your minds should be informed, is wound up with the question, Can we, as disciples of Christ, live peaceably with Rome? "If it be possible," saith the Apostle," as much as in you lieth live peaceably with all men." Apply this rule to a church, and then, as we have shewn you, it undoubtedly demands of you that there be nothing of schism or separation so long as principles are not sacrificed for the sake of keeping peace. It warrants us in nothing that can be called a rending of the visible Church, if we cannot prove that we have reached the point at which union is no longer possible, at which, if union is preserved, it must be at the expense of conscience, and with mortal injury to cruth. Therefore our text requires us, if we would vindicate any separation (such for instance as that of the English church from the Roman), to prove by the most rigid demonstration that separation has become absolutely a duty, and that if it had been avoided to preserve peace, there would have been a surrender of the principles of the Gospel of Christ. Thus we are driven to examine the reasons which led our forefathers to break off communion with 'he Roman Catholic church, as well as those by which we justify our refusal o give that church the right hand of fellowship. We need hardly observe that hese reasons cannot be explained save by a statement of the doctrines of Popery as contrasted with those of Protestantism: so that in proving that the recept of our text was not disobeyed at the Reformation, we shall remind you f those great points of difference which still separate the churches.

It is a common accusation against us that we were guilty of schism at the Reformation, and that we are chargeable with this guilt until we return into the bosom of the Roman Catholic church. But we throw back the accusation is a most unfounded calumny, and we deny that the name of schism can in any sense be fastened on our separation, declaring that we had no choice but to nake this separation, or surrender Christianity. It is this denial and this leclaration which we shall endeavour to make good, shewing you very briefly, in the first place, That the English Church was not guilty of schism at the Reformation; and more at length, in the second place, That the separation was demanded and is still justified by the corruptions of Rome.

Now, it is one of the great doctrines of Popery, as you must all be aware, that the Pope, who is the Bishop of the Romish church, is the head also of the universal Church of Christ, so that he is vested with supreme authority over all bishops and pastors in every section of this earth. This pretended supremacy of the Pope we utterly reject, declaring that it can find no syllable of vindication in the Bible, and maintaining it to be nothing but an insolent issumption, of which no trace can be found in the first ages of Christianity. The Bible no where hints that there was to be such an universal head of the Church as the Pope professes to be; and ages elapsed before the bishops of Rome discovered that, as St. Peter's successors, they had a right to this unlimited lordship. We contend, therefore, against the doctrine of papal supremacy, as utterly unsanctioned either by Scripture or antiquity, and maintain that the Pope could have had no power, except by usurpation, over the branch of Christ's Church established in this land. He indeed claimed the power, and during the long night of ignorance that power was conceded: but we utterly deny that he had right to any power, because we deny that as Bishop of Rome he was vested with authority over other parts of Christ's Church. Whatever his

sway in his own district, England, we contend, was no part of that distrret; and if England in its ignorance had given him power, England when better taught did but justly in withdrawing that power; so that there is nothing which with a shew of justice could be called schism, in the separation of the English church from the Roman There would indeed have been schism had the doctrine of the Roman Catholics been true, that the Pope is the universal head of the Church; for then would the Reformers have withdrawn an allegi ance which it was their duty to yield, and have detached themselves from the visible body of Christ: but on no other supposition can the charge be established. Popery must be true, and the Bishop of Rome must be shewn to be head of the whole Christian Church, otherwise there can be nothing of schism in England refusing to own any longer the authority of the Pope, and reestablishing the supremacy of her king in all causes ecclesiastical and civil: and we need not say that we are not much troubled with the accusation of schism so long as it cannot be made good till Popery be proved true. It is somewhat too bold an accusation to call us schismatics, when the name takes for granted what is not the case, that the Roman Catholic church includes the whole visible Church. The charge will come with a good grace when the supremacy of the Pope is incontrovertibly established; but it falls like the idle ebullition of impotent malice while that supremacy rests on nothing but the ignorance and the credulity of the dark middle ages.

And we wish you to observe, that there were no spiritual ties which necessarily bound together England and Rome. We are not indebted to Rome for our Christianity. Whatever may be thought of the opinion, which has been supported by vast learning and ability, that St. Paul himself preached the Gospel in Britain, and ordained a bishop here before there was any in Rome, so that the Anglican church is older than the Roman; it is at least certain that Christianity made its way into these islands at a very early period; and that when the missionaries of Rome first visited our shores they found a Christian Church already established, a Church whose bishop refused submission to the Pope, although in process of time that submission was yielded. On what principle, then, is it to be maintained that the English church was so integral a part of the Roman that there could be no separation without schism? The English church had been independently governed by its own officers, having no connexion, but that of a common brotherhood, with other parts of Christ's visible body. Rome came down upon it in subtlety and pride, put forward its arrogant claims, and asked to be received as supreme in every ecclesiastical cause. The times were those in which moral and mental darkness were fast pervading the earth, and which therefore favoured the bold pretensions of an ambitious and unprincipled pontiff: and no marvel that England yielded with the rest of Christendom; so that a church founded in apostolic days, owing no allegiance to any foreign power, joined in the false, but almost universal confession, that the Pope was the vicegerent of Christ, endowed with unbounded authority over every ecclesiastical section. But at length God mercifully interposed, and raised up men with power and disposition to examine for themselves, and with intrepidity to proclaim the result of their searchings. In one country after another of Europe stood forth those who had prayerfully studied the Bible, and who were too zealous for the truth, too warm lovers both of God and man to keep silent on a usurpation which they found not

sanctioned by Scripture. And England was not without her worthies and her champions in this great struggle: there were those amongst her sons who felt that she crouched beneath a yoke that God had not ordained, and who therefore summoned her to rise and re-assert her independence; and when she hearkened to the call, and rose up in a majesty and a strength which still command our wonder, and shook off the yoke of papal oppression, declaring that the Roman pontiff had no authority within her coasts, what did she do but resume a power which ought never to have been delegated, and deny a claim which ought never to have been acknowledged? In a season of ignorance, when all Europe bent to the spiritual tyrant, she had made herself subject to the Roman see; and, therefore, when she joined other lands in daring to be free, she did nothing but take what was inalienably her own, what she had parted with in blindness, but which all the while could not be lawfully surrendered. We admit then nothing in her separation from the Romish church which approximates to schism. She had committed a grievous error in acknowledging the Pope's supremacy, but there could be nothing like schism in denying that supremacy; and there may be employed all the resources of casuistry on this matter by the partisans of Rome, labouring to brand the reformers as schismatics; but until it can be proved by Scripture (for away with all traditions and legends!) that there is no true church but the Roman and that the head of this church has been ordained of God to be supreme throughout Christendom in every ecclesiastical matter, it never can be proved that our fathers in the sixteenth century would have been justified in continuing allegiance to the Pope; nor therefore, that, in transferring that allegiance to their own anointed king, they were unmindful of the precept, "If it be possible, as much as lieth in you, live peaceably with all men."

Now we have endeavoured to state this fact under the most simple point of view, because it is easy to involve it in seeming perplexity. The act by which we separated from the church of Rome, and by which, therefore, if at all, we are held guilty of schism, was the act by which we deny the Pope had any authority in this kingdom. It was not, strictly speaking, by our denouncing image worship, by our denying transubstantiation, by our rejecting the mediation of angels and saints, that we ceased to be a part of the Roman church: that which made us a part of the church was acknowledging the Pope as the ecclesiastical head; and that which dissolved our union with that church was the refusing to continue that acknowledgment. Had the Roman church been free from the corruptions to which we have referred, holding no erroneous doctrine but that of papal supremacy, separation would still have been a duty : there would still have been the usurpation of our monarchical power by the Pope, and it could not have been schism to restore that power to its right owner.

But now, waiving the question of schism, we have to examine, in the secono place, THE CHIEF POINTS OF DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE REFORMED CHURCA AND THE ROMAN; that so you may be reminded of the grounds of separation and the reasons of Protestants refusing peace with Papists.

We formally separated from Rome, as we have just explained, by refusing to acknowledge the supremacy of the Pope : but it was chiefly by rejecting ce te in doctrines and observances, and by standing up for truth in opposition to error, that we became emphatically a Reformed Church, and gained the honourable

title of "Protestants." We do not deny (and this we must state clearly before entering on the errors of Rome), that the Roman Catholic Church is a true and apostolic church, her bishops and priests deriving their authority in an unbroken line from Christ and his apostles. Accordingly, if a Roman Catholic priest renounces what we call the errors of Popery, our church immediately receives him as one of her ministers, requiring no fresh ordination before she allows him to officiate at her altars. And if his ordination be not in every sense valid, neither is ours; for if we have derived our ordination from the apostles, it has been through the channel of the Roman Catholic church. So that to deny the transmission of the authority in the popish priesthood since the Reformation, would be to deny it before; and thus we should be left without any ordination which could be traced back to the apostles. There is no question, then, on the principles of an episcopal church, that the Roman Catholic is a true branch of Christ's church, however grievously corrupt and fearfully deformed. It is a true church, inasmuch as its ministers have been duly invested with authority to preach the Word and dispense the sacraments; and it is a true church moreover, inasmuch as it has never ceased to hold the Head, which is Christ, and to acknowledge the fundamental truth of our religion, that Jesus, God as well as man, died as the propitiation for the sins of the world. And we certainly are not of those who would say, that there can be no salvation for the members of such a church: we can quite believe of many Roman Catholics, that they cling to the fundamental truth which has just been stated; having but little of the corruptions of that church, or not so holding false doctrine as to allow it to interfere with the grand truth of Christianity. Bat, then, we are bound to add, that if these men be good Christians, they are bad Roman Catholics; practically, though unconsciously, they are Protestants in the midst of Popery; and whilst they pity us, as having separated from the only true church, there needs nothing but the probings of the Inquisition to fasten on themselves the accusation of heresy, or (more fatal result) to teach them to receive doctrines into their creed which must fearfully endanger their final salvation. For, without assuming the office of a judge, and simply applying the unerring principles of God's Word, we are bold to say, that if a man go all lengths with the tenets of popery, holding the doctrines of Rome as set forth in their authorized documents, we cannot see how that man can be saved. We contend that these doctrines and tenets are so opposed to Christianity, that the receiving them in their full extent is virtually rejecting Christ's gospel. Again, do we say, we presume not to judge our fellow-men, or decide on their condition; but we also say, that we know not on the principles of the Bible, how the being safe for eternity can consist with admitting the whole system of Popery; and on this account, because regarding the errors of Rome as fatal to a man's soul, did our reformers gird themselves to the work of purifying the church; and on the same account do we ourselves, though not unmindful of the precept in the text, declare that it is impossible to make peace with Popery.

It is here that we reach the gist of the question, and that we must set before you certain doctrines held by the Roman church and denounced by the reformers, or state some particulars in which the two differ with regard to the same articles of faith.

We have referred already to the pretended infallibility of the Romish church,

and we shall now further say, that Rome must give up this doctrine ere there can be peace. It has no foundation in Scripture, for St. Paul addresses the Roinish church as liable to err: and it is contradicted by facts; for different popes and councils have decreed opposite things: and it is dangerous and deadly, as giving the divine sanction to every error which an ignorant mortal may adopt, and every practice which a bishop may enjoin.

We protest next against the Romish doctrine of justification, declaring it unscriptural, and therefore fatal to the soul. This doctrine is, that our own inherent justice is the formal cause of our justification; the Council of Trent having declared any one accursed who shall say, that men are justified either by the imputation of Christ's righteousness alone, or only by the remission of sins; or who shall declare that the grace by which we are justified is of the favour of God alone. And as to merit, which is olosely associated herewith, the most enlightened cardinal and writer of the Romish church has decided, that a just man hath, by a double title, right to the same glory-one by the merits of Christ imparted to him by grace, another by his own merits. Can we, without treachery to the souls of men, be at peace with Rome whilst she inculcates tenets directly at variance with those which are the very life's-blood of Christianity, that we are justified freely by God's grace through faith, and not of works; and that the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord?

We protest further against the Romish doctrine of the insufficiency of what we receive as the canonical Scriptures, and of the authority of the Apocrypha and tradition. The papists hold that there is not expressly contained in Scripture all necessary doctrines either concerning faith or manners. We reject the tenet as blasphemous, seeing that a curse is pronounced in the Bible on all who shall add to it, or take from it: and thus God the Spirit hath decided the sufficiency of the Scriptures. The papists receive the Apocryphal books as canonical. The voice of antiquity is against them; the internal evidence is against them and we protest against their reception, because we know that the Apocryphal books may be brought in support of doctrines which we repudiate as false, and of practices which we deprecate as impious. And as to traditions, which the Council of Trent decreed that they must be received with no less piety and veneration than the Scriptures, they may be mighty convenient for papists, because tradition can be produced with authority and veneration whenever a falsehood is to be made current for truth: but we utterly reject these unwritten traditions, because at best they are impeachments of the sufficiency of the Scriptures, and because they afford every facility for the establishment of error under the seeming sanction of God.

And this is not all our protest extends itself on the right-hand and on the left. The Papists maintain, that in the sacrament of the Lord's supper there is a conversion of the whole substance of the bread into Christ's body, and the whole substance of the wine into his blood. This is their doctrine of transubstantiation. Against this doctrine we protest, not only because it is a contradiction to our senses-the taste, and touch, and sight assure us that the consecrated bread is still bread, and the consecrated wine is still winebut because it overthrows the truth of Christ's humanity; it makes his body omnipresent; it makes his body to be on earth while Scripture declares it to be in heaven. And if it thus interfere with Christ's humanity, affecting vitaliy