, among those who receive the Bibl^, 
 disputes exist as to what the Bible really says. 
 
40 THE DUTY OF CONTENDING [[sERM. U, 
 
 It may be so. It is so. And the question, now, 
 therefore is, whether this difference can be ac^ 
 counted for. 
 
 Now this is certain, that to any thing as- 
 serted by Scripture there cannot be two con- 
 trary meanings attached. All these differences, 
 therefore, must be occasioned by some defect, 
 not in the object contemplated, but in the per- 
 sons contemplating it. Though the thing seen 
 may be the same, it may be seen through a dis- 
 colouring or distorting medium, or the eye seeing 
 it may be diseased ; when, therefore, there is 
 some known wrong principle in the interpreter 
 of Scripture, we are not to wonder, if, in some 
 instances, the truth is hidden from his mental 
 vision. Now that the mental eye, both of the 
 Papist and of the ultra-Protestant, is jaundiced 
 on those points where they differ from ourselves, 
 appears from this, that both parties come to the 
 interpretation of Scripture influenced by princi- 
 ples which they would not acknowledge as cor- 
 rect for the interpretation of any other ancient 
 book. 
 
 The Papist first of all exalts tradition to an 
 equaUty with Scripture, and then receives as 
 tradition, not what is really such, that is, what 
 has been received as such by the Catholic church> 
 but what has at any time been decreed by that 
 
SERM. IlJ FOR THE TRUTH. 41 
 
 branch of the church which is in slavery to the 
 court of Rome. Thus the canons of the council 
 of Trent are received as traditions. The Papist, 
 therefore, interprets Scripture, not as we do, by 
 the light of tradition, properly so called, by re- 
 ference to the opinions and practices of the pri- 
 mitive ages, and by deference to the authority 
 of the church Catholic, but according to certain 
 dogmas of a comparatively modern date of the 
 Roman church ^. 
 
 The ultra-Protestant meets the Papist, though 
 they start from the very opposite extremes. He 
 avowedly puts aside the tradition which the Papist 
 only virtually rejects. Instead of seeking to ascer- 
 tain how the Scriptures were understood by those 
 to whom they were in the first instance addressed, 
 how they were interpreted by the church uni- 
 versal before those divisions existed which we 
 have now to deplore, and when, therefore, (by 
 means of corresponding churches and general 
 
 ^ See Waterland on Ecclesiastical Antiquity, chap. vii. 
 Patrick on Tradition, p. 41. Stillingfleet's Rational Account, 
 jpart I. chap. v. Marsh's Comparative View, p. 45. Beve- 
 ridge on the Nineteenth Article, works ix. 393, and especially 
 Jeremy Taylor's Dissuasive from Popery, x. 485. Bellar- 
 mine, Tract, de Potest. Sum. Pontif., plainly declares " that 
 the modern church of Rome has power not only to declare 
 and explain, but even to constitute and command what shall 
 belong to the faith/' 
 
4-2 THE DUTY OF CONTENDING [^SERM. II. 
 
 councils,) the opinion of the universal church 
 could be known, he relies entirely on his private 
 judgment ; and thus, while rejecting with indig- 
 nation and scorn the claim to infallibility mad6 
 by the Pope of Rome, he, in effect, converts 
 every individual teacher, either into an infallible 
 pope, or into a mere sceptic. I do not deny the 
 right of private judgment as a political privilege, 
 but to contend for it, as some persons do, as a 
 sure guide to truth, is not only absurd, but can* 
 not fail to involve those who do so in incon- 
 sistency as well as error. 
 
 We see, then, why these parties are not able 
 to discover the truth, although the Bible may be 
 open before them ; there is always something 
 intervening to prevent them from seeing the 
 truth clearly ; and we all know how very small 
 a substance held close to the eye will eclipse the 
 sun at its zenith. I wish not to throw blame 
 upon them. Whether the dimness or obliquity 
 of their vision be a misfortune or a fault, or 
 rather, wke7i it is the one or the other, it is not 
 for us to determine who are forbidden to judge, 
 it can be known by Him only to whom all hearts 
 are open, and from whom no secrets are hid. 
 The object, in alluding to the subject now, is 
 simply to shew that their having missed the 
 truth is no proof that the truth is not discover* 
 
S£RM. II.3 FOR THE TRUTH. 43 
 
 able by those who (to adopt the words of one 
 to whom this church is much indebted. Arch- 
 bishop Cranmer) " follow the judgment of the 
 most sacred word of God, and of the holy Ca- 
 thoHc church." 
 
 Nor is the discovery of the truth, though re- 
 quiring much attention and study, so difficult as 
 those who would deter us from seeking it are 
 fond to represent. The chief difficulty relates 
 to the formation of our principles. And here 
 the church stands towards us in the same re- 
 lation as the Apostles did towards the primitive 
 Christians. She dogmatizes on certain articles 
 of faith, and then requires us to act as the Be- 
 roeans did after the preaching of the Apostle, to 
 search the Scriptures, and to ascertain for our- 
 selves whether what she says can be read therein, 
 or proved thereby. Thus, with respect to our 
 principles, we are to prove all things. But, 
 having proved them, and found them to be 
 good, we are to hold them fast, and te use them 
 as a balance in which to weigh every theory 
 which may afterwards be suggested ; a measure 
 by which to ascertain the height and length and 
 breadth of every other doctrine that may be ad- 
 vanced. Although we may not be able to detect 
 the fallacy of every paralogism that may be 
 ^)rought imder our notice^ yet, since it is no 
 
44 THE DUTY OF CONTEJrDING [^SERM. II. 
 
 proof that an argument is correct, because I, as 
 an individual, cannot refute it, we are justified 
 in rejecting it at once, if it be adduced in oppo- 
 sition to some conclusion, of the truth of which 
 we have been previously convinced. Being con- 
 vinced of the fact that the three angles of a tri- 
 angle are equal to two right angles, we are ready 
 to admit that it would be mere waste of time to 
 attend to any argument which should have for 
 its object to prove the contrary. And in like 
 manner, having ascertained that the doctrine of 
 the Holy Trinity, as stated and guarded in the 
 Athanasian creed, that bulwark to the Apostles' 
 creed, is the doctrine of Scripture, we are not 
 called upon (except as scholars endeavouring ta 
 convince gainsayers) to examine the statements 
 of every heretic who may think fit to deny oi^ 
 explain away this article of faith. To many 
 persons this would, indeed, be worse than a 
 waste of time, for, intellectually as well as 
 morally, we are in a state of probation. And if 
 it would be infatuation in any one to say, " being 
 fully persuaded of the exceeding sinfulness of 
 sin, and of the power of divine grace for my 
 protection, I will frequent the society of the 
 profligate and profane, in order to prove the 
 virtue, which, without trial, can hardly be said to 
 exist/'— <-if this would be infatuation, folly j^ and 
 
SERM. II.3 FOR THE TRUTH. ' 45 
 
 madness, scarcely one whit less absurd is the 
 reasoning of him who, in order to strengthen his 
 convictions, revels in the writings of heresy, and 
 disports himself in the gainsaying of Core. It is 
 in fact tempting God; it is hke casting oneself 
 down from the pinnacle of the temple, to see if 
 the angels will bear us up ; it is placing our- 
 selves wilfully in those very circumstances of 
 temptation into which we daily pray that we 
 may not be led, — for a fool, recollect, may often 
 have sagacity to start a question which the wisest 
 of men may not have sagacity to resolve. It is 
 enough for us to know that opinions contrary to 
 each other cannot both be true ; and therefore, 
 if, of the truth of our own opinions on any given 
 subjeot, we are (after due and diligent examina- 
 tion and prayer) morally certain, we are justified 
 in rejecting (even without examination) argu- 
 ments brought forward for the support of opi- 
 nions at variance wdth them. This the world 
 will call prejudice. But, my brethren, what the 
 world calls prejudice is often and generally that 
 resolute adherence to principle which, in the 
 primitive Christians, was regarded as obstinacy, 
 and, wanting which, a man becomes variable as 
 the wind, fluctuating as the wave of the sea, 
 changeable as the face of the earth, uncertain as 
 the contingencies of futurity, always in motion 
 
U THE DUTY OF CONTENDING [[&ERM. II. 
 
 without ever making progress, ever learning, but 
 never coming, to the knowledge of the truth. 
 But to dwell longer upon this part of our subject 
 is unnecessary, since, whether the sceptic think 
 that truth be discoverable or not, he will never 
 be able to silence the Christian whose duty it is 
 to propagate what he believes to be such. 
 
 The chief object in selecting the present sub- 
 ject for my discourse is to call attention to a 
 great principle of Christian conduct, which, in 
 the present age, is, I fear, less influential than it 
 ought to be among the members of the church 
 in this nation. 
 
 Having experienced for a long period that 
 greatest of all great blessings, peace and quiet-*- 
 •ness, we are too apt (forgetful of our text) to 
 consider the preservation of peace to be the first 
 of all virtues, for the sake of which scarcely any 
 sacrifice or concession is too great. That I am 
 justified in saying this, a very little consideration 
 will serve to shew. When the character of a 
 minister of the Gospel comes under discussion, 
 what, in nine cases out of ten, is the first question 
 asked ? Is it whether he faithfully declares the 
 whole counsel of God, as it relates both to dis- 
 cipline and doctrine, fearless of consequences 
 and regardless of persons ? Is it, whether, faithful 
 to his ordination oath, he is ready to banish and 
 
SERM. II J FOR THE TRUTH. 47 
 
 drive away all en^oneous, as well as strange, doc- 
 trines? — Is it not rather, whether he is popular — 
 whether he is liked — whether he is doing good 
 to the establishment by filling the church, al- 
 though perhaps his method of filling the church 
 is merely by preaching more skilfully than the 
 dissenting teacher, the erroneous and strange 
 doctrines of the meeting-house ? So again, in 
 all the various and inconsistent, and sometimes 
 most ridiculous, measures suggested on the sub- 
 ject of church reform. What is too generally the 
 object proposed ? Is it a fair and candid exami- 
 nation of the question, whether the truth be with 
 us or not, in order that it may be more carefully 
 guarded, — whether we have retained in our 
 services all the old usages that we ought to 
 have retained, — whether there be any portion of 
 the godly discipline of the primitive church, 
 which our ancestors wished, but were unable, to 
 restore three centuries ago, that can be restored 
 now? No, the question invariably is, as to what 
 portions of the truth may be given up, what por- 
 tions of the little discipline still left us, relaxed, 
 in order to conciliate dissenters, and to bring 
 within the pale those who, not influenced by 
 church principles, would soon cause us to de- 
 viate more and more from the truth. I pray 
 that those who so act may not be more influ- 
 
49^ THE DUTY OF CONTENDING [^SERM. IT. 
 
 enced by a desire to save the emoluments of an 
 establishment, than to uphold the church of 
 Christ in its integrity ! Again, — when our sup- 
 port is asked for religious and charitable insti- 
 tutions or societies, the only thing thought of, 
 in too many instances, is the object ; if the ob- 
 ject be a specious one, the means for its accom- 
 plishment are disregarded, though the means 
 adopted may, by implication, involve principles 
 of the first importance ; and although by asso- 
 ciating with dissenters, we may pay a compli- 
 ment to schism, at the expense of truth. Far 
 different w^ere the feelings of good Bishop Rid- 
 ley, when standing on this very spot he refused 
 to move even his cap to the representatives of 
 the pope of Rome, lest, as he himself said, he 
 should be thought to do it in derogation to the 
 verity of God's word. 
 
 I know that it will be said in reply, that some 
 truths are essential and some non-essential; and 
 that while no inducement ought to prevail upon 
 us to sacrifice the former, with respect to the 
 latter we may use our discretion. But here we 
 may ask. Who is to decide what is essential or 
 not ? A line must be drawn somewhere ; — who 
 shall decide where the line shall be ? One per- 
 son tells that all the Gospel consists in the one 
 doctrine of justification by faith, and this doc- 
 
SERM. 11.]] FOR THE TRUTH. 49 
 
 trine received all doctrines not immediately con- 
 nected with it, are, in his opinion, non-essential ; 
 another tells us, that the only real essential is 
 morality; and thus each draws his line so as to 
 admit those with whom he wishes to associate ; 
 while each party unites in the condemnation of 
 all who are zealous for the whole counsel of 
 God. It is a fact that in the history of the 
 church there is scarcely any doctrine of our re- 
 ligion which has not at one time or other been 
 represented as non-essential by some or other 
 party. Admit this principle, and there is no 
 limit to the self-deception it will occasion. As- 
 suming that on non-essential truths it is unne- 
 cessary to insist, the careless, indolent self-de- 
 ceiver will soon place in this category all those 
 truths which, not accordant with the spirit of 
 the age, it may be unpopular or inconvenient to 
 maintain, or which are contrary to his interests, 
 his passions, his self-indulgence, or his pride. If 
 we are to make a distinction between essential 
 and non-essential truths, between what relates 
 ad Jidem Catholicam, and what merely pertains 
 ad scientiam theologicam, we must refer for that 
 distinction not to our own private judgment, but 
 to the opinion of the church ; though it is 
 scarcely possible to conceive how any portions 
 of the truth can be sacrificed without injury to 
 
 E 
 
50 THE DUTY OF CONTENDING [[SERM. 11. 
 
 the edifice of which they form the component 
 parts. 
 
 To this worldly spirit of preferring peace to 
 truth, instead of truth to peace, may be traced, 
 the advice so frequently given to the young, to 
 avoid the consideration of controverted topics, 
 and instead of employing themselves with a 
 single eye in the discovery of the truth, to look 
 out for points upon which they can agree with 
 others ; — advice, which, if taken literally, is ab- 
 surd, (for what doctrine is there, not excepting 
 that which relates to the existence of the Deity, 
 which has not at some time or other been con- 
 troverted ?) and of which the wisdom may be 
 fairly questioned, if it be intended to refer to 
 those doctrines concerning which disputes are 
 rife at the present time. For these seem to be 
 the very topics to which attention ought to be 
 principally directed. Upon points on which all 
 parties standing within the same line as our- 
 selves are agreed, there is no great difficulty in 
 making up the mind ; since the mind, by a kind 
 of vis ineriice, inclines to acquiesce in the deci^ 
 sions of the majority. The difficulty, and the 
 temptation to error, is with respect to doctrines 
 of which the discussion is unpopular; and, there- 
 fore, I say, reason shews that on these should 
 be expended, if not our first, our greatest labours. 
 
SERM. n,'2 FOR THE TRUTH. Bl 
 
 It is in defence of those portions of the truth 
 against which the enemy of all truth directs his 
 attack at the present time, that we are to put on 
 our spiritual armour. This is the work marked 
 out by Providence for us, — this is the work that 
 our hand findeth to do, — these are the erro- 
 neous and strange doctrines, which we, of the 
 clergy, are sworn to use our diligence to banish 
 and drive away, — not, of course, the erroneous 
 and strange doctrines which sleep in the grave 
 with those who started them, but the erroneous 
 and strange doctrines now in existence. If men, 
 in their zeal for the truth, were to forget to in- 
 terweave therewith a love of peace, when, with- 
 out sacrifice of truth, peace could be obtained, 
 then against that error it would be our duty to 
 contend with all the earnestness of a Taylor or 
 a Stillingfleet ; but on these very same grounds, 
 now that, in their love of peace, they would fain 
 quench all zeal for truth, our business is, to 
 sound the trumpet in Zion, and summon our 
 sleeping Israel to the help of the Lord against 
 the mighty. 
 
 I am well aware that the principle now advo- 
 cated is a torch at which all parties may light 
 their fires, — a sword with a double edge. And 
 I not only admit, but contend, that in order to 
 be consistent we must never blame the dissenter, 
 
 e2 
 
52 THE DUTY or .CONTENDING [^SERM. IK 
 
 whether popish or protestant, for contending 
 against us, if they think us to be in error. So 
 far from regarding the discussions which may 
 arise from our differences, with an evil eye, I 
 would rather consider them as St. Augustin con- 
 sidered the controversies which heretics started 
 in his days, as the providential means for stirring 
 up our zeal for the truth, and even for bringing 
 parts of the truth which might otherwise have 
 been overlooked more prominently forward \ 
 '' Contrary blasts of doctrine," as Lord Bacon 
 says, " do sift and winnow men's faith." All 
 that we demand of our adversaries is, (what they 
 may demand of us in return,) that they conduct 
 their controversies with courtesy and candour, 
 and with that Christian charity, without which, 
 though they speak with the tongues of men and 
 angels, they are but as sounding brass and a 
 tinkling cymbal. 
 
 And here it is— in this proviso, that all things 
 must be done in charity — that we find an answer 
 
 ^ Multa quippe ad fidem Catholicam pertinentia, dum Hae- 
 reticorum calida inquietudine agitantur, ut adversus eos de- 
 fend! possint, et considerantur diligentius, et intelliguntur 
 clarius et instantius prsedicantur : et ab adversario mota 
 quaestio discendi existit occasio. De Civitate Deiy lib. xvi. 2. 
 This seems to have been a favourite opinion with St. Au- 
 gustin, as he repeats it often. See De Vera Relig. c. 6. 
 n. 10, and De Dono Persever., c. 20. n. 23. torn. x. 
 
SEIIM. ir.] FOR THE TRUTH. S^ 
 
 to the sceptic, when, in order to deter men from 
 acting on this principle, he refers to the horrors 
 of the inquisition, the atrocities of Queen Mary's 
 reign, and the massacres of St. Bartholomew's 
 day. In attributing in these and the like in- 
 stances the conduct of the persecutors to their 
 zeal for the truth, he assumes the very fact 
 which we call upon him to prove. If, in their 
 characters, we can discover unequivocal symp- 
 toms of wrath, fierceness, animosity, conten- 
 tiousness, violence, hatred, envyings, pride, ava- 
 rice, ambition, why are we to attribute their evil 
 deeds, not to these bad passions, but to the one 
 good principle they professed, and professed, we 
 may shrewdly suspect, with hypocrisy, since the 
 same holy religion which calls on us to be zealous 
 for the truth denounces in terms the most awful, 
 the deeds of which they were guilty, and the 
 passions in which they indulged? But admitting 
 that in some instances, — for example, in that of 
 Sir Thomas More, and in that of Archbishop 
 Cranmer, this principle has been actually not 
 only the pretext, but the cause of actions which 
 we now universally regard with abhorrence, — are 
 we to condemn a principle because in a revolu- 
 tionary period it happened to be misapplied ? — if 
 so, what principle of action is there that can 
 abide the test ? We might just as consistently 
 
M THE DUTY OF CONTENDING [^SERM. II. 
 
 accuse iron of murder, wine of drunkenness, 
 strength of cruelty, courage of fool-hardiness; 
 we might as reasonably condemn justice and dis- 
 parage physic, because some men have been 
 wronged in courts of law, and others poisoned 
 by their physicians. 
 
 In all these instances the fault was not in the 
 principle which was given by God, but in its 
 application, which was made by man — not in the 
 object aimed at, but in the means and measures 
 adopted for its execution. How far the conduct 
 of the persecutors of the sixteenth century, 
 (whether popish or protestant,) in seeking to 
 promote what they may have thought to be the 
 cause of truth by iniquitous means, can be pal- 
 liated by the ignorance which (owing to there 
 riot having been any controversy on the subject) 
 prevailed, it is not for us to surmise. To their 
 own master they must stand or fall. That their 
 proceedings were contrary to the principle of 
 our church, even before the era of the Reforma- 
 tion, is evident, from the fact that the persecu- 
 tors consigned their victims for execution to the 
 civil power, — no canon being found to authorize 
 their bloody-mindedness ; that they were con- 
 trary to the principle of the church Catholic 
 might be proved by numberless citations from 
 the Fathers, especially from Tertullian, Lactan- 
 
^ERM. U.'2 FOR THE TRUTH. 55 
 
 tius, and St. Athanasius, wherein they expressly 
 declare that it is the property of religion not to 
 compel, but to persuaded And I need scarcely 
 stay to shew that they were contrary to the 
 whole spirit of the holy Scriptures, which, if 
 they command us to speak the truth, still com- 
 mand us to speak it in love, — if to instruct those 
 who oppose themselves, to instruct them in 
 meekness — to be gentle to all men ; we may 
 rebuke, but we may not hate our brother ; we 
 may admonish, but not count him as an enemy. 
 A Christian is expressly prohibited from being 
 a striker : the weapons of his warfare may not 
 be carnal ; and if he is to put to silence the igno- 
 rance of foolish men, it is to be by well-doing. 
 
 If we bear these things in mind, if we are 
 always careful not to do evil that good may 
 
 ^ Tertullian, ad Scap., cap. 2. Nee religionis est coger© 
 religionem quae sponte suscipi debet, non vi. Lactantius, 
 Instit., lib. V. c. 19. Athanasius, Hist. Arian ad Monach.', 
 c. 33, p. 363 and 384. In Jeremy Taylor's Liberty of Pro- 
 phesying, chap. i. sect. 14., several other fathers are referred 
 to, and others are quoted by the Archbishop of Spalato, 
 lib. viii. de Rep. Eccl., c. 8. St. Chrysost. Homil. iv., in verba 
 Isaiae, vidi Dominum, etc., vol. iii. p. 872 and 873, and 
 Homil. i. in Tit. vol. ult., p. 625. St. Jerome, Epitaph, 
 Nepotiani, cap. vii. Speaking of the persecution of the 
 Macedonians by Theodosius, bishop of Synada, Socrates ex- 
 pressly says, Kai tovto cnoiei, ovk ctaOos Bkokciv rfj opOobo^a €<- 
 KKr}(ri<}. Lib. vii. c. 5. 
 
56 THE DUTY OF CONTENDING [[sERM. If. 
 
 come, and never forget that though the truth is 
 to be propagated, it is only to be propagated by 
 lawful and canonical means and measures, we 
 shall not deviate into any vicious extreme, with 
 respect to this principle of action -^ and while we 
 differ from the worldly politician in that when 
 peace and truth are incompatible, he would sacri- 
 fice truth for the sake of peace, zee peace for 
 the sake of truth, — we shall differ from him still 
 more widely, when circumstances occur of a 
 personal nature. His liberality, indeed,, is mar- 
 vellous, his concessions prodigious, his tender- 
 ness for weak consciences almost painful, when 
 the question before him relates only to God's 
 truth. But how is it when his own word is 
 doubted — when his own honour is impeached ? 
 Then nothing will suffice but an eye for an eye, 
 or a tooth for a tooth, — the aspersion cannot be 
 wiped out, nor the injury effaced, until he has 
 confronted his enemy, prepared to risk the awful 
 alternative of being either a suicide or a mur- 
 derer. How is it again when his property is 
 endangered — his liberty threatened — his party 
 defeated ? then where is all this forbearance — 
 this love of concord — this liberality — this vehe- 
 ment desire to preserve at all hazards the peace 
 of society? Alas! how many a worldly politi- 
 cian there is, who thinks scorn of a poor Chris^ 
 
SERM. 11.^ FOR THE TRUTH. 57 
 
 tian if his zeal for the truth ever strike from him 
 a hasty spark of anger, who to serve his selfish 
 purposes or to gratify his thirst of vengeance 
 would not care if he involved the whole world 
 in bloodshed and ruin ! 
 
 May the everlasting Spirit of the Father de- 
 scend into our hearts, my brethren, that through 
 his sanctifying influence our conduct may be the 
 very reverse of this. 
 
 - May no hope, no fear, no pleasure, no pain, 
 no external force, no weakness from within, no 
 den of lions, no fiery furnace, no cruel mockings, 
 no moral persecution worse to bear than corpo- 
 real pangs, not the censure of the proud nor the 
 arguments of the subtle, not the contemptuous 
 insolence of the arrogant nor the sarcastic male- 
 volence of the sneerer, deter us from asserting, 
 in season and out of season, the whole counsel 
 of God as it has come down to us from the Apo- 
 stles through that blessed church which has 
 been watered by the blood of our martyred fore- 
 fathers, — no, not though the consequence be loss 
 of peace and spoiling of goods ; no, not though 
 the consequence be death to ourselves and de- 
 struction, so far as this world is concerned, to all 
 that we hold dearer than life; — but, if we can 
 conciliate friend or foe by forbearing injuries, 
 forgiving insults, overpaying benefits, may we 
 
58 THE DUTY OF CONTENDING |^SERM. 11. 
 
 shew by so doing that, though hke St. John, the 
 tenderest of the Apostles, we can become for 
 the cause of truth sons of thunder, yet hke him, 
 too, we can humbly endeavour to tread in our 
 divine Master's steps, who for our sakes gave his 
 cheek to the smiter, and has bequeathed to us 
 his commandment that we should not avenge 
 ourselves. It is thus that we must prove to the 
 world that our zeal for the truth is the result not 
 of a tyrannical temper, impatient of opposition, 
 of a disputatious mind, or an uncharitable spleen, 
 but of that genuine Christian charity to which 
 the worldling loves tauntingly to refer, whilst its 
 real character and nature are to him as colours 
 to the blind, or as melody to the deaf; for Chris- 
 tian charity is not that careless indifference which 
 countenances vice by paUiating error ; it is not 
 mere good nature, nor a roniantic undisciplined 
 sentimentality ; above all, it is not that selfish- 
 ness which, disguised under the name of liberality, 
 makes a man the flatterer, the sycophant, the 
 parasite of the world, by concealing imwelcome 
 truths, however wholesome. No, Christian cha- 
 rity is a sublime and steady principle which, re^ 
 gardless of individual interest or ease, resulting 
 from faith in the promises and zeal for the laws 
 of God, undeterred by evil report and unseduced 
 by good report, seeks the welfare of mankind 
 
SERxM. II. 3 FOR THE TRUTH. 59 
 
 not only temporal but eternal, by punishing 
 their crimes as well as by alleviating their dis- 
 tresses and sympathizing with their sorrows, by 
 exposing the sophistry of error as well as by in- 
 culcating the doctrines of truth, by unmasking 
 the hypocrite as well as by rewarding the righ- 
 teous, by combatting the low and grovelUng 
 principles of low and grovelling minds, not less 
 than by maintaining all those high, honourable, 
 and ennobling sympathies and sentiments, the 
 possession of which distinguishes man from the 
 brute, the exercise of which exalts the citizen 
 above the savage, the sanctification of which 
 raises the Christian to the dignity of an angel. 
 
SERMON III. 
 
 2 Thess. ii. 15. 
 
 Therefore, brethren, stand fast, and hold the tra- 
 ditions which ye have been taught y whether by 
 word, or our epistle. 
 
 In addressing you on a former occasion, I ven- 
 tured to protest against that system of com- 
 promise, which, from the days of Ammonius 
 Saccas to the present hour, has always been 
 popular among those religionists who prefer 
 peace to truth, instead of truth to peace ; but 
 which, perhaps, never prevailed among men 
 really serious in their views, and honest in their 
 intentions, to the extent it does now. To sacri- 
 fice any portion of any known truth, or, which 
 comes to nearly the same thing, to forbear from 
 the expression of it, from any sordid care or de- 
 basing fear, in order to promote peace among 
 ourselves, or to offer a more imposing front to 
 
62 ON the; authority [[serm. hi. 
 
 the enemy, to increase our political strength, or 
 to ward off impending persecution ; to silence 
 an adversary, or to save the advantages and ho- 
 nours of an establishment ; — in a word, for any 
 cause, pretext, or purpose whatever, is to act on 
 a principle just the reverse of that which won 
 for the primitive martyrs their crown of glory, 
 and enabled our own forefathers to hand down 
 to us the church in which it is our privilege to 
 eat the bread of life. Suppose that our fore- 
 fathers, those to whom God in his providential 
 mercy committed the custody of his church, in- 
 fluenced by a different principle, had acted on a 
 different system, and, instead of maintaining re- 
 solutely and firmly, as (peace be to their ashes) 
 they did, the whole counsel of God, had from 
 time to time sacrificed, for the sake of peace, 
 here a little and there a little of what some of 
 their contemporaries, relying on their own pri- 
 vate judgment, were pleased to consider non- 
 essential points ; — suppose this to have been the 
 case, and what would our position be at the 
 present moment ? Of the torn and tattered ves- 
 ture of our Saviour what should we have left ? 
 With our clergy, if clergy they might still be 
 called, stripped of all those decent adornments 
 of office which at one time excited the spleen of 
 the captious and the fury of the superstitious ; 
 
SEIIM. III.] OF THE CHURCH. 63 
 
 with our sanctuaries bare of ornament as the 
 desecrated barn of the lay-improprietor ; what 
 would have become, by this time, of our vener- 
 able ritual, our primitive liturgy, and all those 
 other divine offices by which our souls are at- 
 tuned for heaven, and brought into commu- 
 nion with the saints of the church triumphant, 
 through the self-same services by which those 
 saints themselves, through a long succession of 
 ages, sought for and obtained sanctification, so- 
 lace, and strength, while they were militant on 
 earth ? Long since they would have all been 
 sacrificed to conciliate those who preferred the 
 muddy waters of Geneva to the pure fountains 
 of catholic antiquity. Where would have been 
 that ministry which we now trace up to the 
 Apostles, and through the Apostles to Christ ? 
 Long since, it would have been levelled to the 
 dust, to make way for the Presbyterian platform. 
 To conciliate the Zuinglians the canon of the 
 communion would have been altered, and to 
 please anabaptists our children would have re- 
 mained unbaptized. And our Articles, — what 
 would have become of them ? — They would have 
 yielded to other Articles breathing all the hor- 
 rors of an unmitigated Calvinism, unless these> 
 too, had in their turn given way, in the last cen- 
 tury, to an Arian creed, to gratify those who 
 
6i ON THE AUTHORITY [^SERM. III. 
 
 contended, that, in maintaining the cathohc doc- 
 trine of the Trinity, we were narrowing the pale 
 unnecessarily, and contending for a mere iota. 
 Such at least would have been the case with the 
 majority of those who are now members of the 
 church of this land. Some few there might 
 have been, there would have been, a chosen few, 
 who, refusing to bow the knee to Baal, or to 
 worship the golden image of worldly expedience, 
 though a burning fiery furnace blazed before it, 
 would have kept up in dens and caverns and 
 upper rooms, amid contempt and scorn and per- 
 secution, the apostolical succession of the mini- 
 stry, while they would have soothed their suf- 
 ferings and sorrows by the calm but sublime 
 and elevating devotions of the Liturgy ; — and of 
 these, preserved " as a cluster of the vintage, 
 as a candle in a dark place, as a haven or ship 
 from the tempest," — of these the successors per- 
 haps would be now beginning to creep out of 
 their obscurity, and to win to their side, like the 
 episcopalians of Scotland, the more soberminded 
 and better educated of their countrymen. But 
 if it were so, it would not be in the churches 
 once their own ; it would be amid the difficulties 
 of a bare toleration, not with the aids and ap- 
 pliances by which an establishment influences 
 public opinion, — it would not be in these ancient 
 
SERM. III.] OF THE CHURCH. 65 
 
 seats of learning, but in private seminaries, where 
 the learning which is acquired, if it be more 
 meritorious to the individual, is less beneficial 
 to the public. How vast, then, is the debt of 
 gratitude which we owe to our Parkers, our 
 Bancrofts, our Sheldons, who bravely dared the 
 execrations of their own age, — execrations, of 
 which the cuckoo cry is still iterated by our po- 
 pular historians, — in order that they might hand 
 down to us those doctrines and institutions and 
 sacred offices, and that primitive and apostolical 
 discipline, of which men are beginning to under- 
 stand and acknowledge the value. How grate- 
 fully ought we to recognize the guiding hand of 
 Providence, which, in spite of the erastianism 
 of some, and the puritanism of others, the Cal- 
 vinism of one party, and the Arminianism of 
 another ; the desire on the one side to con- 
 ciliate popish, and on the other to amalgamate 
 with protestant dissenters, has preserved to us 
 in this land, unworthy as we are, the holy ca- 
 tholic church \ — which, when at the Revolu- 
 
 ^ *' Although the word catholic properly signifies univer- 
 sal, they (the ancient Fathers) used it in the same sense that 
 we do orthodox, as opposed to heretic, calling an orthodox 
 man a catholic," Bp. Beveridge, ii. 197. Home's edit. Thus 
 it was said by Pacian, Christianus mihi nomen, Catholicus 
 cognomen : by the former I am distinguished from the hea- 
 then^ by the latter from the heretic. In confirmation of this, 
 
 F 
 
66 ON THE AUTHORITY [^SERM. III. 
 
 tion Latitudinarianism was in the ascendant, and 
 was levelling a fatal blow at our orthodoxy of 
 
 the following passage from Suicer may be adduced : Kadoki- 
 Ko\f calholici, si ad ipsa vocis hujus incunabula, et antiquissi- 
 mum ascendamus usura, vocantur Chrisiiani orthodoxi, atque 
 ita discernuntur a Christianis haereticis. Patet hoc ex cod. 
 lib. i. tit. 1. Justin, de summa Trin. et fide Cathol. Sunt 
 igitur Christiani quidam, qui non sunt catholici, quales haere- 
 tici. B. Augustinus, in Psalm Ixvii., and afterwards he re- 
 marks, Qucevis ecclesia particularism siquidem orthodoxa est, 
 vocatur KaBoXiKT). Ita ecclesia Alexandrina appellatur ca- 
 tholica. Apud Athanasium est inscriptio epistolae, tom. i. 
 
 p. 779. KcovaTavrlvos, fxeyicTTOs, ae^acrros, ra Aam tS koto. 'AXc^- 
 dvdeiav KaBoXiKris eKKXrjatas. Constantinus Maximus, Augustus, 
 populo catholicae ecclesice Alexandrinae. Suicer. Thesaurus^ 
 vol. ii. p. 14, where other authorities are cited. But it is 
 here necessary, in order to understand the full meaning of the 
 word, to remember who were considered heretics ; and for 
 answer we may refer to the sixth canon of the council of Con- 
 stantinople, one of the councils to which the church of Eng- 
 land directs us to refer in our judgment of heresy ; where it 
 is said, " We call them heretics who have formerly been ab- 
 dicated by the church, and afterwards anathematized by us ; 
 and further, them who profess a sound faith, but have made a 
 schism, and gathered congregations in opposition to the canonic 
 cal bishops.'' Thus the Novatians, who were both Trinita- 
 rians and Episcopalians, were not considered catholics, and 
 were regarded as heretics, because they were opposed to 
 their canonical bishops. In short, by a heretic was anciently 
 meant one who dissented from the catholic and apostolic 
 church of the place in which he resided. The term is now 
 considered opprobrious by so many parties, (although that 
 of dissenter, which in truth means nearly the same thing, is 
 sometimes gloried in,) that to use it generally would only be 
 
SERxM. III.] OF THE CHURCH. 6f 
 
 doctrine and discipline, raised up in the non- 
 jurors an opposition numerically weak, but mo- 
 rally strong, and so rendered it impossible for 
 our then rulers to dare what they desired. 
 
 Now to all this I am well aware that an 
 answer may at once be given in accordance with 
 the spirit of the age. When we ask, where 
 would our religion have been, had our prede- 
 cessors sacrificed truth for the sake of concilia- 
 tion, it will be answered by many, in the Bible. 
 But to this we may reply, in the first place, that 
 the mere possession of the Bible could not re- 
 store to us, what our ancestors were reviled for 
 not renouncing, the succession of the ministry ; 
 without which, though in the Bible we should 
 read of sacraments generally necessary to salva- 
 tion, and of preachers who ought to be sent, yet 
 we should find no one with credentials to prove 
 
 to give unnecessary offence ; — but the true memlber of the 
 church of England will resolutely maintain his claim to the 
 title of catholic, whether against the Papists, who set up 
 their bishops against those canonical bishops of this country, 
 who alone can prove their mission here, or against other 
 dissenters, who know not, or acknowledge not, the divine 
 right of the church. A catholic was probably so called, be- 
 cause he received the tradition of the universal church, when 
 confirmed by Scripture ; whereas the heretic would start his 
 own hypothesis, or the supposition of a sect, and then pervert 
 the Scriptures so as to seem to have their support. 
 
 f2 
 
68 ON THE AUTHORITY [SERM. III. 
 
 his authority to act as an ambassador from Christ, 
 or to officiate as the minister and steward of 
 God's mysteries. But, omitting this circumstance, 
 let us come to yet closer quarters with our op- 
 ponent. And I will ask, of those here present, 
 who they are, and what their number may be, 
 who have worked out their system of religion 
 from the Bible and the Bible only ? who have 
 built the fabric of their faith from the materials, 
 and only from the materials, which they them- 
 selves, without foreign aid, have gathered, as- 
 sorted, and compared from the Scriptures ? 
 
 " The Bible," it has been well and wisely ob- 
 served, " though a most sacred is a most multi- 
 farious collection of the records of divine eco- 
 nomy, — a collection of an infinite variety of cos- 
 mogony, theology, history, prophecy, psalmody, 
 morality, apologue, allegory, legislation, ethics, 
 carried through different books by different au- 
 thors at different ages, and, though shaped to 
 the same holy end by the superintending and 
 suggesting Spirit of God, with different purposes 
 in view by the authors themselves. It is neces- 
 sary to sort out what is intended for example, 
 what only as a narrative, what is to be under- 
 stood literally, what figuratively ; where one 
 precept is to be controlled and modified by an- 
 other ; what is said directly, and what as an ar- 
 
SERM. III.] OF THE CHURCH. 69 
 
 gument ad hominem ; what is temporary, and 
 what of eternal obligation ; what appropriated 
 to one state or set of men, and what to the ge- 
 neral duty of Christians ^" Now all this is to be 
 done, if on the Bible and the Bible only we de- 
 pend for instruction, before our code of morals 
 or system of divinity can be formed. And where 
 is the intellectual son of Anak, who, amid the 
 various claims of society, is sufficient for these 
 things ? If this were the business and duty of 
 each individual, who could become a Christian 
 before he had descended far into the vale of 
 years, unless he could make up for his deficiency 
 of age by the intensity of his studies ? and even 
 then it would be necessary to add to closeness 
 of application, acuteness of intellect and clear- 
 ness of head ? The impossibility of such a pro- 
 ceeding is tacitly admitted even by those who, 
 in theory, take the opposite position, in that 
 they declare, that whatever is fundamental and 
 necessary for salvation is obvious and plain, for- 
 getting all the while that they are thus assuming 
 the very point at issue, since, with respect to 
 what is fundamental and necessary to salvation, 
 they require us to take for granted their own 
 assertions, and to admit, at the same time, upon 
 
 ^ Burke. Speech on the Act of Uniformity. 
 
70 ON THE AUTHORITY [SERM. HI. 
 
 authority only, the authenticity and genuine- 
 ness of the books we receive for Scripture, as 
 well as the correctness of the version we use. 
 For plain and obvious are only relative terms;— 
 what is plain and obvious to you may not be so 
 to me, and vice versd : so that one sect or party 
 will pronounce that to be the plain and obvious 
 sense of Scripture, of which another party will 
 predicate just the reverse. But the time will 
 not permit, nor does the occasion require, that 
 we should dwell longer on this point, since we 
 have only to look at the facts of the case. And 
 is it not Vifact, with respect to the great mass of 
 mankind, that their religion, like their habits, is 
 hereditary ; that their opinions are the opinions 
 of their fathers or instructors, corrected and 
 modified it may be, but essentially the same? 
 Is not this, and must not this be the case with 
 the labourer, who is unable, and the handicrafts^ 
 man who, except for a few hours on the Lord's 
 day, has no time to study the Bible ? And even 
 with respect to the better educated classes of 
 society, even with respect to men of learning, 
 does it make no difference as to the amount of 
 their labour, and consequently as to their pro- 
 ficiency, with what feelings, and sentiments, and 
 prejudices, and principles they come to the in- 
 vestigation of Scripture, with what data they 
 
 
 
SERM. III.3 OF THE CHURCH. 71 
 
 start? If we make an inquiry, the mind will, 
 naturally of itself, first form or receive an hypo- 
 thesis to give a direction to that inquiry ; and is 
 it nothing whether the hypothesis so formed be 
 in favour of or against the truth ? Does it sig- 
 nify nothing through what medium the Scripture 
 is viewed ? The fire may be the same, but does 
 it matter nothing whether it is to operate on 
 metal, on fuel, on wax, or on clay ?— does it 
 matter nothing to what substance the solvent is 
 applied? There is no law so clear but that an 
 objection can be raised against it by a petti-fog- 
 ger; and there is no passage of Scripture so plain 
 but it may be misinterpreted, misunderstood, or 
 explained away by those whose minds have been 
 contracted and their understandings sophisti- 
 cated by the prejudices of sect or the subtilties 
 of system. Why is it that the Papist, the Pres- 
 byterian, the Calvinist^ the Arminian, the Soci- 
 nian, draw inferences so contradictory from the 
 same passages of Scripture? Is it not t)ccasioned 
 by the fact of their education, of the circum- 
 stances under which they are placed, of their 
 hereditary opinions, whereby the one party has 
 been accustomed from childhood to consider as 
 a figure, allegory, or emblem, what the other 
 would interpret literally; while all would oc- 
 casionally demand admissions which the rest 
 
72 ON THE AUTHORITY [[SERM. HI. 
 
 would regard as unreasonable ? It is this that 
 makes their conversion, though not impossible, 
 yet certainly a work of difficulty and labour, 
 unless occasioned by some great national con- 
 vulsion by which the whole order of society is 
 reversed. 
 
 If, then, man being an imitative animal, the 
 circumstances under which we are placed, the 
 opinions, manners, feelings, prejudices, examples, 
 and institutions by which we are surrounded, are 
 much to us all, and every thing to some of us, 
 does it not become necessary that those who 
 by their station, learning, or talent, have an in- 
 fluence over public opinion, should diligently 
 compare the doctrines they have received from 
 their ancestors with holy writ ; and after they 
 are convinced in their minds that they have the 
 truth as God revealed it, should watch over it 
 with a holy jealousy, creating around them as it 
 were a bright pellucid atmosphere by which it 
 may be at once apparent to others, and forming 
 those moral sentiments which, as they precede, 
 so they capacitate the mind for logical deduc- 
 tions, and at the same time to assist those who 
 see by placing them in the best situation for 
 taking a clear and extensive view. 
 
 I said, and I repeat it, that such men are se- 
 <lulously and anxiously to compare the, doctrines 
 
SERM. III.3 OF THE CHURCH. 73" 
 
 they have received with holy writ, — for let it 
 not be for a moment supposed that I would deny 
 that most important tiiith, that the Bible, and 
 the Bible only, is our rule of faith. It is to the 
 neglect and subsequent denial of this solemn 
 fact that almost all the errors of the popish sys- 
 tem are to be traced, and against that perversion 
 of Christianity we must resolutely contend that 
 nothing may be imposed as an article of faith? 
 or as necessary to salvation, but what may be 
 read in Scripture, or proved thereby. All that I 
 assert is, that no men actually do, and few men 
 living in society could, form from the Bible only 
 their religious and moral system ; while, on the 
 other hand, I not only admit, but confidently as- 
 sert, that to confirm, to prove, or to disprove 
 the truth of the system they have inherited, 
 the system transmitted to them, this is what all 
 men of education can do, and what (the capacity 
 premised) all men are hound to do. For although 
 Scripture may not of necessity be the source 
 from which all our doctrines were immediately 
 imbibed, yet it is the infallible touchstone by 
 which they are to be tried, the balance of the 
 sanctuary in which they are to be weighed, the 
 measure by which they are to be corrected. And 
 the difference between the two processes, be- 
 tween forming a creed for ourselves and proving 
 
74 ON THE AUTHORITY [[sERM. III. 
 
 the truth of a creed which we have received, is 
 obvious. In this congregation there are many 
 who have skill to demonstrate the truth of the 
 Newtonian theory, but of those, how many are 
 there, who, by merely studying the book of nature, 
 could have discovered the principle of attraction, 
 and then have applied it for the explanation of 
 the solar system ? Of those who apply the prism 
 to the decomposition of a ray of light, who are 
 they who, if Newton had not lived, could have 
 discovered its adaptation to the purposes of sci- 
 ence ? In like manner, there are, I hope, none 
 here present who cannot demonstrate from Scrip- 
 ture the truth of those doctrines which are con- 
 tained in the three creeds, — but if they had never 
 heard of those doctrines before, though they 
 would be still in Scripture, we may safely say, 
 that the notions of many among us, on many of 
 these doctrines, w^ould have been any thing but 
 satisfactory and clear. It is thus that we are ta 
 search the Scriptures, which are given as for our 
 comfort, so also to enable us to prove all things ; 
 all those things which, from the various circum- 
 stances of education and the tradition of the 
 church, we have received ; and of these things 
 we are to hold fast that which, after such ex- 
 amination, we find to be good. 
 
 Now if we search the Scriptures for the pur- 
 
SERM. III.3 OF THE CHURCH. 75 
 
 pose, we shall find these positions fully esta- 
 blished, — ^for we find from Scripture that it was 
 not by Scripture that our holy religion was first 
 propagated and established. Prior sermo, says 
 Tertullian, quam liber, prior sensus quam sty- 
 lus \ The Apostles and Evangelists did not sit 
 down, and, acting on a principle contrary to that 
 pursued in the Old Testament, compose a body 
 or system of morals and theology ; they did not 
 approach the Gentiles and say, here are certain 
 Scriptures composed by inspiration of God, — take 
 them, understand them as best you can, and 
 form out of them a religion each man for him- 
 self; on the contrary, they placed their con- 
 temporaries in the precise situation in which 
 circumstances have placed their successors, — 
 they gave them a religion antecedent to Scrip- 
 ture — a form of sound words — the one faith or 
 summary of things to be believed — a virorvirmais, 
 or compendium of orthodox doctrine — a good 
 depositum or trust, to which they were exhorted 
 to hold fast, — while from those who walked dis- 
 orderly and not after the traditions thus received, 
 they were commanded to withdraw themselves ; 
 and no sooner was a bishop appointed over one 
 of the apostolical churches than the direction 
 
 » Tertull. de Test. An. c. 5. 
 
76 ON THE AUTHORITY [[SERM. III. 
 
 given by St. Paul to that bishop was^ the things 
 which thou hast heard of me among many witnesses, 
 the same commit thou — {not to writing, but irapddov, 
 commit in trusty to faithful men who shall he able to 
 teach others also *. Now, what is this but saying 
 in other words, lay the foundation of that which 
 (adopting the term from St. Ambrose) I have 
 ventured to call an hereditary religion — a re- 
 ligion which, handed down from generation to 
 generation, may spread like the roots of a tree 
 on and below the surface of society, forming a 
 germinating principle of piety, blending itself 
 with men's modes of thought, and thus influ- 
 encing indirectly, even when its direct influence 
 is not sought. Here is the foundation, the pillar, 
 the ground of the truth. But, of course, such 
 a religion would soon be liable to corruption, 
 through the weakness of misapprehension in 
 some, and the wickedness of misrepresentation 
 in others. As a safeguard against this, we pos- 
 
 * Quid est depositum ? id est quod tibi crv^ditum est, non 
 quod a te inventum : quod accipisti non quod excogitasti : 
 *rem non ingenii sed doctrinae : non usurpationis privatae sed 
 publicae traditionis : rem ad te perductam non a te prolatam : 
 in qua non auctor debes esse sed custos ; non institutor sed 
 sectator ; non ducens sed sequens. Depositam inquit cus- 
 todi ; Catholicae fidei talentum inviolatum illibatumque con- 
 serva. Quod tibi creditum, hoc penes te maneat, hoc a te 
 tradatur. Vincentius Livinensis, c. xxvii. 
 
SERM. III.]] OF THE CHURCH. 71 
 
 sess the Scriptures. This, indeed, is precisely 
 stated by St. Luke. Theophilus, whoever he 
 was or represented, (and. if he represented the 
 ordinary Christian, it makes the case more strong,) 
 had been already instructed in the doctrines and 
 duties of the Christian profession, — the Gospel 
 of St. Luke was sent to him to declare the cer- 
 tainty of those things which he already believed, 
 that is, that he might be able to ascertain there- 
 from whether he had been correctly instructed. 
 In like manner, with respect to the Epistles, 
 they were written, not to convert heathens, but 
 to instruct converts, and to correct the mistakes 
 which from time to time arose in the traditional 
 religion of the different churches ; and thus the 
 Gospels and Epistles remain to us, at the present 
 day, like the two olive trees standing by the 
 golden candlestick, not to supersede the use of 
 the candlestick, but to supply it continually with 
 holy oil. We find it, indeed, assumed in Scrip- 
 ture, that of many duties we shall learn the obli- 
 gation elsewhere ; while the injunctions of the 
 inspired volume simply imply their obligation, — 
 (thereby enabling us to prove it,) — by instructing 
 us as to their mode of performance. It is as- 
 sumed, for instance, that to the end of time 
 Christians will know it to be obhgatory upon 
 them to fast, to pray, and to give alms; the scrip- 
 
78 ON THE AUTHORITY [^SERM. HI. 
 
 tural directions are therefore confined as to what 
 we are to do when we fast, when we pray, when 
 we do our alms-deeds. The Bible is not par- 
 ticular as to how we gain our faith, it only re- 
 quires that this faith should exist, and then sup- 
 plies us with the means of establishing it. 
 
 And this was the principle on which we find 
 the Fathers of the church to have acted. The 
 heretic, professing his reverence for Scripture 
 only, would put upon the words of Scripture his 
 own meaning, and then argue that, since they 
 could bear that construction, he was justified in 
 abiding by his conclusions. And thus by Scrip- 
 ture, capriciously interpreted, could every vagary 
 of the intellect be justified ; for we have only to 
 look through the coloured medium of our imagi- 
 nation to read in Scripture whatever we please. 
 The argument of the Fathers with these persons 
 was short and conclusive — " we have no such 
 doctrine;" they would say, '^neither the churches 
 of God." They appealed to what had been uni- 
 versally received and acted upon in the aposto- 
 lical churches ; and they argued, if this doctrine 
 can be established by the written word, this is 
 the doctrine which was actually revealed, and 
 ought consequently to be received, however spe- 
 cious your argument for what is merely a private 
 opinion, originating either in pride of intellect. 
 
SERM. IllJ OF THE CHURCH. 79 
 
 the weakness of superstition, or the reveries of 
 fanaticism. The question was not, and is not, 
 what sense will the Scripture bear, but what has, 
 in fact, been revealed. It is by bearing this in 
 mind that we make consistent passages in the 
 Fathers which might otherwise appear inconsist- 
 ent, and thus gain a strong argument against the 
 Papist ; for instance, when we find them at one 
 time referring to the tradition of the church as 
 a guide that they would be most unwilling to 
 forsake, and at another maintaining with all the 
 vigour of their argument that Scripture, and 
 Scripture alone, was the rule by which the truth 
 of any doctrine could be proved. Tradition sup- 
 plied the hypothesis, the church asserted the 
 proposition, and Scripture gave the proof. 
 
 And was not this the principle upon which 
 our ancestors here in England acted, when three 
 centuries ago they banished from the church of 
 their forefathers the abominations of popery ? 
 Did they imagine so vain a device as that every 
 man might go to the Bible, and that too a trans- 
 lated one, and carve from thence a religion for 
 himself? If they did, how strangely inconsistent 
 was their conduct in publishing their institutions 
 and necessary doctrines, their injunctions and 
 articles, and catechisms and canons, and homi- 
 lies, — how much more inconsistent their having 
 
80 ON THE AUTHORITY [^SERM. III. 
 
 recourse to legal means to silence those who, as 
 they thought, were corrupting, instead of cor- 
 recting, the opinions of the age ! Censures have 
 been past on distinguished foreign reformers for 
 their inconsistency in asserting for themselves 
 the right of private judgment, and yet anathe- 
 matizing others, when, by the exercise of the 
 same right, they came to opposite conclusions. 
 How they are to be defended it is not for me to 
 say. Suffice it for us to know, that against our 
 own ancestors no such charge can be established. 
 If they did not admit the right of private judg- 
 ment in others, they did not attempt to exercise 
 it themselves. They deferred to catholic tra- 
 dition on all doubtful points, — but they took 
 leave to enquire what catholic tradition really 
 was, and thus to distinguish it from popish as- 
 sertion. We have only to refer to their writings 
 to see how sensitive they were when any one 
 insinuated that they wished to depart from Ca- 
 tholicism. This might very easily be proved, if 
 the time permitted, by an induction of particu- 
 lars ; — as it is, I will simply refer to one of the 
 latest and most elaborate works of one of our 
 reformers, whose disposition inclined him per- 
 haps to defer, more than others, to the opinion 
 of foreign Protestants ; — I allude to Cranmer's 
 answer to Gardyner, and there we shall find him 
 
SERM. 111.] OF THE CHURCH. 81 
 
 declaring, that the sense of our Saviour's words 
 must be sought from the old writers, that he 
 impugns not the true catholic faith, but the 
 false papistical faith ; that he spurns with indig- 
 nation the idea of his meaning to set aside the 
 word catholic, or of his going about, — I use his 
 own words, — of his " going about by his own 
 wit, to prove his doctrine, howsoever Scripture 
 hath hitherto been understood." Nay, speaking 
 of the Lutherans, of whom Gardyner had said 
 that they took his view of the subject, Cranmer 
 remarks, that supposing they did, yet the ancient 
 authors which were next to Christ's time may 
 not give place to these new men, although they 
 were men of excellent learning and judgment ; 
 while in his last solemn appeal to a general coun- 
 cil at his degi'adation, he declares : ^ " Touching 
 my doctrine of the sacrament and other my doc- 
 trine, of what kind soever it be, I protest it was 
 never my mind to write, speak, or understand 
 any thing contrary to the most holy word of 
 God, or else against the holy catholic church of 
 Christ, but purely and simply to imitate and 
 teach those things only which I have learned of 
 the sacred Scripture and of the holy catholic 
 
 ' Archbishop Cranraer's Remains, published by the Rev. 
 Henry Jenkyns, vol, ii. 
 
82 ON THE AUTHORITY [[sERM. III. 
 
 church of Christ from the beginning, and also 
 according to the exposition of the most holy and 
 learned fathers and martyrs of the church. And 
 if any thing hath, peradventure, chanced other- 
 wise than I thought, I may err, but heretic I 
 cannot be, forasmuch as I am ready in all things 
 to follow the judgment of the most sacred word 
 of God, and of the holy catholic church." There 
 is more to the same effect ; and consequently, if 
 at any time this great man, amidst his many 
 cares, deviated from Catholicism, while we cor- 
 rect his error, we should remember to attribute 
 it not to any defect in his principle, but merely 
 to a mistake in its application. The principle 
 which he professed was acted upon by Ridley, 
 and Parker, and Jewell, and their worthy suc- 
 cessors, at the Hampton court and Savoy con- 
 ferences, and procured for the members of the 
 church, from Neal the historian, the designation 
 in mockery of traditioners. 
 
 And acting upon this principle, what was it 
 that the great and good men who conducted the 
 Reformation in this country did ? Having found 
 an hereditary religion in the land, they com- 
 pared it, as they were bound to do, and as zae 
 are bound to do, with Scripture ; and they soon 
 discovered many practices and opinions preva- 
 lent, inconsistent therewith, and contradictory 
 
SERM. III.]] OF THE CHURCH. ^S 
 
 thereto. Patiently pursuing these errors to their 
 source, they soon discovered that they were 
 mere innovations of a comparatively modern 
 date, — fungous excrescences v^hich might be 
 easily removed without injury to the tree to 
 which they were attached ; and their endeavour 
 was to eradicate from the hereditary religion all 
 papistical novelties, leaving uninjured and un- 
 touched what was really cathohc. Their object 
 was not to obliterate the old transmitted religion, 
 but merely to correct certain abuses then in ex- 
 istence — to restore it, in short, to its primitive 
 lustre and fragrance, — not to pluck the fair rose 
 of Sharon, but to crush the serpent which lurked 
 beneath its leaves, — not to stop the sun in its 
 course, or to force it from its orb, but to dispel 
 the clouds by which it had become partially 
 eclipsed, — not to destroy the body, but to re- 
 move disease from the limbs, — not to dash away 
 the cup out of the people's hand, and thus to 
 leave them without the means of spiritual re- 
 freshment, but to precipitate to the bottom the 
 deleterious drugs which an enemy had thrown 
 in ; — they found in existence a stream which, 
 flowing from the living Rock, had followed the 
 spiritual Israel of God from the first ages of 
 Christianity, but of which complaint was made 
 that in this part of the world the waters had 
 
 G 2 
 
84 ON THE AUTHORITY [^SERM. III. 
 
 become bitter; and in the spirit and power of 
 Moses and Elisha, these commissioned prophets 
 of the Most High, together with the rulers of 
 the people, went forth unto the springs of the 
 waters, and cast into them the salt of God's 
 word, and said. Thus saith the Lord, / have 
 healed these waters — and so the waters were 
 healed unto this day. 
 
 Thus may we see that with the holy Apostles, 
 the primitive Fathers, and our own Reformers, 
 the simple object being the maintenance and 
 propagation of God's revealed truth, they sought 
 to promote that object, not by the Bible only, 
 or by transmissive religion only, but by the re- 
 ciprocal influence and conjoined operation of 
 both, — the one suggesting, the other confirm- 
 ing, — the one by the inculcation of moral senti- 
 ments and the adoption of the means of grace, 
 training the mind and preparing the soul, — the 
 other given by inspiration for doctrine, for con- 
 futation, for correction or amendment, for in- 
 struction in righteousness. If it be said that by 
 this system prejudices are created rather than 
 dispelled, we may admit the fact, and then re- 
 mind you what a prejudice is. A prejudice is 
 defined to be an opinion which we hold on the 
 authority of another, but the correctness of 
 which we have not as yet proved for ourselves. 
 
SERM. III.^ OF THE CHURCH. ^5 
 
 To believe, then, a fact or doctrine from pre- 
 judice rather than from demonstration or dis- 
 covery, is by no means irrational, provided that 
 our authority is a good one. It is thus, indeed, 
 that the greater part of our opinions are ac- 
 quired. The fault w^ith respect to a prejudice 
 is, not the being influenced thereby, but the 
 being influenced too much, — it consists not in 
 its existence, but in its excess, which is called 
 bigotry. For a man who associates with his fel- 
 low-creatures to imagine that he can come to 
 the consideration of any important subject with- 
 out pre-conceived opinions, that is, without pre- 
 judice, is mere self-deception ; he must either be 
 prejudiced in favour of those tenets in which he 
 has been educated, or (which is generally the 
 sign of a bad disposition) prejudiced against 
 them, or his will be of all bad prejudices the 
 very worst, a morbid prejudice against a preju- 
 dice, under which calamity, when a man unfor- 
 tunately labours, he becomes a weak, miserable, 
 vacillating being, always discussing, but never 
 capable of any great or good action, being like 
 a wave of the sea driven by the wind and 
 tossed. Therefore it is that in the revelations 
 we have received from Him to whom all hearts 
 are known, in the Old Testament as well as the 
 New, parents, instructors, and legislators are 
 
8G ON THE AUTHORITY [[SERM. UU 
 
 enjoined, not to provide that the minds of their 
 offspring or their people shall be unprejudiced^ 
 but to labour that their prejudices shall be good 
 ones, prejudices in favour of faith, and truth, of 
 God, of virtue, and of the church. 
 
 The question between ourselves and the 
 Papists is not whether cmj/ authority is due to a^ 
 particular church, but what degree of authority* 
 There is surely a medium between an infalhble 
 authority and no authority whatever. Our 
 earthly parents or guardians are not infallible, 
 yet still they were, in the first instance, and 
 they- continue to be, our authority for believing 
 much that we do believe on subjects human as. 
 well as divine, philosophical not less than theo- 
 logical. Man does not come into the world, as 
 some sophists would represent, a universal scep- 
 tic. It is precisely the reverse. He comes into 
 the world a credulous being, prepared to receive 
 for truth all that he hears. This, being the ex- 
 cess, is an error, and the fault is corrected gra- 
 dually by experience^ and he becomes, not even 
 then a universal sceptic, but merely a cautious 
 believer. The facts he received at fir$t o,n 9,u- 
 thority, if questioned, he examines fpi* himsjelf> 
 correcting them if he finds them to have been 
 erroneous, and improving on thern, aad thus 
 advancing nearer to perfection, when he finds 
 
SERM. III.3 OF THE CHURCH- 8t 
 
 them to have been correct. And where is the 
 absurdity of acting on the same principle with 
 respect to rehgion, — of receiving, in the first 
 instance, certain doctrines and articles, because 
 our holy mother the church assures us that they 
 are the doctrines of Scripture, and the church 
 universal, of which she is a part, though we may 
 not as yet have compared them ourselves with 
 holy writ ? Where is the absurdity of obeying 
 the Holy Ghost, and permitting the church in 
 which we have been educated thus to become 
 to us the ground and pillar of truth ? — for, let it 
 be remembered, that it was of a particular, and 
 therefore of a fallible church, that St. Paul spake 
 these words. Where is the absurdity of per- 
 mitting the church to act towards us, as the 
 woman of Samaria to the men of Sychem ? She 
 testifies to us of Jesus, on her authority we come 
 into his presence, on her testimony we are inclined 
 to receive him as the Son of God, and happy are 
 we if after a time we can say. Now we believe 
 not because of thy xvord, — not merely on that ac- 
 count, which led us to believe in the first in- 
 stance, but because we have heard him our- 
 selves, and know, by patient investigation and 
 the illuminating influences of the Holy Spirit 
 upon our souls, that this is indeed the Christ, 
 the Saviour of the world. . 
 
88 ON THE AUTHORITY [[SERM. III. 
 
 If it be said, that in challenging this authority, 
 not merely for the church universal, but for a 
 particular church, we cannot, if we would be 
 consistent, censure the sectarian for paying the 
 like deference to his sect, I answer, at once, we 
 ought not to do so. The child that is born of 
 ignorant or evil parents has many and great dif- 
 ficulties to encounter in order to arrive at that 
 degree of information or virtue, which is at- 
 tained, with comparative ease, by those who are 
 more happily circumstanced. So is it with re- 
 spect to those who have been brought up in the 
 bad prejudices of a sect ; there is a strict ana- 
 logy between the two cases. And in attempting 
 to convert a sectarian, I should never wish to 
 shake that good principle which might lead him 
 to defer to the system in which he was edu- 
 cated, — I should rather say, (confident in the 
 righteousness of my own cause,) '' Wherever 
 there is a doubt as to the meaning of Scripture, 
 if you cannot ascertain the opinion of the church 
 universal, let it be interpreted in favour of your 
 sect, — and then see whether, in spite of this, 
 you are not in error." If you adopt a different 
 course, you may perhaps shake a man's faith in 
 the opinions of his sect ; but having robbed him 
 of a right, though a humiliating, principle of 
 action, it is very doubtful whether you will con. 
 
SERM. III.3 OF THE CHURCH. 89 
 
 vert him to the truth, whether you will have 
 done more than prepare him to sink from one 
 creed to another until at length he settles in 
 the lowest depth of scepticism or unbelief. In 
 making converts, as in too many of our modern 
 religious proceedings, the end aimed at is too 
 often regarded exclusively of the means to be 
 adopted, and our exertions consequently termi- 
 nate in disappointment and disgust. 
 
 While what has thus now been advanced may 
 tend to shew the importance of not compro- 
 mising the truth as it is in Jesus, at a time when 
 infidel superstition is seeking to take from, as, in 
 times past, popish superstition endeavoured to 
 add to, the word of God, I hope it will be fairly 
 examined and duly weighed by my younger 
 brethren, especially by those who are intended 
 for holy orders. Let them remember that at 
 the commencement of their career, at all events, 
 the usages of the church ought to be the subject 
 not of their criticism, but of their meditation — 
 that, as the son of Sirach says, they ought to 
 examine the matter before they blame, and to 
 understand before they rebuke, — that in yield- 
 ing to the authority of the church, the question 
 is not whether they can see the wisdom of her 
 regulations, but simply whether the observance 
 of those regulations be a sin, — that, to say tjie 
 
99 ON THE AUTHORITY [[SERM. HI. 
 
 very least of it, in every instance, the church is 
 more likelt/ to be right than an inexperienced 
 individual, — that, as Bishop Taylor observes,, 
 with his usual wisdom, authority is a good rule 
 of acting until a stronger comes. Let them 
 eschew that proud restlessness as to received 
 opinions by which the irreligious world is cha- 
 racterized, and avoid the presumption of those, 
 who, without examination, think it a sufficient 
 excuse for neglecting some parts and altering 
 others of our ritual, for curtailing an office Iiere 
 and omitting a creed there, — to say " / do not 
 see the use of doing this; I do not see the harm 
 of leaving undone that;" as if /were infallible. — 
 No, my brethren, I hope that you will treat with 
 more deference and respect the authority of the 
 church, through whose good offices you were 
 spiritually born, and through whose tender care 
 you have been brought up in the nurture and 
 admonition of the Lord, and taught to rely for 
 salvation, and to rely only, on the atoning merits 
 and sanctifying spirit of your Saviour. And this 
 I will promise you, that if, thus commencing, 
 you proceed to enquire with caution, and deter- 
 mine with humility, you will daily find more and 
 more cause to bless your God, that you have 
 descended from those who, in conducting the 
 Reformation, were not proud in their own con- 
 
SfiRM. III.] OF THE CHURCH. 91 
 
 ceits, but asked for the old paths, and made 
 straight the good way in which by a providential 
 concurrence of circumstances you are placed^ 
 You will gradually discover the importance of 
 much which you may now deem trivial, and see 
 wisdom in what you may, at one time, have re- 
 garded as defects. Commence with treating the 
 church as your mother, and you will end, in 
 finding her to be, as she is, a most holy mother, 
 whom you will love, not merely as a means, but 
 as an end ; whom you will delight to honour, and 
 for whom you will be prepared, as in these pe- 
 rilous times we all ought to be prepared, to die. 
 You will reverence her as the Spouse of Christ, 
 as the King's Daughter all glorious wlthi?i, with 
 her clothing of wrought gold, and her garments 
 smelling of myrrh, aloes, and cassia; — you will 
 venerate her for the majestic simplicity and calm 
 dignity with which she administers to her chil- 
 dren, not intoxicating cordials, but the sincere 
 milk of the word ; for her zeal without into- 
 lerance, her moderation without lukewarmness, 
 her faith without fanaticism, her piety without 
 superstition ; — you will delight in evincing to- 
 wards her your filial piety, by performing all the 
 offices she imposes upon you, not coldly, ac- 
 cording to the letter, but according to the ful- 
 ness and fervour of her meaning : and though 
 
92 ON THE AUTHORITY, ETC. [[SERM. III. 
 
 you may find cause to lament that the hands of 
 her discipline are crippled by the jealousy of the 
 state, yet this will not prevent your addressing 
 her with the feelings of chastened enthusiasm, 
 and saying, " though not infallible, thou hast not 
 failed." 
 
SERMON IV. 
 
 Jeremiah vi. 16. 
 
 Thus saith the Lord, stand ye in the ways, and see, 
 and ask for the old paths, where is the good 
 way, and walk therein, and ye shall Jind j^estfor 
 your souls. 
 
 We frequently hear persons referring to the 
 sentiments and quoting the opinions of the re- 
 formers, foreign and domestic, of the sixteenth 
 century, as if they were authoritative in the in- 
 terpretation of Scripture, and as if it were in- 
 cumbent upon us to be silent whenever they 
 may speak. Yet why we should pay more of 
 deference to the opinions of wise and good and 
 learned men of the sixteenth century, than we 
 do to the opinions of wise and good and learned 
 men of the nineteenth century, is a question 
 more easily asked than satisfactorily answered. 
 Why should Luther, or Melancthon, or Calvin 
 
94 • TRADITION. [|SERM. IV. 
 
 be regarded^ extrinsically, as commentators of 
 Scripture, more skilful than any who have suc- 
 ceeded them, and who, in many respects, have 
 possessed superior advantages ? Why should 
 Cranmer, or Ridley, or Latimer, be more free 
 from error than our present metropolitan and 
 his suffragans ? Good men they doubtless were, 
 and great men, but still they were only gifted 
 with those ordinary graces of the Spirit which 
 the church still dispenses. Our debt to them is 
 great for their exertions against popery ; our 
 debt to our own Reformers is greater still for 
 their having, in most instances, clearly marked 
 the difference between true Catholicism and Ro- 
 manism, and their example in contending for, 
 yea, in dying for, what they believed to be God*s 
 truth, is to be zealously upheld, as worthy of 
 imitation, to an age more distinguished for light 
 than for love. But still they were not infallible, 
 they were not faultless ; — in many respects they 
 were all of them faulty; and therefore, when to 
 their dicta an appeal is made, as if from their 
 decisions it were almost heresy to depart, we 
 may fairly demand the grounds on which such 
 authority is made to rest. 
 
 But although their authority cannot be esta- 
 blished, although the Reformers were not one 
 whit more infallible than the pope of Rome, ye^ 
 
SERM. IV.;] TRADITION. #fif 
 
 the fact that their writings are published and 
 quoted as works to be referred to for the deci- 
 sion of controversies, proves that some authority- 
 is wanted, — that the human mind, amid the pre- 
 vailing collision of sentiment, while Scripture is 
 made to speak one thing by this party and di- 
 rectly the reverse by that, is desirous of finding 
 an umpire to whose decisions it may bow. The 
 Roman church is loud in her boastings and pro- 
 mises on this head ; and, as assertions are often 
 taken for facts, we may attribute to this circum- 
 stance the many converts made to the popish 
 system, wherever its more hideous features are 
 concealed, and among those who are deficient in 
 learning to perceive, that the claims of the pope 
 of Rome can be substantiated, neither by Scrip- 
 ture, nor by the consent of the universal church, 
 (the Greek church even to this day protesting 
 against popish usurpation as rigorously as we do 
 ourselves,) nor by any thing like primitive prac- 
 tice. These claims have been, in fact, a gradual 
 encroachment upon the liberty of the church, 
 of which almost each step can be distinctly 
 traced. 
 
 But, admitting that the authority neither of 
 popish prelate nor of protestant reformer can be 
 established ; admitting, and contending as we 
 do for, the sufficiency of Scripture, does it follow 
 
96 TRADITION. [[SERM. IV. 
 
 that there is no authority to be discovered suffi- 
 cient to determine our judgments when Scrip- 
 ture appears to be ambiguous, or when from the 
 same passages contradictory doctrines are in- 
 ferred ? Not so, says the church of England. 
 Her spirit may be gathered from the rules given 
 to our divines, when, in the early days of the 
 Reformation, they were appointed to hold a 
 conference with certain popish priests and Je- 
 suits \ " If they, the Papists, will shew any 
 ground of Scripture, and wrest it to their own 
 sense, let it be shewed by the interpretation of 
 the old doctors, such as were before Gregory I." 
 "If they can shew no doctor that agreed with 
 them in their said opinion before that time, then 
 conclude that they have no succession in that 
 doctrine from the Apostles' time and above four 
 hundred years after, when doctrine and religion 
 were most pure ; for that they can shew no pre- 
 decessor whom they can succeed in the same. 
 Quod primum verum. Tertullianr Would that 
 those unauthorised individuals and self-appointed 
 polemics, who rashly and presumptuously chal- 
 lenge the Romanists to discussion in the present 
 day, had never forgotten the rules laid down by 
 the church to which they still profess to belong, 
 
 ' Strype's Life of Abp. Whitgift, vol. i. p. 196. 
 
SERM. IV.^ TRADITION. 97 
 
 when slie thus sent forth her children to fight 
 ■with the enemy ! 
 
 But it was not only with respect to the Ro- 
 manist that this rule was observed ; when a 
 commission was issued for the trial of heretics, 
 an especial provision was made that no spiritual 
 person should have any authority or power, how- 
 ever commissioned, to determine or judge any 
 matter to be heresy, but only such as had here- 
 tofore been determined, or ordered, or adjudged 
 to be heresy by the canonical Scriptures, or by 
 the four first general councils ^. Nor is it only 
 with respect to heresies that this rule is to be 
 observed; it is also expressly ordained by canon, 
 that the clergy, in their exposition of doctrine, 
 shall receive as their guide, in subordination to 
 Scripture, the catholic Fathers and primitive 
 bishops ^. The same rule was laid down for the 
 observance of the divines commissioned to make 
 that version of the Bible which we still retain ; 
 for they were directed to refer to " the most 
 celebrated Fathers, when any word had several 
 significations*;" and we still find the rule en- 
 forced in the proclamation for the last review of 
 
 ' Collier, Eccles. Hist. ii. 421. 
 
 ' Liber Canon. Discip. Eccles. Angl. A. D. 1571. Canon 
 de Concionatoribus. 
 * Collier, ii. 604. 
 
 H 
 
98 TRADITION. [SERM. IV. 
 
 the Book of Common Prayer ; the duty of the 
 persons appointed for that purpose being de- 
 clared to be, '' to compare the same with the 
 most ancient hturgies that have been used in 
 the church in the primitive and purest times \" 
 But other documents it must be unnecessary to 
 produce, in order to prove the deference for an- 
 tiquity, which has ever since the Reformation 
 been evinced by the church in this country ; for 
 what indeed are our creeds, but the creeds un- 
 altered of the primitive church ? What our ar- 
 ticles and homilies but the mere application of 
 ancient principles to modern controversies and 
 practices, intended chiefly as a direction to those 
 who want either means or ability to consult the 
 original authorities ? What is our Common 
 Prayer Book itself but a digest of the prayers 
 which have been used in the church universal 
 from the remotest antiquity ? 
 
 . The rule, therefore, in the church of England 
 is this : — we receive our doctrine from the pre- 
 sent church with due deference, but, admitting 
 the possibility of error, we prove what we have 
 thus received by Scripture ; and when we are 
 doubtful as to the meaning of Scripture, we then 
 seek to ascertain the primitive tradition by hav- 
 
 ' Collier, ii. 827. 
 
SERM. IV.^ TRADITION. 99 
 
 ing recourse to the writings of the Fathers and 
 the history of the church. For example, we 
 receive the doctrine of the Holy Trinity from 
 the church, who states it in her articles and 
 creeds, and practically enforces it in her liturgy; 
 but since the church in this country is not in- 
 fallible, we go to Scripture to discover whether 
 what she asserts be really so or not ; but of the 
 passages adduced from Scripture, the Socinians 
 and Arians put on some, a meaning different 
 from that which we are inclined to think cor- 
 rect ; — here, then, we go to the primitive church, 
 and according to her interpretation we consider 
 the question to be decided ^ 
 
 But here the argument may be thought to 
 recoil. The mere circumstance of an opinion 
 being ancient is no proof of its being true, and 
 it may be fairly demanded, why the opinions of 
 learned men in the second or third century 
 should have more authority than the opinions 
 of learned men of the sixteenth century ; why 
 the opinion of even a Gregory or a Chrysostom 
 
 ^ " I use herein the wise counsel of Vincentius Lirinensis, 
 whom I am sure you will allow, who giving precepts how 
 ihe catholic church may be, in all heresies and schisms, 
 known, writeth in this manner: *When one part is corrupted 
 with heresies, then prefer the whole world to that part : but 
 if the greater part be infected, then prefer antiquity.'" Bishop 
 Ridley, Wordsworth's Biog. p. 230. 
 
 H 2 
 
100 TRADITION. [^SERM. IV. 
 
 should have more v^eight than that of Cranmer 
 or Ridley, supposing the latter to be equal with 
 the former in ability ? And doubtless there would 
 be some force in this objection, if this were a 
 question merely of opinions, but it is really a 
 question not of opinion but of fact. It is not to 
 discover the opinions of individuals, however 
 worthy of consideration the opinions of great 
 and good individuals may be, that we go back 
 to the early days of Christianity, but it is to 
 ascertain what was once for all delivered to the 
 saints by the inspired Apostles ; to discover what 
 traces remain of the doctrine and discipline or- 
 dained by them when they founded those primi- 
 tive churches from which all others have de- 
 scended ; — a tradition which we use, not, like 
 the Papists, because we think the Scriptures to 
 be insufficient, but to enable us to elucidate and 
 understand more clearly what Scripture enjoins 
 or reveals, to ascertain the meaning, the precise 
 meaning, when more meanings than one can be 
 extracted from the same passage; and thus to 
 prevent the fancies of visionary men from usurp- 
 ing the place of God's truth, under the plea and 
 appearance of that scriptural authority they do 
 not really possess. 
 
 Now if we could discover the system of doc- 
 trine which the Apostles delivered to the churches 
 
SERM. IV.^ TRADITION. 101 
 
 they founded, every one, I presume, would be 
 ready to admit that this system would claim due 
 deference from sound reason as well as from 
 Christian humility. The objection -I'^ap^if^hend 
 to be this; that to discover this trUcfitio'e^ege 
 tica is impossible ; — an objection more easily 
 stated than confirmed. 
 
 A very slight acquaintance with the early his- 
 tory of the church will serve to convince us, 
 first, that the primitive Christians acted upon 
 precisely the same principle on which the church 
 of England still acts, namely, that on all dis- 
 puted points of scriptural interpretation, before 
 they came to a decision, they were accustomed 
 to make inquiry as to what had been delivered 
 to the apostolical churches ; and, secondly, that; 
 for the first four or five centuries at least, the 
 greatest possible care was taken to preserve this 
 traditio exegetica in its purity. 
 
 As to the first point, it need not detain us 
 long ; for to what but to this does Irenaeus re- 
 fer, when speaking of the Kavo^v rrjs akr^Oelas^l 
 To what but to this does Clemens Alexandrinus 
 refer, when speaking of the Kav(*)v iKKXTjaiaaTi- 
 
 ^ Adv. Haeres. lib. i. cap. 9. §. 4. See the whole subject 
 admirably treated by Irenaeus. Regula Fidci. Edit. Routhj 
 p. 690. - 
 
102 TRADITION. [^SERM. IV. 
 
 Kos ^ ? What is the whole of Tertullian's admi- 
 rable book, De Praescriptione, but an application 
 of this principle to existing controversies ? Now 
 the .nj^rne 'feirGumstance that this principle was 
 ayowe d,. the .profession of it being the very prin^ 
 ciple which distinguished the cathoHc from the 
 heretic ^ would incline us to conclude that steps 
 
 ' Strom, lib. vi. c. 15. In the Recognitions of Clement, a 
 work of the second century, a very striking passage occurs, 
 which I cannot refrain from transcribing. After having ob- 
 served that there are many passages in Scripture which are 
 capable of being drawn to that sense in favour of which we 
 are prejudiced, he proceeds, "Non sensum, quem extrinsecusr 
 attuleris, alienum et extraneum, debes quserere, quem ex 
 Scripturarum auctoritate confirmes, sed ex ipsis scripturis 
 sensum capere veritatis. Et ideo oportet ab eo intelligen- 
 tiiam discere Scripturarum qui earn a majoribus, secundum 
 veritatem sibi traditam, servat, ut et ipse posset ea, quae 
 recte suscepit, competenter adserere." Lib. x. c. 42. The 
 principle is clearly stated, Tertull. de Praescript. xxii. et 
 xxvii. 
 
 * This is expressly stated by Vincentius Lirinensis : — 
 " Quibus tamen cunctis satis evidenter perspicueque mon- 
 stratur, hoc apud omnes fere haereses quasi solemne esse ac 
 legitimum, ut semper prophanis novitatibus gaudeant, anti- 
 quitatis scita fastidiant, et per oppositiones falsi nominis sci- 
 cntiae a fide naufragent. Contra vero, Catholicorum hoc fere 
 proprium, deposita sanctorum Patrum et commissa servare, 
 damnare prophanas novitates, et sicut dixit et iterum dixit 
 Apostolus : Si quis annunciaverit, prceterquam quod acceptum 
 est, anathemare" cap. xxxiv. It is not improbable that the 
 title of catholic was applied to the orthodox from the prin- 
 
SERM. IV.^ TRADITION. 103 
 
 would be taken to preserve the tradition, at least 
 in its important features, genuine and pure. 
 The opposition of the heretics would conduce 
 to this end, as the heretic would, of course, put 
 the catholic or orthodox to silence at once, if 
 he knew of a church in which the doctrine as- 
 serted to be universally held was rejected or 
 unknown. But the contrary fact, the fact that 
 the Scriptures were interpreted in a uniform 
 sense, that in all the apostolical churches in all 
 the different parts of the world a harmony of 
 doctrine existed; is expressly affirmed by Ire- 
 naeus ^ by Tertullian \ by Hegesippus ^ by Cle- 
 mens Alexandrinus ^ and by Origen *. Nay, 
 more, — we find the whole discipline of the church 
 
 ciple of the orthodox in thus seeking always to ascertain the 
 universal tradition before coming to a decision on any doc- 
 trinal question. 
 
 ^ Lib. i. c. 10. alias 3. Lib. iii. c. 3. 
 
 ^ Praescript. xx. xxviii. 
 
 ' Apud Euseb. lib. iv. c. 22. 
 
 ' Strom, vii. p. 898, 899. Conf. Strom, i. p. 322. See 
 Waterland on Ecclesiastical Antiquity, chap. vii. 
 
 * The statement in Origen is so important that I insert it 
 here : — Cum multi sint qui se putant scire quae Christi sunt, 
 et nonnulli eorum diversa prioribus sentiant, servetur vero 
 ecclesiastica praedicatio per successionis ordinem ab Apos- 
 tolis tradita, et usque ad prcesens in Ecclesiis (the third cen- 
 tury) permanens : ilia sola credenda est Veritas quae in nullo 
 ab ecclesiastica traditione discordat. Origen. in Apolog. 
 Pamph. inter opp. Hieron. tom. v. p. 223. 
 
101 TRADITION. [^SERM. IV'* 
 
 organized for the very purpose of ascertaining 
 and preserving the " Quod semper, quod ubique, 
 quod ab omnibus." 
 
 In the primitive ages bishops were regarded 
 not in the hght of independent governors of 
 their respective churches, but as members of the 
 one great episcopal college which had been in- 
 corporated by Christ, and to which the indivi- 
 dual members were amenable *. As each bishop 
 was regarded as the principle of unity in his own 
 church, so was the college of bishops regarded 
 as the principle of unity in the church universal. 
 And in order to preserve this unity, a constant 
 intercourse and correspondence was kept up be- 
 tween the bishops and the different churches : 
 the very first act, indeed, of a bishop was to 
 send communicatory letters to the neighbouring 
 bishops to assure them both of his fraternal dis- 
 position and the orthodoxy of his creed. And 
 so necessary were these encyclical letters es- 
 teemed,, that, according to Liberatus, the omis- 
 sion to send one implied either a charge of 
 heresy against the prelates neglected, or the ex- 
 istence of heresy in the party refusing to write K 
 
 * St. Cyprian, Ep. 55. and 68. See the same Father for the 
 subsequent statements, Ep. 59. 45. 25. 29. 63. 
 
 ^ Bingham xvi. ci. §. 8. By the 19th canon of the Council 
 of Antioch it would seem that, at the consecration of a bishop, 
 
SERM. IV. ^ TRADITION. 105 
 
 But here it may be asked, how it could be 
 possible for all the bishops of all the churches to 
 be thus in communication, Irenaeus informing us 
 that even in his time there were churches in 
 Germany, in Spain, in France, as well as in the 
 East, in Egypt, in Africa, and in the middle of 
 the world, in which one and the same tradition 
 was preserved ^ To this difficulty an answer 
 can be readily given by referring again to the 
 admirable discipline of the early ages. The 
 bishops to whom these letters were addressed 
 were those of the same province, or those who 
 acted under the same primus or metropolitan, — 
 the metropolitan corresponded with the patri- 
 arch, and the patriarchs with one another. So 
 that by these means the whole Christian world 
 was regarded, as the primitive Christians loved 
 to express it, as one episcopate, " There is," says 
 St. Cyprian ^ '' one episcopate whereof diverse 
 bishops spread over the face of the whole world, 
 
 all, or at least the majority, of the bishops of the province 
 ought to attend. It is with reference to this view of the 
 subject, if I may hazard a conjecture, that we may attribute 
 the canon which requires that the consecrators of a bishop 
 shall not, except in cases of necessity, be fewer in number 
 than three ; ires faciunt collegium, being a maxim of Roman 
 law, so important a rite was not to be administered but by 
 the consent of the episcopal college. 
 
 " Routh, Opuscula, p. 690. ^ Ep. oo. 
 
106 TRADITION. CSERM. IV. 
 
 and acting together with one harmonious concert 
 are severally partakers." So much for the ad- 
 mirable machinery by which the whole church 
 could be preserved in unity. 
 
 And now let us see how it was employed. 
 The custom of the church enforced by the 
 canons (even the very earliest canons we pos- 
 sess) was that provincial synods should be held 
 twice every year ^ ; and the result of these con- 
 ferences was conveyed by means of this kind of 
 correspondence from one part of the world to 
 another ; so that it would have been immedi- 
 ately known if any one church had departed 
 from the original faith. We have instances of 
 this kind of correspondence in the case of the 
 lapsed, when the same conclusion as to their 
 treatment was arrived at, in the third century, 
 by all the churches, as easily as if a general 
 council had been held ^ Eusebius mentions the 
 existence in his day of an epistle from the church 
 of Palestine, another from the church of Rome, 
 another from the bishops of Pontus, another 
 from the church of Gaul ^ and many others, for 
 the purpose of ascertaining the traditional prac- 
 
 ' Ante-Nicene Code, canon 38. Nicene Council, canon 5. 
 Antioch, canon 20. Constantinople, canon 6. Chalcedon, 
 canon 19. 
 
 ' St. Cyprian, Ep. 55. ' tib. v. cap. 23. ad cap. 28. 
 
SERM. IV.] TRADITION. 107 
 
 tice with respect to the observation of Easter. 
 The bishops of Palestine having, as Eusebius 
 says S treated at large concerning the tradition 
 that had come down to them in regular suc- 
 cession from the Apostles^ conclude their epistle 
 with the following direction : *' Make it your 
 business to send copies of this our letter through- 
 out the whole church ;" adding, that they had 
 already received letters on the same subject 
 from Alexandria ^ In like manner, the bishops 
 who assembled to condemn the heresies of Paul 
 of Samosata immediately dispatched an epistle 
 to all the provinces to notify what had been 
 done * ; — an epistle addressed to all their fellow- 
 ministers all over the world, bishops, presbyters, 
 and deacons, and to the whole catholic church 
 under heaven, and mentioning by name the me- 
 tropolitans by whom the letter was to be circu- 
 lated, and in this letter the heresies of Paul are 
 censured as novelties, that is, as contrary to the 
 received and transmitted or traditional doctrine 
 
 ' Cap. 2.5. 
 
 ' The fact appears to be, that nothing had been delivered 
 upon the subject ; — there was no universal tradition, though 
 there was a general practice ; and therefore, when the ques- 
 tion was settled at the Council of Nice, the Fathers used the 
 form e8o|e iravTas 7reiBea-6ai, it seemed good to us that all 
 should obey, or observe, that time, which they had defined. 
 
 * Euseb. vii. 30. 
 
108 TRADITION. [^SERM. IV. 
 
 of the church. With respect to the circular let- 
 ters generally, the greatest possible care was 
 taken against imposition or forgery; for not only 
 were they signed by the presiding bishop, but 
 the messenger who conveyed them was one of 
 the most trust-worthy of his clergy. They were 
 indeed called literce formatce, because they were 
 written in a peculiar form, with some peculiar 
 marks or characters, which served as signatures 
 to distinguish them from counterfeits ^ The 
 bishop receiving such a letter was obliged to 
 communicate it to his brethren ^ ; thus we find 
 St. Cyprian transmitting letters relating to the 
 lapsed to Caldonius with the avowed object that 
 one course, one resolution, might be observed 
 by the whole college of bishops, while his own 
 letters were dispatched to all quarters of the 
 world. Optatus ^ is thus justified in his remark 
 that the whole world was united in one common 
 society or communion by the mutual intercourse 
 of these canonical letters. 
 
 Now such being the discipline of the ancient 
 church, was it probable that the traditional doc- 
 trine would be materially corrupted ? On the 
 contrary, it was almost impossible, the rule be- 
 
 ^ Bingham, ii. 4. §. 5. and St. Cyprian, Ep. 29. 
 * St. Cyprian, Ep. 25. 
 ' Lib. ii. p. 48. 
 
SERM. rV.] TRADITION. 109 
 
 ing with all these corresponding churches, as 
 Vincentius Lirinensis tells us, to keep that de- 
 livered to their trust, and to innovate in nothing, 
 and that only being regarded as authoritative, 
 in the assertion of which all the independent 
 churches of the world agreed. The interpreta- 
 tion of Scripture in all catholic churches being 
 on all important points uniform, well may Ter- 
 tullian ask^ Is it possible to suppose that so 
 many and such great churches should hsLve blun- 
 dered into one and the same faith ? No ; the 
 fact, that in so many churches one and the same 
 doctrine and discipline prevailed, is a proof that 
 what they held was not held by mere chance, 
 but received by tradition. And when, after- 
 wards, general councils were convoked, the ob- 
 ject in those councils was not to deduce new 
 doctrines from Scripture, but simply to ascertain 
 the universal tradition as to disputed points. 
 The Fathers of the Nicene Council were very 
 careful to declare that the form of faith they 
 promulgated was not an invention or deduction 
 of their own, but the very same which they had 
 
 ^ De Praescript. Haer. cap. xxviii. Ecquid verisimile est, 
 ut tot ac tantae in unam fidem erraverint ? Niillus inter mul- 
 tos eventus unus est exitus ; variasse debuerant ordinem (for. 
 nullis inter multos eventus unus est exitus ; variasse debue- 
 rant brdine) doctrinae ecclesiarum. Caeterum quod apud mul- 
 tos unum invenitur, non est erratum, sed traditum. 
 
110 TRADITION. [SERM. IV. 
 
 received when they were first instructed in the 
 principles of religion^. And the Novatian Bishop 
 Acesius himself admitted to Constantine, that it 
 was no new thing that was then decided on, but 
 that the Council had decided according to tradi- 
 tion \ And this was probably the reason why, 
 at the commencement of the session, when the 
 logicians began to discuss and dispute, they were 
 immediately put to silence ; — the Fathers had 
 come not to debate about the faith, but to bear 
 testimony ^ The fact is clearly stated by Euse- 
 bins, in a Letter which he wrote to his diocese 
 on the occasion : — " As we have received by tra- 
 
 ' Soc. lib. i. c. 8. 
 
 ' Soc. i. 10. 
 
 ' " The orthodox, and especially those great saints, who 
 knew by experience that God reveals to the meek and hum- 
 ble what he hides from the proud, desired to keep entirely 
 to what had been already received by tradition, without en- 
 deavouring to give new turns to the words of Scripture, in 
 order to interpret it in a different manner from what their 
 forefathers had learned from the Apostles. But the Arians, 
 who could not find in it that which they maintained, pre- 
 sumed, on the contrary, that they ought not to stand to that 
 which had been held by the primitive Christians, because 
 they were not certain of it, and therefore they desired that 
 the truth of their doctrine might be sought from Scripture 
 alone, which they could wrest to their own sense by their 
 false subtleties." Maimbourg, Hist. Arian.^ Webster's Trans- 
 lation. He refers to Ruff. Sozom. lib. i. cap. 18. Niceph. 
 lib. viii. 17. 
 
SERM. IV.] TRADITION. Ill 
 
 dition from our predecessors the bishops, then 
 when we were instructed in the first principles 
 of the faith, and received baptism, as we have 
 learned from the sacred Scriptures, so also we do 
 now beUeve and do make a public declaration of 
 our faith \" The very contest about the word 
 homo'ousion may be traced to the misapplication 
 of this principle. It was thought by some to 
 be a new word, although it was used to express 
 the fact universally acknowledged. 
 
 It were easy to shew that the same principle 
 prevailed in the other three general councils 
 which are received by the church of England ; 
 but, in order to avoid prolixity, I shall refer 
 particularly only to the last, that of Chalcedon. 
 The object of this synod, as declared by itself, 
 was to vindicate the doctrine which from the 
 beginning had continued unshaken * ; it was 
 
 ' Soc. i. 8. 
 
 * Evagrius Scholasticus, lib. ii. cap. 4. The Definitio Fidei 
 apud concilium Chalcedonium may be found in the Scriptorum 
 ecclesiasticorum opuscula prcecipua qucedam, by Dr. Routh. 
 As these Sermons were preached in the hope of benefiting 
 the undergraduates, they are now published with the same 
 view ; and they will not have been published in vain, if they 
 induce any of the young men intended for holy orders to 
 study the last-named work, where, within a small compass, 
 and at a small cost, they may have a whole body of sound 
 catholic divinity. Under ordinary circumstances to say any 
 
112 TRADITION. []SERM. IV. 
 
 convoked for the express purpose of preventing 
 the introduction of novelties ; the members so- 
 lemnly disclaimed any wish of adding to the 
 faith \ and they as solemnly professed to follow 
 the steps of the Fathers ^ 
 
 I do not intend to say that there was nothing 
 discussed at these Councils, for there were many 
 
 thing in eulogy of Dr. Roiith would be an act of imperti- 
 nence ; under existing circumstances the writer may be par- 
 doned for transcribing the following passage written by the 
 late Dr. Parr. " Dr. Routh, in the language of Milton, is 
 the virtuous son of a virtuous father, whose literary attain- 
 ments are respected by every scholar to whom he is known ; 
 whose exemplary virtues shed a lustre on that church in 
 which they have not been rewarded, and whose grey hairs 
 will never descend to the grave but amidst the blessings of 
 the devout and the tears of the poor." — " His independence 
 of spirit is the effect not of ferocious pride, but of a cool and 
 steady principle, which claims only the respect which it is 
 ever ready to pay, and which equally disdains to trample on 
 subordination, and to crouch before the insolence of power. 
 His correct judgment, his profound erudition, and his va- 
 rious knowledge, are such as seldom fall to the lot of man. 
 His liberality is scarcely surpassed even by his orthodoxy, 
 and his orthodoxy is not the tumid and fungous excrescence 
 of prejudice, but the sound and mellowed fruit of honest 
 and indefatigable inquiry. In a word, his mind, his whole 
 mind, is decked at once with the purest crystals of simplicity, 
 and the brightest jew^els of benevolence and piety." Parr's 
 Works, vol. iii. p. 285. 
 * See Canon xxviii. 
 
 UavTCS 01 evXa^earaTOL eViCTKOTroi e^orjcrav' AiKaia r; Kpiais t(ov 
 
 narepav. Canones Chalcedonensis concilii univ. p. 419. 
 
SEllM. IV.]] TRADITION. Il3 
 
 points open to discussion, namely, all that re- 
 lated to the regulation of the diiFerent churches ; 
 — I only contend that such was not the case 
 when articles oi faith were under consideration. 
 It is most important to make this distinction, 
 and nothing can more strongly prove the dis- 
 tinction, than the difference in the form of words 
 used when any canon pertaining merely to a 
 rite or ceremony, or to a tase of discipline Was 
 ordained, from that adopted when assent was 
 given to an article of faith; in the former case, 
 
 the form was, eSof e ra VTroTerayfievay (these things 
 
 seem good to us,) in the latter, ovt(ds TrtareveL y 
 KaOoXiKT) iKK\7)o-la (so the catholic church be- 
 lieves) ; not presuming to act on their own judg- 
 ment, but simply declaring the fact of tradi- 
 tion ^. 
 
 Indeed the proceedings which took place be- 
 fore a general council assembled are sufficient to 
 shew that the members attended, (so far as the 
 faith was concerned,) not as representatives to 
 
 ' Athanasius, De Syn. quoted by Hammond in his Paroe- 
 nesis, p. 558. Hammond continues, " To which purpose also 
 was, I suppose, the second versicle in the doxology, (the or- 
 thodoxal form of acknowledging the Trinity,) As it was in 
 the beginnings as it stood by original tradition apostolical, 
 is now and ever shall be, world without end. No new doc- 
 trine ever to be brought into the church, by whatsoever 
 council, but only that which the Apostles had delivered," 
 
 I 
 
114 TRADITION. [^SERM. IV. 
 
 debate, but as delegates commissioned to bear 
 witness. No sooner were the patriarchs ap- 
 prised of the matter about to come before the 
 general council than they gave notice to the 
 metropolitans, by whom provincial synods were 
 immediately convoked. These provincial synods 
 consisted of the metropolitan and his suffragans, 
 attended by their presbyters ; and here the busi^ 
 ness coming on at the general council, was duly 
 considered, and then by common consent certain 
 principal bishops were appointed to convey to 
 the general council the sentiments of the pro- 
 vincial one ^ Thus we find John of Antioch 
 sending an apology to the third general council 
 for his non-attendance on the appointed day, 
 because he had not had time to collect the 
 bishops of his province, some of whom were 
 distant a twelve days' journey ^ That the pa- 
 triarchs themselves, whatever powers they may 
 afterwards have usurped, attended not as indor 
 pendent authorities, but to bear testimony to 
 the tradition preserved in their patriarchates, is 
 clear from this, that although, in the councils of 
 Ephesus and Chalcedon, Nestorius and Dioscorus 
 refused to attend, yet the council proceeded to 
 
 ^ Field on the Church, book v. chap. 49. 
 ' Evagrius Scholasticus, lib. i. c. 3, 
 
SERM. IV.3 TRADITION. 115 
 
 condemn the heretical patriarchs, because, the 
 metropohtans being present, the patriarchates 
 were represented. No council was considered 
 general until all the patriarchates were repre- 
 sented; thus the council of Ephesus was not 
 accounted a general one until the arrival of John 
 of Antioch \ So that the decree of a general 
 council was received, not because a general 
 council was thought to be infallible, but because 
 what was there promulgated, if not contradicted, 
 was regarded as the tradition of the universal 
 church. And it is by bearing this in mind, that 
 we can vindicate the church of this country 
 from an apparent inconsistency, when on the 
 one hand she refers to the four first general 
 councils as an authority, and on the other hand 
 states, in the twenty-first article, that general 
 councils may err and have erred. A general 
 council, as such, is to us of no authority, except 
 so far as our bishops see fit to accord with its 
 appointments ; the four first general councils are 
 referred to, not because they were general coun- 
 cils, but because they were what one of the Far 
 thers calls them, — conservatories of tradition^ 
 They asserted the tradition of the catholic 
 church, the quod semper, quod ubique, quod ah 
 
 ^ See Field, p. 648. 
 I 2 
 
116 TRADITION. [^SERM. IV. 
 
 omnibus; and these articles of faith, thus tradi^ 
 tionally preserved and handed down by the 
 church, being such as can be proved by Scrip- 
 ture, we hold them to be precisely what God 
 has revealed. 
 
 We have thus seen on what strong grounds 
 that authority rests, to which the church of 
 England appeals, when the meaning of Scripture 
 is controverted ; and to the writings of our emi- 
 nent and learned divines in the different branches 
 of theology we may triumphantly refer, as afford- 
 ing to the ordinary reader a digest of that primi- 
 tive tradition which we have seen the ancients 
 thus carefully and piously preserve. To guard 
 against misrepresentation or misunderstandings 
 I must allude once again to what I hinted at 
 before, the difference between our position and 
 that of the church of Rome, with regard to this 
 doctrine. The modern church of Rome receives 
 as tradition what she cannot pj^ove to be really 
 such, and regards it as independent of Scripture. 
 The primitive church was most careful to re- 
 ceive as tradition only what was universally re- 
 ceived as such, and then used it merely as 
 elucidatory of Scripture ^ not as the light, but 
 
 ' Tertullian, who strongly insisted upon the h'ne of argu- 
 ment adopted in this discourse, was almost fanatical in his 
 reverence for Scripture. See Bp. Kaye, p. 290. 
 
SERM. IV.] TRADITION. 117 
 
 as a lanthorn to guard the light ; or if as the 
 light, merely as a beam to illumine the page 
 which might otherwise be illegible. And such 
 are the principles of the catholic church of 
 England. And let such be the principles of 
 all her true and faithful and loyal children 
 and subjects. In forming our analogy of faith, 
 let us, when duly prepared by prayer, compare 
 Scripture with Scripture ; let us attend to the 
 criticism of the Bible ; let us attend to its gram- 
 matical interpretation ; but let us place all under 
 the supervision and correction of catholic tra- 
 dition. Situated as we are with the rationalist 
 on the one hand and the papist on the other, 
 both parties vigorously cheered on by the pro- 
 fessors of a liberality which, amounts to indif- 
 ference if not to hostility, with the sea before us 
 and the armies of Egypt behind us, let us stand 
 in the way and see and ask for the old paths 
 where is the good way, and seek rest unto our 
 souls by walking therein. Let us think deeply, 
 for without deep thought as well as fervent 
 prayer, who can catch even a glimpse of the 
 sublimities of the Gospel ? Who can understand 
 the mercies of redeeming love and sanctifying 
 grace ? Who can worship the holy and undi- 
 vided Trinity with the understanding and the 
 spirit ? But if perad venture we find that our 
 
118 TRADITION. I^SERM. IV, 
 
 soaring thoughts have led us, at any time, to 
 conclusions at variance with vs^hat was held as 
 scriptural in the primitive church, let us at least 
 have the modesty to suppose that there is a 
 possibility, yea that there is a prohahility of our 
 being in error; and commencing our inquiries 
 anew, let our object be not self-vindication, but 
 to discover wherein the flaw in our reasoning 
 consists ; for, to conclude in the words of a 
 divine, of whose learning, judgment, and caution 
 there can be but one opinion : " If what appears 
 probably to be taught in Scripture, appears cer- 
 tainly to have been taught in the primitive and 
 catholic church, such probability, so strength- 
 ened, carries with it the force of demonstra- 
 tion \*' 
 
 * Waterland, Pref. to Moyer's Lecture, 
 
SERMON V. 
 
 Matt, vii., the 13th and three following verses. 
 
 Enter ye in at the strait gate: for wide is the 
 gate and broad is the way that leadeth to de- 
 struction, and many there he which go in thereat; 
 because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, 
 which leadeth unto life, and few there he that 
 find it. Beware of false prophets, which come to 
 you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are 
 ravening wolves. Ye shall know them by their, 
 fruits. 
 
 It is in the concluding portion of the sermon 
 on the mount that the words of our text occur. 
 And yerily, my brethren, if the virtues incul- 
 cated in this divine discourse, and the duties it 
 enjoins, be incumbent upon all who name the 
 name of Christ, strait indeed must be the gate 
 and narrow the way that leadeth unto life. 
 
 We are to be pure in spirit, humble in thought, 
 and meek in temper ; we must not only abstain 
 
120 THE STRAIT GATE. [^SERM. V. 
 
 from the perpetration of evil, but eradicate every 
 evil desire : we must hunger and thirst after 
 righteousness : and, loving peace, we must, never- 
 theless, be ready to sacrifice peace, yea even 
 life itself, for the maintenance and propagation 
 of God's truth : we are to eschew vain glory, 
 and yet, while not looking to the praise of the 
 world as the end of our actions, we are to let 
 the light of our example shine before men, that, 
 seeing our good works, they too may glorify 
 God : we are neither to indulge ourselves nor to 
 sanction in others the wilful breach of the least 
 of the commandments, and anger and every 
 other evil passion are to be mortified, though it 
 be to us as the plucking out of a right eye, or 
 the cutting off of a right hand : with an earnest 
 desire of doing the duties of the station to which 
 we are called, we are to unite that unhesitating 
 acquiescence and ready submission to the will of 
 Providence made known to us by circumstances, 
 as they occur, which forms an essential ingre- 
 dient in the virtue of faith : and in order to sus- 
 tain this habit in us, we are (not without fasting) 
 to have recourse to prayer : lenient in our judg- 
 ment of others, severe only to ourselves, we are, 
 in short, to be pious, benevolent, and self-de- 
 3?ying. 
 
 Such is a brief catalogue of some of the leading 
 
SERiM. V.3 THE STRAIT GATE. 121 
 
 topics of that sermon on which the true Chris- 
 tian dehghts to meditate, and never can meditate 
 without self-abasement, — for brief and imperfect 
 as this summary may be, we cannot come to its 
 conclusion without feeling, I repeat, how strait 
 is the gate and how narrow the way that leadeth 
 unto life. But far more do we feel how strait 
 indeed must that gate be, and how narrow that 
 way, when we reflect that to render the one ac- 
 cessible and to open the other, it was necessary 
 for the everlasting Son of God to empty himself 
 of his glory, to take upon him our nature, and 
 being found in fashion as a man to die the igno- 
 minious death of the cross. 
 
 And yet, my brethren, (plain as this appears 
 to be,) if we look to the world, what is it that 
 we find ? Do we not see the generality of man- 
 kind assuming for granted the very contrary of 
 all this, acting as if nothing could be broader 
 than the way, nothing wider than the gate that 
 leadeth unto life, nothing easier than to pass 
 through its crowded portals ? If it be admitted 
 that there may be a heaven, does there not seem 
 to be a practical scepticism as to the existence of 
 a hell ? Is there not a careless, thoughtless as- 
 sumption of the benevolence of the Deity, with, 
 at the same time, an utter forgetfulness of his 
 justice ? and is it not, in consequence, taken for 
 
122 THE STRAIT GATE. [SERM. V» 
 
 granted that we may do as we will here, and yet 
 that all will be well hereafter ? Whereas, in 
 point of fact, the benevolence of the Deity is 
 precisely that attribute which natural religion 
 finds it most difficult to establish. The universe 
 exhibits such marks of design, and of a designing 
 mind, that the fool is scarcely in these days to 
 be found who says in his heart there is no God. 
 And if there be a God, it will soon be admitted 
 that he is a Being almighty; for to assert the 
 contrary is to assume the existence of a cause 
 prior to the first, and of a Lawgiver higher than 
 the highest. A God not omnipotent is no God 
 in the proper sense of the word. But though 
 his eternal power of Godhead are thus clearly 
 seen, whether (without the aid of revelation) we 
 could say as much with respect to the divine 
 benevolence and mercy, this may admit of a 
 doubt. In pursuing this enquiry, the existence 
 of evil meets us at every turn. The argument 
 a 'priori that we can conceive no reason why the 
 Deity should be malevolent is merely an appeal 
 to our ignorance. That there is more of hap- 
 piness than of misery in the world, we may 
 indeed gratefully acknowledge ; but still the 
 question recurs, if God be omnipotent, why the 
 evil at all ? It is true that the design in all 
 things is benevolent, the evil only incidental, it 
 
SERM. v.] THE STRAIT GATE. 123 
 
 is true, as Paley remarks \ that evil is never the 
 object of contrivance, — but still, if God be al- 
 mighty, why the incidental evil ? The advocate 
 for natural religion does indeed most satisfac- 
 torily shew that there is nothing in nature which 
 argues the malevolence of the Deity ; and that, 
 admitting his benevolence to be proved, it is 
 easy to reconcile with the admitted fact, the 
 existence of a certain degree of incidental evil ; 
 but when he asserts the benevolence of the Deity 
 as a fact to be proved by an appeal to the phe- 
 nomena of nature, we can only say that he is, in 
 this instance, prepared to receive evidence far 
 less strong than any portion of that aggregate of 
 evidence which, when brought forward in behalf 
 of revelation, he rejects as insufficient. If in- 
 deed there were no other reasons to convince us 
 of our need of a revelation, I should conceive 
 this to be of itself sufficient, namely, that we 
 want it to give us a full assurance, to produce in 
 our minds a thorough conviction that the tre- 
 mendous Being, whose power is irresistible, is 
 all-merciful, as well as almighty. That God is 
 love, is the sentence written in every page of 
 the Bible, inscribed on every fact which the 
 
 ^ Paley's general argument, however, seems to make God 
 an imperfect r^xvirr^s kui drjfxiovpyos. 
 
124 THE STRAIT GATE. []SEKM. V. 
 
 light of revelation enables us to interpret, and 
 evinced preeminently and most gloriously, in 
 that while we were yet sinners, he gave his only 
 begotten Son, to the end that all who believe in 
 him should not perish, but have everlasting life. 
 Admit this as a revealed fact, and then the ar- 
 guments of philosophy are not to be withstood : 
 then we can understand that it is not incompa- 
 tible with divine benevolence to place certain 
 of his creatures in a state of trial, while a state 
 of trial presumes the possibility of evil ; then we 
 can hear with patience the argument, that if 
 the operations of nature are directed by general 
 laws, what is good on the whole may be seemingly 
 productive of evil to the individual ; that, vdth- 
 out suffering, or at least the risk of suffering, 
 there could be no room for prudence on the one 
 hand or humanity on the other; that if there 
 were no pain, there could be no pity, without 
 pity no benevolence, without benevolence no 
 virtue. All these and such like arguments it is 
 most useful to dwell upon, when the mind can 
 ever fall back with faith on the great foundation- 
 which has been revealed, that God is love. 
 
 But why, if such be the case, are men so un- 
 willing to have recourse to revelation on a point 
 where reason is so manifestly insufficient ? I 
 believe the answer to be simply this, — that the 
 
SERM. V.^ THK STRAIT GATE. 125 
 
 mercy of God, as revealed in Scripture, is very 
 far different from that which the pride of an un- 
 renewed heart is wilhng to admit. Man wishes 
 to persuade himself that the divine benevolence 
 is such that the Deity cannot punish the creature 
 for obeying the impulses of the nature he has 
 received; that, in a word, having placed men 
 in the world as they are, he will permit them to 
 do as they will, so long as they do not directly 
 injure each other. How very different is the 
 doctrine of the Scriptures ! how very different 
 the position they take ! They declare, that al- 
 though the Lord, the Lord God be merciful, 
 gracious, long-suffering, and abundant in mercy 
 and truth, and forgiving, for the merits of Christ, 
 iniquity, transgression, and sin upon repentance, 
 yet he will by no means clear the impenitent, 
 that there shall be no peace for the wicked, — 
 that although God be love itself to those who 
 are in the narrow path, yet to all who are in 
 the broad way he is a consuming fire, a mighty, 
 a terrible God, into whose hands it is a fearful 
 thing to fall. 
 
 But passing on to another class of persons, 
 we find many, who accede to the truth of what 
 has just been stated, who acknowledge that there 
 is a way that leadeth to destruction, but yet 
 with self- satisfied complacency, while walking in 
 
126 THE STRAIT GATE. [[SERM. V. 
 
 the imaginations of their own hearts^ would fain 
 persuade themselves that their way, however 
 broad, is sufficiently narrow, and their gate, 
 however wide, sufficiently strait. Such persons 
 attend the services of the church : but when ? 
 when such attendance happens not to be incon- 
 venient, that is, they give to the world their first 
 thoughts, and the world's leavings they carelessly 
 throw to their God. They give alms of their 
 goods to feed the poor, — but does their donation 
 to the subscription list ever cause the sacrifice 
 of a single gewgaw, ever put them to personal 
 inconvenience ? They are perhaps amiable in 
 their families and courteous in their behaviour 
 to all men, — but why ? If we find that there are 
 other virtues which they are accustomed to neg- 
 lect, we may attribute their performance of these, 
 not to principle, but to the circumstance that 
 they are by nature inclined to them, — that in 
 the exercise of them there is no difficulty, no 
 jstraitness of path. From sensibility of consti- 
 tution they may be often kindled into emotion 
 by the affecting facts attending our redemption,-— 
 and yet their affections (not leading them to 
 acts of beneficence) may only degenerate into a 
 mere maudlin sentimentality, instead of giving 
 movement and animation to an abiding principle. 
 If we, my brethren, wish to know whether we 
 
SERMr v.] THE STRAIT GATE. 127 
 
 be of the number of these self-deceivers, let us 
 ask our hearts whether, when our religious 
 duties, and our worldly interests, or worldly 
 pleasures, or worldly passions clash, as clash 
 they sometimes must, or there would be no trial 
 in the case, we yield our allegiance to mammon 
 or to God ? Like the young man in the Gospel, 
 we may flatter ourselves that we are keeping all 
 the commandments of God, all the while that 
 we are cherishing some little bosom sin which 
 we are willing to spare, as Saul spared Agag. 
 Suppose that the Lord Jesus were to say to any 
 one of us as he did to him. Go, and sell all thou 
 hast and give to the poor, and come and follow 
 me, — how should we act, — should we obey, or 
 should we, like the young man, go away sorrow- 
 ful ? This may be an extreme case, — the like is 
 not demanded of us all ; though we live in an 
 age when we must feel that, by an afflictive dis- 
 pensation of Providence, that is, in other words, 
 by the call of God, those who have now great 
 possessions may live to hear such a command 
 virtually given,— may live to find it demanded 
 of them to sacrifice all that is dear in life and 
 life itself for the sake of God, of Christ, and 
 of the blessed church. But not to dwell upon 
 this, — one thing must be abundantly clear, that 
 we cannot be walking in the narrow path unless 
 
128 THE STRAIT GATE. [sERM. V* 
 
 we find that path to be narrow to us, and that it 
 cannot be narrow to us unless it be sometimes 
 irksome, difficult, unpleasant. If our religion 
 lays us under no restraints, it cannot be the re- 
 ligion of Jesus Christ. 
 
 Unwelcome news is this to a wilful and a 
 careless world, which is always desirous of hear- 
 ing us speak peace, though there is no peace. 
 The object with most men, aye with men too> 
 thinking themselves religious, is to get to heaven, 
 with as little of sacrifice, of self-denial, and self- 
 control as possible ; hence they are the ready 
 victims of self-deceit : they wish to deceive, not 
 to enlighten their conscience ; and hence, with- 
 out denying the distinctions between right and 
 wrong, they endeavour to confound them ; and, 
 when they are determined to do what is evil> 
 they seek, like Ahab, a false prophet who may 
 call evil good and good evil ; when they nau- 
 seate wholesome viands, they seek a caterer who 
 can put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter ; 
 when they hate the light, they look out for some 
 man of sin who may put light for darkness and 
 darkness for light. 
 
 And this it is, — this fatal proneness of our 
 nature to self-deception, this readiness to be de- 
 ceived, this desire to exaggerate, to elevate our 
 natural dispositions, when amiable, into virtues> 
 
SERM. V.]] THE STRAIT GATE. 129 
 
 and to make our besetting sins appear to be no 
 sins at all,— this it is, this wish to have it proved 
 to us that the broad way is the narrow path, 
 that gives rise to sectarianism and to infidelity 
 under the specious name of Deism. 
 
 When sectarianism prevails, as it does in this 
 country, every man may act, not according to 
 God's law, but according to his own will, with- 
 out compunction of conscience. Is your dis- 
 position sceptical ? Behold a sect prepared with 
 learned arguments to shew that, in spite of the 
 Bible, it is possible without faith to please God. 
 Or are you easy of belief, inclined to supersti- 
 tion ? You will not have far to go, in order to 
 discover, in defiance of St. James, that faith 
 without works may live. Does a malignant dis- 
 position incline you to speak evil of dignities, 
 and to indulge in variance, emulations, wrath, 
 strife, seditions ? There is scarcely a sect in 
 existence which does not by its example shew 
 that, maugre the Apostle, these tempers are not 
 inconsistent with a profession of godliness. And 
 passing by an almost imperceptible gradation 
 from sect to sect, until revelation be wholly dis- 
 carded, the profligate himself need not despair. 
 For there be ravening wolves in sheep's cloth- 
 ing, — there be sensualists calling themselves phi- 
 losophers and philanthropists, who (prowling 
 
130 THE STRAIT GATE. [^SERM. V. 
 
 about our streets) contend that to represent 
 Soberness, temperance and chastity as virtues is 
 mere priestcraft, since the Maker of man would 
 never have given him his appetites unless they 
 were to be pampered and indulged. 
 
 And thus it has always been. On this account 
 it was that the heathens actually deified their 
 worst and vilest passions ; and to this infirmity 
 of our nature, to this desire of forming a com- 
 munion between light and darkness, of making 
 concord between Christ and Belial, may be 
 traced all the motley schools of heresy and 
 schism, which from the first have disturbed the 
 peace of the church, and brought discredit on 
 the Christian name. No sooner did the church 
 exhibit itself to the world as an influential so- 
 ciety, than the philosophers of the East were 
 struck with the wisdom of its doctrines, and 
 astounded by the miracles of its professors. But 
 what ! were the wise men of the East to confess 
 that they and their predecessors had actually 
 failed in the acquisition of that knowledge, of 
 which they had hitherto boasted the exclusive 
 possession ? No. To do this requires a degree 
 of moral courage and a love of truth, which is 
 possessed by few, and for the want of which, it 
 is to be feared, not a few perish. What, then, 
 was to be done ? Concihation and concession 
 
SERM. VO THE STRAIT GATE. 131 
 
 were appealed to, and thus the Eastern philo- 
 sophy was to be blended with the religion of 
 the Lord Jesus, — so that the blessings of the 
 latter might be secured, without the loss of 
 worldly interest, ease, or character — that is to 
 say, that the new converts might walk, at the 
 same time, in the broad way and in the narrow 
 path. Hence the Gnostic and Manichsean here- 
 sies. 
 
 What the Gnostics did for the philosophy of 
 the East, the Eclectics attempted for the Greeks. 
 Pretending to select what was good from every 
 school of philosophy, (reckoning the Christian 
 church as one such school,) they sought in the 
 tnie spirit of liberalism to amalgamate all the 
 various and contradictory doctrines of every sys- 
 tem, and thus to enable heathens to be heathens 
 still, and yet to be entitled, without any sacrifice, 
 to all the benefits of the Christian covenant; that 
 is to say, to walk in the broad way, and yet, 
 nevertheless, to imagine themselves in the nar- 
 row path. And by a learned member of this 
 University, the origin of the Arian faction in the 
 fourth century has been traced up to the same 
 principle^. They wished to share in the honours 
 with which the emperor had adorned the sanc- 
 
 * See Mr. Newman's invaluable History of Arianism, 
 K 2 
 
IS2 THE STRAIT GATE. [[SERM. V. 
 
 tuary, without renouncing the unclean thing, or 
 coming out of the heathen world. Hence their 
 laxity of morals in order to reconcile the courtier, 
 their heresy in doctrine in order to conciliate the 
 philosopher, — to conciliate him towards a reli- 
 gion which is as uncompromising in its princi- 
 ples as it is benevolent in its object. It is indeed 
 remarkable that the purpose of Arianism was at 
 its very commencement discovered and exposed 
 by its first opponent, Alexander, the bishop of 
 Alexandria, who in his circular letter charges the 
 heresiarch and his followers with an endeavour 
 to blend falsehood with truth, impiety with re- 
 ligion. 
 
 To what again but to this propensity of our 
 nature leading us to confound our wishes with 
 our duty, and to delight in the sophistry which 
 would teach that we may do as we will here, 
 and still be safe hereafter, — to what but this are 
 we to attribute the popularity of mahometanism 
 in the East, and of popery in the West ? The 
 rehgion of sensuality which represents heaven as 
 the seat only of a more refined debauchery than 
 that which degrades man to the condition of a 
 brute beast on earth, must ever be dear to the 
 voluptuary of Asia. And the popish system will 
 never want its advocates while, with the wisdom 
 of those who are wiser in their generation than 
 
SERM. V.]3 THE STRAIT GATE. 133 
 
 the children of light, it accommodates itself to 
 all sorts of men, while for the idle as well as the 
 studious it opens the cloister, while for the su- 
 perstitious it prepares its relics and its charms, 
 while it can enlist the active and ambitious under 
 the banners of Loyola, while the imaginative can 
 enjoy the pomp and circumstance of an imposing 
 ritual, while the austere can be led to feel that 
 his austerities are meritorious, while the pro- 
 fligate and the worldling can run a career of 
 indolence, dissipation, avarice, dishonesty, and 
 vice, and yet be safe on the payment of a paltry 
 penance, — a fast, a pater-noster — a charitable 
 dole given grudgingly and of necessity — while it 
 thus becomes all things to all men, seeking, not 
 to convert souls, but to count professors. Ad- 
 mirable is this system, second only to the system 
 of infidel liberaHsm for blinding the eyes and 
 deadening the consciences of men while walking 
 in the broad way that leadeth to destruction. 
 Genuine Christianity must always remain as it 
 has always been, an object of detestation to all 
 but the sincerely pious, because it makes no al- 
 lowances, admits of no subterfuges, but wages an 
 everlasting war as against all sin and wickedness, 
 so especially against that sin which each man is 
 most anxious to have overlooked — his besetting 
 sin. 
 
154 THE STRAIT GATE. [sERM. V. 
 
 Thus (amid all the mutabilities of heretical 
 doctrine) we observe the opposite means uni- 
 versally pointing to the same end, and that end 
 is to prove that men may continue in sin and 
 yet grace abound. To this fact, no doubt it was 
 that, with prophetic eye, our Lord referred, when 
 immediately after exhorting his followers to walk 
 in the narrow path, he adds. Beware of false 
 prophets. They mill come to you, he continues, 
 in sheep* s clothing, but inwardly they are ravening 
 wolves. Ye shall know them by their fruits. Do 
 men gather grapes of thorns or Jigs of thistles ? 
 Eve?i so every good tree hringeth forth good fruit, 
 hut a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit, A 
 good tree cannot bring forth evil fruity neither can 
 a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit. Every tree 
 that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down 
 and cast into the jire. Wherefore by their fruits 
 ^hall ye know them. 
 
 Now by a prophet in this passage, it is ad- 
 mitted by every one, that not one who dehvers, 
 but one who interprets, the divine oracles, is in- 
 tended. But most of the commentators appear 
 to consider our Lord as alluding to ordinary 
 teachers. Yet this can hardly be the case, be- 
 cause to them the criterion proposed cannot be 
 applied ; since it is clearly not from the influence 
 of his doctrine upon his own conduct that we 
 
SERM. V.^ THE STRAIT GATE. 135 
 
 can judge of the truth of what a teacher says. 
 It is obvious that a man may be a very moral 
 man in his conduct, (such are often the preachers 
 of Socinianism,) and yet teach doctrines the most 
 erroneous, v^hile the doctrine maybe sound which 
 is taught by a bad man, — a man, for instance, 
 who should read from the pulpit the discourses 
 of our old divines. When the Scribes and Pha- 
 risees, sitting in Moses' seat, taught what the 
 law prescribed, their own non-observance of th^ 
 law did not vitiate their teaching. This we know 
 from the very highest authority. If, then, a 
 moral man, a man amiable in all the relations of 
 life, may teach, as is obviously the fact, unsound 
 doctrine, and an immoral man may teach sound 
 doctrine, it is not by a teacher's conduct that we 
 are to judge of his precepts. Were this, indeed, 
 the case, what protection should we have from 
 the hypocrite ? How, indeed, could this be the 
 criterion, unless we were able to search men's 
 hearts ? We are not, then, to reason, as weak 
 persons do, so and so is so bad a man that I am 
 sure what he preaches cannot be true, or so and 
 so is so good a man that I am sure what he says 
 cannot be false. No. This would be to call 
 men Rabbi and Master in the very sense that is 
 condemned,-— -with respect to our teachers, our 
 business is simply to ascertain from Scripture 
 
136 THE STRAIT GATE. [[SERM. V, 
 
 and the church whether what they dehver for 
 doctrine accords with what has been revealed to 
 us by him who is our only Master, even Christ, 
 But if we consider our Lord in this passage to 
 refer^ not to ordinary teachers, but to those who 
 establish systems or sects for the purpose of 
 confounding the right path with the wrong, — not 
 to heretics but to heresiarchs, — then all will be 
 easy and plain. By the fruits of these false 
 prophets, as exhibited not in their lives but in 
 their systems, we shall know them. If the sys- 
 tem, though seemingly based on Scripture, (as, 
 for instance, that of the antinomians,) evidently, 
 however indirectly, tends to the neglect of moral 
 virtue ; by that very fact we may know that the 
 founders and expounders of that system were 
 and are false prophets, howsoever pious their de- 
 meanor, howsoever upright their conduct, how- 
 soever skilfully they may have been clothed in 
 sheep's clothing. If the system, on the other 
 hand, however apparently friendly to morals, lead 
 to the virtual denial of the fundamental veri- 
 ties of revelation, (as, for instance, that of the 
 Socinians,) we may be sure that fruit really good 
 cannot be produced by what may be compared 
 to the thorn-tree or the thistle, — by a sect which 
 would establish works without faith, and per- 
 suade men that without a new heart and a right 
 
SERM. V.]] THE STRAIT GATE. 137 
 
 spirit, or rather with a heart and spirit merely 
 controlled by worldly proprieties, they can even 
 merit that heaven, to obtain which, even for the 
 least unworthy of human beings, the Christian 
 believes that it was necessary that the Son of 
 God should assume our nature, and lead a life 
 of obedience, and die a death of torture. Or if 
 the system, however apparently conformable to 
 reason, however logically maintained, and how- 
 ever supported by arguments miscalled meta- 
 physical, as, for instance, that of the utilitarian, 
 lead to consequences the most detestable ; (for 
 example, to the justification, or at least the pal- 
 liation, under certain circumstances, of infanti- 
 cide ^ ;) — this at once should persuade us, that 
 all the reasoning, and all the argument, notwith- 
 standing its plausibility, and in other respects its 
 specious humanity, is not to weigh with us for a 
 moment. 
 
 Such are the false prophets ; — prophets who 
 seek popularity by blinding the eyes and silenc- 
 ing the misgivings of those who are walking in 
 the broad way of their besetting sins ; false pro- 
 phets, of whom our Saviour bids us beware. 
 Generally the originators of these systems are 
 clothed in sheep's clothing ; they come to us as 
 
 3 Principes du Code Penal, de Benthani. Trad, par Dumont, 
 chap. xii. 
 
138 THE STRAIT GATE. [sERM. V. 
 
 angels of light. The Gnostic teachers were, 
 according to the popular feeling of their age, 
 abstemious and austere ; and Arius, that arch- 
 heretic, is described as a man of engaging man- 
 ners and fascinating address. It must be so. 
 The heresiarch must be amiable, specious, and 
 clever. If it were not so, how could he per- 
 suade men to receive him as a teacher? — how 
 attach them to his person ? 
 
 But if what has now been advanced be true, 
 if what gives boldness and success to false pro- 
 phets, be the willingness of our hearts to be de- 
 ceived when any duty may occur to which those 
 hearts are disinclined; — as against all other false 
 prophets, so especially against the traitor within, 
 who would betray us to the enemy without, — it 
 becomes us to watch. And we can do this ef- 
 fectually only by being on our guard against 
 that which is more or less the besetting sin of 
 all, (though evincing itself in ways the most 
 contrary,) — self-indulgence. Yes, against self- 
 indulgence, both in the formation of our princi- 
 ples, and the regulation of our conduct, we 
 ought indeed most sedulously to watch. I speak 
 advisedly and pointedly when I thus refer to the 
 sin of self-indulgence in the formation of our 
 principles, for I verily believe that much self- 
 deception exists on this point, and that it is 
 
SERM. v.] THE STRAIT GATE. 139 
 
 from the want of due care in this respect that 
 schism and latitudinarianism, if not heresy, is so 
 rife in the land. However circumspect young 
 men may be in taking proper precautions for 
 the regulation of their conduct when they set 
 out in life, it would seem as if it were taken for 
 granted that the way to right opinions were any 
 thing but narrow, the gate to sound principles 
 of most easy access. It is lamentable to see 
 how hastily opinions are — not formed — but im- 
 bibed, and we all know the haughtiness of hu- 
 man pride too well to be surprised at finding 
 how, when once acted upon, such opinions are 
 pertinaciously maintained. That men do not 
 think their sloth sinful, when truth is the object 
 of their pursuit, is evident from the multitude of 
 little tracts and pamphlets, in which it is to be 
 feared too often the pastor as well as the flock 
 finds his instruction. However indefatigable as 
 a student a man may have been at the Univer- 
 sity, how often do we find him, when preparing 
 for holy orders, resorting to those easy helps, 
 which, in the study of the classics, because lead- 
 ing only to superficial acquirement, he would 
 have despised. Instead of drinking deeply at 
 the original cisterns; instead of preparing, by 
 the study of the history, the doctrines, the dis- 
 cipline of the primitive church and the early 
 
140 THE STRAIT GATE. [sERM. V. 
 
 Fathers, to become a governor, (as to a certain 
 extent every presbyter is,) of the modern church, 
 how many there are who content themselves 
 with drinking at the muddy fountain of some 
 tract society, to which they have been recom- 
 mended by chance, and where perhaps the lati- 
 tudinarian dissenter lays the first foundation of 
 the divinity of him who is henceforth to become 
 a churchman, it may be, but a churchman of 
 most unstable principles. The greater caution is 
 necessary on this point, since it has always been 
 one of the objects of the heretic to win proselytes 
 by a professed simplification of the truth. To 
 the student perplexed by the doctrine of the Tri- 
 nity, the Sabellian steps in, by easy and plau- 
 sible arguments to render intelligible that which 
 from the very nature of the subject must be in- 
 comprehensible. Here some minds take their 
 stand ; but if satisfaction be not afforded, as the 
 Sabellian simplifies on the church, so the Arian 
 simplifies on the Sabellian, while the Socinian is 
 more simple still, and Socinianism soon merges 
 into that which, to the careless thinker, is the 
 most simple form of all, pure Deism. All this 
 progress of error is the result of that false prin- 
 ciple with which so many men start, — the desire 
 of saving themselves trouble, of making their 
 way broad. 
 
SERM. v.] THE STRAIT GATE. 141 
 
 With respect to our conduct we shall (if we 
 are wise) accustom ourselves to examine each 
 day how far our religion has led to the sacrifice 
 of worldly comfort^ or ease, or time, or interest. 
 Each night, ere we kneel down to pray for God's 
 protecting providence or sanctifying grace, let 
 us ask our hearts, not only whether we have this 
 day been treading the narrow path, but how? 
 What worldly interest have we renounced to 
 perform some religious duty ? In what instance 
 have I checked my temper, or controlled a pas- 
 sion, for the love of God and of his Christ ? In 
 short, what have I done of self-denial, exertion, 
 or mortification ? — let the specific act or acts be 
 daily adduced ; for if we come not to details, the 
 conscience itself may become a false prophet. 
 Even in the most retired life, and when least 
 exposed to temptation, no day ought to be per- 
 mitted to pass, without our examining ourselves 
 on the virtue of self-denial, not a day should 
 pass without our submitting to some privation. 
 As we perform certain actions with no other 
 view but to exercise the body, so ought we to 
 accustom ourselves to daily acts of self-denial, if 
 it be merely to keep our spiritual energies in 
 exercise. It was on this principle that the re- 
 tired scholars in the primitive ages were accus- 
 tomed so rigidly to fast ; they fasted, not only 
 
142 THE STRAIT GATE. [sERM. V. 
 
 to keep the body under, and to bring it into 
 subjection, but also for the sake of self-disciphne. 
 It is only by frequent acts that a habit can be 
 formed. And if we wait for great occasions to 
 discharge the duty of self-denial, self-discipline, 
 and self-control, because the occasions will be 
 few, the virtues cannot become habitual, and not 
 being habitually virtuous when the time of trial 
 and temptation arrives, great will be our fall. 
 The wise man will never despise the day of 
 small things, — and while we censure the Papist 
 for regarding his mortifications as meritorious 
 acts, we ought to shew him that our opposition 
 does not result from any desire to pamper our 
 appetites, by having ourselves recourse to mor- 
 tification, as a help to devotion and virtue. 
 
 I cannot conclude without observing, how 
 clearly what has now been said exposes the so- 
 phistry by which those deceive themselves, who, 
 walking at this present time in the broad way, 
 by their own confession, nevertheless have de- 
 termined, at some future period, to tread the 
 narrow path. My brethren, are there not some 
 such here assembled ? And if there be, I im- 
 plore their attention to what is now said. I 
 will not point out to them the folly of deferring 
 till a future time what can best be done at the 
 present moment ; I will not dwell on the uncer- 
 
SiERM. Vj THE STRAIT GATE. 143 
 
 tainty of human life, or on the fact, the most 
 awful fact, that the impenitence which is now 
 wilful may hereafter become judicial ; I will 
 simply ask you, why you delay ? You delay in 
 the vain, vain hope, that the narrow path may 
 at some future period become the broad way ; 
 that is to say, that the time will come when you 
 may walk in the way of godhness without self- 
 denial. Oh, vain hope ! Oh, most destructive 
 sophistry ! If there shall be no sacrifice, no mor- 
 tification of the flesh, and of the spirit, and of 
 the intellect ; no renunciation of self and selfish 
 passion and pride, how will the way be narrow ? 
 But, if these sacrifices are necessary, will they 
 be more easily made when the habit of evil is 
 formed ? When the conscience has become har- 
 dened ? When the moral discernment, by mak- 
 ing frequent excuses, is perverted 1 When the 
 sensibility of conscience is benumbed ? When a 
 continual apostasy to vice has rendered your 
 aspirations after virtue less ardent? No, bre- 
 thren. No. Depend upon it, instead of becom- 
 ing broader, the path of godhness and virtue 
 becomes day by day, to those who neglect to 
 tread it, more narrow and more strait, more 
 hedged up with thorns and briars, more diflficult 
 of access; and well will it be for those who 
 harden their hearts and close their ears to the 
 
144 THE STRAIT GATE. [sERM. V. 
 
 frequent admonitions and calls of the Holy 
 Ghost, if they find not the barrier at length im- 
 passable. Behold, now is the accepted time, now 
 is the day of salvation. To-day if ye will hear his 
 voice, harden not your hearts. Work while it is 
 called to-day, for the hour cometh z&hen no man 
 can work. 
 
 But however difficult it may be to tread the 
 way of righteousness, however narrow the path, 
 it is nevertheless a way of pleasantness, sur- 
 rounded by an atmosphere of serenity and peace. 
 Our God is there, and, where He is, the wilder- 
 ness becomes like Eden, and the desert like the 
 garden of the Lord. There and there only can 
 true happiness be found, if happiness consist, as 
 undoubtedly it does, in that sunshine of the 
 heart, which results from a conscience at peace 
 with its Maker. Illusory and vain are all the 
 joys of those who have forsaken the paths of 
 uprightness, and walk in the ways of darkness ; 
 unsubstantial every flower they gather, their in- 
 dustry but laborious impotence ; their drink is 
 mingled with gall, and at the end they will find 
 that they have been eating ashes instead of 
 bread ; not exempt from disease, and disappoint- 
 ment, and reproach, and wasting, and destruc- 
 tion, and death, to them there is no staff on 
 which to lean for support, no well-spring of Hv- 
 
SERM. VO THE STRAIT GATE. 145 
 
 ing water to refresh them : to them their mise- 
 ries are intolerable, since to the true Christian 
 and to him only is known the moral alchemy 
 by which afflictions can be converted into bless- 
 ings ; he, and he only, has that new heart and 
 new spirit which can regard things temporal in 
 their just proportion, since (by the supernatural 
 operations ' of the Holy Ghost) from the eye of 
 his mind the film has been removed, and, at the 
 end of the most darksome vista, he can catch a 
 glimpse of things eternal, and behold Jesus, his 
 Saviour, standing at the right hand of God. — 
 What to others are the damps of disease, to him 
 are the dews of heaven ; what to others a pesti- 
 lent vapour, to him are fragrance and balm ; 
 what to others a cloud of darkness, to him a 
 pillar of light. Inhaling airs odorous of heaven, 
 and strong in the might of the Lord, he marches 
 boldly on his onward course. He has God for 
 his protector, Christ for his advocate, the Holy 
 Ghost for his Comforter ; — and therefore, though 
 passing through the valley of the shadow of 
 death, he fears no evil ; — yea, when others die, 
 he only falls asleep in Jesus, to awake up after 
 the likeness of his resurrection. 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 Although the Origines Ecclesiasticae of the learned 
 Joseph Bingham be a work frequently referred to as 
 a Dictionary, it is to be feared that it is not so often 
 perused as it deserves to be, as an introduction to 
 ecclesiastical history ; the writer may, therefore, be 
 pardoned for the following rather long quotation, 
 ** which doth contain a godly and wholesome doctrine, 
 and necessary for these times," and which may serve 
 as an appendix to Sermon II. 
 
 *^ As the primitive Christians were eminent for their 
 candour and prudence in composing unnecessary and 
 verbal disputes ; so, where the cause was weighty and 
 any material points of religion concerned, they were 
 no less famous for their zeal and courage in standing 
 up, in the defence of truth, against all opposers. It 
 was neither the artifice and subtlety, nor the power 
 and malice of their enemies would make them yield, 
 where they thought the faith was in danger to be 
 destroyed. In other cases, says Nazianzen, there is 
 nothing so peaceable, so moderate as Christian bishops; 
 but in this case, they cannot bear the name of modera- 
 tion, to betray their God by silence and sitting still; 
 but here they are exceeding eager warriors, and fight- 
 
148 APPENDIX. 
 
 ing champions tliat are not to be overcome. He does 
 not mean that the weapons of their warfare were car- 
 nal ; that they used any pious frauds, or plotted trea- 
 sons or rebellions ; or took up arms in defence of 
 rehgion; but that with an undaunted courage and 
 brave resolution, they stood up firm in defence of the 
 truth ; and it mattered not what names they were 
 called by, (contentious, unpeaceable, immoderate, fac- 
 tious, turbulent, incendiaries, or any thing of the like 
 nature,) nor yet what they suffered in any kind, whilst 
 they contended for that faith which was once delivered 
 to the saints. Church history abounds with instances 
 of this nature; but it will be sufficient to exemplify 
 the practice of this virtue in a single instance, which 
 Gregory Nazianzen gives in the Life of St. Basil, where 
 he relates a famous dialogue that passed between Mo- 
 destus the Arian governor, under Valens, and that holy 
 man. Modestus tried all arts to bring him over to the 
 party, but finding all in vain, he at last threatened him 
 with severity. What, said he, dost thou not fear this 
 power which I am armed with ? Why should I fear ? 
 said Basil; What canst thou do, or what can I suffer? 
 What canst thou suffer ? said the other ; many things 
 that are in my power : confiscation of thy goods, 
 banishment, torment, and death. But thou must 
 threaten me with something else, said Basil, if thou 
 canst, for none of these things can touch me. As for 
 confiscation of goods, I am not liable to it, for I have 
 nothing to lose, unless thou wantest these tattered and 
 
APPENDIX. 149 
 
 thread-bare garments, and a few books, which is all 
 the estate I am possessed of. For banishment, I know 
 not what it means, for I am tied to no place ; I shall 
 esteem every country as much my own, as that where 
 I now dwell ; for the whole earth is the Lord's, and 
 I am only a pilgrim and a stranger in it. As for tor- 
 ments, what can they do to him, who has not a body, 
 that can hold out beyond the first stroke? And as 
 for death, it will be a kindness to me, for it will but 
 so much the sooner send me unto God, to whom I live, 
 and do the duty of my station ; being in a great mea- 
 sure already dead, and now of a long time hastening 
 unto him. The governor was strangely surprised at 
 this discourse, and said, No man ever talked at this 
 free and bold rate to Modestus before. Perhaps, said 
 Basil, thou didst never meet with a bishop before ; for 
 if thou hadst, he would have talked just as I do, 
 when he was put to contend about such matters as 
 these. In other things we are mild and yielding, and 
 the humblest men on earth, as our laws oblige us to 
 be ; we are so far from shewing ourselves supercilious 
 or haughty to magistrates in power, that we do not do 
 it to persons of the meanest rank and condition. But 
 when the cause of God is concerned or in danger, 
 then indeed we esteem all other things as nothing, and 
 fix our eyes only upon him. Then fire and sword, 
 wild beasts, and instruments of torture to tear off our 
 flesh, are so far from being a terror, that they are 
 rather a pleasure and recreation to us. Therefore 
 
150 APPENDIX. 
 
 reproach and threaten us, do your pleasure, use your 
 power to the utmost, and let the emperor know all 
 this; yet you shall never conquer us, or bring us to 
 assent to y^ur impious doctrine, though you threaten 
 us ten thousand times more than all this. The go- 
 vernor, hearing this, and finding him to be a man of 
 invincible and inflexible courage, dismissed him now, 
 not with threatenings, but with a sort of reverence 
 and submission, and went and told the emperor, that 
 the bishop of that church was too hard for them all ; 
 for his courage was so great, his resolution so firnij 
 that neither promises nor threatening could move him 
 from his purpose. Nor was it only open violence they 
 thus bravely resisted, but also the more crafty attempts 
 of the enemies of truth, who many times went arti- 
 ficially to work against it; partly by blackening the 
 character of its champions and defenders, and repre- 
 senting them as base and intolerable men ; and partly 
 by smoothing their own character, and pretending 
 unity in faith with the orthodox, and that their designs 
 were only designs of peace, to remove unscriptural 
 words and novel terms out of the way, that all men 
 might be of the same opinions. 
 
 " The other artifices which I said the Arians used 
 to destroy the faith, was the specious pretence of 
 peace and unity. The politic and crafty men among 
 them, in the time of Constantine, pretended that they 
 had no quarrel with the catholic doctrine of the 
 Trinity itself, but only were aggrieved at the novel 
 
APPENDIX. 151 
 
 and unscriptural words, such as ofiooixjiov, consub- 
 stantial, &c., which the Council of Nice had used to 
 express it by. These they said were dividing terms, 
 and the cause of all the quarrels and combustion ; and 
 therefore they still urged the removing these terms, as 
 the great stumbling-block, out of the way, that the 
 peace and unity of the church might follow upon it. 
 But Athanasius and other wise catholics easily per- 
 ceived whither this sly stratagem tended ; being very 
 sensible that their design was not against the bare 
 terms, but the truth itself, and therefore they always 
 stoutly and zealously opposed it. Nor could the 
 Arians ever gain this point upon the catholics, till at 
 last in the council of Ariminum, an. 359, by great im- 
 portunity and clamour for unity and peace, they were 
 prevailed upon to sink the word consubstantial, and 
 draw up a new creed without it, yet as they thought 
 containing the very same doctrine, and in as full terms 
 as could be expressed, save that the word consub- 
 stantial was not in it. But here it must be owned, 
 these catholic bishops were wanting in their zeal, as 
 they themselves were quickly after convinced. For 
 no sooner was their concession made, but the Arians 
 immediately gave out, and boasted over all the world, 
 that the Nicene faith was condemned, and Arianism 
 established in a general council, though nothing was 
 less intended by the catholic bishops, who were pre- 
 sent at it. But now they were sensible they had made 
 a false step, by suffering themselves thus to be im- 
 
152 APPENDIX. 
 
 posed upon by designing men. They tiow saw that 
 they ought to have stuck to the Nicene terms as well 
 as the faith, since the faith itself so much depended on 
 them. They now began to complain of the fraud, and 
 asked pardon of their brethren for their want of fore- 
 sight and caution in a case so tender and material. 
 St. Jerome, who gives us this account of the whole 
 transaction, from the acts of the synod and other re- 
 cords extant in his time, brings them in making this 
 apology for themselves. *' The bishops," says he, 
 " who had been imposed upon by fraud at Arimi- 
 num, and who were reputed heretics without being 
 conscious to themselves of any heresy, went about 
 everywhere, protesting by the body of Christ, and 
 all that is sacred in the church, that they suspected 
 no evil in their creed. They thought the sense had 
 agreed with the words, and that men had not meant 
 one thing in their hearts, and uttered another thing 
 with their lips. They were deceived by entertain- 
 ing too good an opinion of base and evil men. They 
 did not suppose the priests of Christ could so treach- 
 erously have fought against Christ. In short, they la- 
 mented their mistake now with tears, and offered to 
 condemn as well their own subscription as all the 
 Arian blasphemies. Any one that reads St, Jerome 
 carefully will easily perceive that these bishops were 
 no Arians, nor ever intended to subscribe an Arian 
 creed ; but their fault was want of zeal in parting with 
 the Nicene Creed to take another instead of it, with- 
 
APPENDIX. 153 
 
 out the word consubstantial, which though they sub- 
 scribed, in the simpUcity of their hearts, as an orthodox 
 creed, (and indeed the words, as Jerome describes 
 them, in their plain sense are sound and orthodox, as 
 St. Jerome says in their excuse,) yet the Arians put 
 an equivocal and poisonous sense upon them, giving 
 out, after the council was ended, that they had not 
 only abolished the word consubstantial, but with it 
 condemned the Nicene faith also ; v/hich was strange, 
 surprising news to the bishops who had been at Ari- 
 minum. Then, says St. Jerome, *' Ingemuit totus or- 
 bis, et Arianum se esse miratus est." The whole world 
 groaned and was amazed to think that she should be 
 reputed Arian. That is, the catholic bishops of the 
 whole world (for there were three hundred of them 
 present at that council) were amazed to find themselves 
 so abused, and represented as Arians, when they never 
 intended in the least to confirm the Arian doctrine. 
 But now, by this the reader will be able to judge what 
 kind of zeal the catholic church required then in her 
 clergy, viz. That they should not only contend for the 
 faith itself, but also for those catholic forms and ways 
 of expressing it, which had been composed and settled 
 in general councils, as a barrier against heretics, the 
 giving up of which to subtle and dangerous adversa- 
 ries would always give them advantage to make fiercer 
 attacks upon the faith itself, and prove destructive to 
 the catholic cause; as those bishops found, by woeful 
 experience, who were concerned in the concession made 
 
 M 
 
154 APPENDIX. 
 
 at Ariminum. 'Tis candour, indeed, when good ca- 
 tholics are divided only about words, to bring them to 
 a right understanding of one another, which will set 
 them at peace and unity again; but 'tis tameness to 
 give the main bulwarks of the faith to fallacious ad- 
 versaries and designing men, whose arts and aims, 
 however disguised, are always known to strike at the 
 foundation of religion. And therefore, though no man 
 was ever more candid than Athanasius towards mis- 
 taken catholics, yet neither was any more zealous in 
 opposing the arts and stratagems of the Arian party ; 
 always sticking close to the definition of the Nicene 
 council, and never yielding that any tittle or syllable of 
 that creed should be erased or altered." Book vi. c. 3. 
 
 THE END. 
 
BY THE SAME AUTHOR, 
 
 A SERMON preached at the Primary Visitation of the late Bishop 
 Tomline, in the Parish Church of Newport, Isle of Wight, July 3, 
 1822. 
 
 An ATTEMPT to DEMONSTRATE the CATHOLICISM of the 
 CHURCH of ENGLAND ; a Sermon preached at Stirhng, at the 
 Consecration of the Right Rev. Bishop Luscombe. 
 
 A LETTER to the late Earl of Liverpool on the " Unitarian 
 Marriage Bill." 
 
 A SERMON preached at Coventry before the District Committee of 
 the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge. 
 
 THE LAST DAYS OF OUR LORD'S MINISTRY; a Course of 
 Lectures delivered during Passion Week. 
 
 Two plain SERMONS on the CHURCH and the ESTABLISH- 
 MENT. 
 
 QUESTIONS and ANSWERS on CONFIRMATION. 
 
 The CATHOLIC CLERGY of IRELAND; their Cause Defended in 
 a Sermon preached in behalf of the Irish Clergy. 
 
 PRIVATE PRAYERS. 
 
 These Prayers are derived almost exclusively from ancient sources 
 the business of the Compiler having chiefly been to adapt them for 
 modern use and the purposes of private devotion. 
 
 A BOOK OF FAMILY PRAYER. 
 
 The object of this Publication is to adapt to the purposes of Family 
 Prayer, the Morning and Evening Services of the Church. 
 
855539 
 
 4^5753 
 
 UNrVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA UBRARY 
 
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