ground if on no other, that it has not had the opportunity of satisfying this test. Christianity would appear at first a mere literature, or philosophy, or mysticism, like the Pythagorean rule or Phrygian worship; nor till it was tried, could the coherence of its parts be ascertained. Now the class of doctrines in question as yet labours under the same difficulty. Indeed, they are in one sense as entirely new as Christianity when first preached; for though they profess merely to be that foundation on which it originally spread, yet as far as they represent a Via Media, that is, are related to extremes which did not then exist, and do exist now, they appear unreal, for a double reason, having no exact counterpart in early times, and being superseded now by actually existing systems. Protestantism and Popery are real religions; no one can doubt about them; they have furnished the mould in which nations have been cast: but the Via Media has never existed except on paper, it has never been reduced to practice; it is known, not positively but negatively, in its differences from the rival creeds, not in its own properties; and can only be described as a third system, neither the one nor the other, partly both, cutting between them, and, as if with a critical fastidiousness, trifling with them both, and boasting to be nearer Antiquity than either. What is this but to fancy a road over mountains and rivers, which has never been cut? When we profess our Via Media, as the very truth of the

Apostles, we seem to be mere antiquarians or pedants, amusing ourselves with illusions or learned subtilties, and unable to grapple with things as they are. We tender no proof to show that our view is not self-contradictory, and if set in motion, would not fall to pieces, or start off in different directions at once. Learned divines, it may be urged, may have propounded it, as they have; controversialists may have used it to advantage when supported by the civil sword against Papists or Puritans; but, whatever its merits, still, when left to itself, to use a familiar term, it may not "work." And the very circumstance that it has been propounded for centuries by great names, and not yet reduced to practice, may be alleged as an additional presumption against its feasibility. To take for instance the subject of Private Judgment; our theory here is neither Protestant nor Roman; and has never been realized. Our opponents ask, what is it? Is it more than a set of words and phrases, of exceptions and limitations made for each successive emergency, of principles which contradict each other?

It cannot be denied there is force in these considerations; it still remains to be tried whether what is called Anglicanism, the religion of Andrews, Laud, Hammond, Butler, and Wilson is capable of being professed, acted on, and maintained on a large sphere of action and through a sufficient period, or whether it be a mere modification either

of Romanism or of popular Protestantism, according as we view it. It may be argued that whether the primitive Church agreed more with Rome or with Protestants, and though it agreed with neither of them exactly, yet that one or the other, whichever it is, is the nearest approximation to the ancient model which our changed circumstances admit; that either this or that is the modern representative of primitive principles; that any professed third theory, however plausible, must necessarily be composed of discordant elements, and when attempted must necessarily run into Romanism or Protestantism, according to the nearness of the attracting bodies, and the varying sympathies of the body attracted, and its independence of those portions of itself which interfere with the stronger attraction. It may be argued that the Church of England, as established by law, and existing in fact, has never represented a certain doctrine or been the development of a principle, that it has been but a name, or a department of the state, or a political party, in which religious opinion was an accident, and therefore has been various. In consequence, it has been but the theatre of contending religionists, that is, of Papists and Latitudinarians, softened externally, or modified into inconsistency by their birth and education, or restrained by their interests and their religious engagements. Now all this is very plausible, and is to the point, as far as this, that there certainly is a call upon us to exhibit our prin

ciples in action; and until we can produce diocese, or place of education, or populous town, or colonial department, or the like, administered on our distinctive principles, as the diocese of Sodor and Man in the days of Bishop Wilson, doubtless we have not as much to urge in our behalf as we might have.

This, however, may be said in favour of the independence and reality of our view of religion, even under past and present circumstances, that, whereas there have ever been three principal parties in the Church of England, the Apostolical, the Latitudinarian, and the Puritan, the two latter have been shown to be but modifications of Socinianism and Calvinism by their respective histories when allowed to act freely, whereas the first, when it had the opportunity of running into Romanism, did not coalesce with it; which certainly argues some real differences in it from that system with which it is popularly confounded. The Puritan portion of the Church was set at liberty, as is well known, during the national troubles of the seventeenth century; and in no long time prostrated the Episcopate, abolished the ritual, and proved itself by its actions, if proof was necessary, essentially Calvinistic. The principle of Latitude was allowed considerable range between the times of Charles II. and George II. and even under the pressure of the Thirty-nine Articles, possessed vigour enough to develope such indications of its real tendency, as Hoadly and his

school supply. The Apostolical portion of the Church, whether patronised by the court, or wandering in exile, or cast out of their native communion by political events, evinced one and the same feeling of hostility against Rome. Its history at the era of the Revolution is especially remarkable. Ken, Collier, and the rest had every adventitious motive which resentment or interest could supply for joining the Romanists; nor can any reason be given why they did not move on the one side, as Puritans and Latitudinarians had moved on the other, except that their Creed had in it an independence and distinctness which was wanting in the religious views of their opponents. If nothing more has accrued to us from the treatment which these excellent men endured, this at least has providentially resulted, that we are thereby furnished with irrefragable testimony to the essential difference between the Roman and Anglican systems.

But if this be so, if the English Church has the mission, hitherto unfulfilled, of representing a theology, Catholic but not Roman, here is an especial reason why her members should be on the watch for opportunities of bringing out and carrying into effect its distinctive character. Such opportunities perhaps have before now occurred in our history, and have been neglected, and may never return; but, at least, the present unsettled state of religious opinion among us furnishes an opening which may be providentially intended, and which it is a duty