the Sir, when I read St. Chrysostom, and consider what a priest ought to be, it is not possible for you to look more down upon me, than I look down upon myself. I do not attempt to deny your charge, I only recommend judgment in the prosecution of it. It shall be allowed, that from the crown of the head to the sole of the foot, there is but little soundness to be found. Still the patient shall not be given over. But emollients and proper regimen seem better calculated to effect a cure, than caustics and irritation. To render the clergy vile in the eyes of the people, by giving them to understand, that the plan of the Gospel dispensation can be carried on in the world without a priesthood as well as with it, is not, in my opinion, way to reform a corrupted Church, but to leave us without any Church at all. "As long as the people are taught the true nature of the Christian ministry to be, as it really is, a true and proper priesthood, and that their ministers are true and proper priests, ordained by God to stand before Him as advocates for them, and before them for Him as his oracles to bless them in his name, so long they will honour and reverence them as priests; but when they are pleased to strip themselves of that part of their character and relation to God to which those powers belong; and which, above any other, makes their ministry, and them as Church ministers, venerable and holy; then they will soon find the veneration of the people begin to decay, and by degrees wear off into utter contempt; when they have once laid aside the notion of their being orators and advocates ordained by God to intercede with Him for them, which, Sir, their flocks can no longer retain than they believe them to be proper priests." I now proceed. What you say, page 157 and 158, about schismatics, I pass over; because it is my design to bring that subject into one point of view at the conclusion of this letter. To your description of me, page 158, “as a high-flying Arminian, grafted upon the stock of a Papist," I say nothing; because I consider it to be one of the hasty droppings of a pen, accustomed to outrun the judgment of the writer. What is said, page 159, of those Christians who avail themselves of the law of toleration, and build a chapel, where the Church service is performed, "because they will not become dissenters; not from a desire to leave the Church, but because (as you are pleased to say) the Church has left them," will come under future consideration. There remains, then, only one passage, in page 161, which appears to demand notice. You seem to complain, that those whom I harshly call schismatics without knowing it, "are censured and persecuted." I was not aware, Sir, that to point out to Christians who might most probably be ignorant of it, the sin of separating from the communion of the Church, could possibly be called persecution. Censure, indeed, it may be; but it is the censure of charity, arising from a sincere regard for the spiritual welfare of the parties concerned and where the things which properly fall Hicke's Christian Priesthood, page 130. under the notice of the Christian minister are open to censure, I conceive he would partially discharge his duty who withheld it. When honest old Latimer put a Bible into the hands of his licentious sovereign, with a page doubled down at the text, which says, "Whoremongers and adulterers God shall judge," he did not, I presume, consider himself as a persecutor, but as a disciple of St. Paul, who had directed him, in the persons of Timothy and Titus, to reprove and rebuke with all authority.* "Tenderness to schism may be a fine thing, and pass for true piety so long as men shall judge one another; but when God shall judge us all, it must give an account of itself to Him who is no respecter of persons."+ If schism be a grievous sin, (and if it be not, the Church has been in an error from the beginning, and our Liturgy should be altered) he who considers the solemn charge delivered to the watchman of Israel, in the second chapter of Ezekiel, will not risk his own salvation for the sake of speaking smooth things to his brethren. I have taken the liberty to make some alteration in your extract from Cowper, not with the view to improve the poetry, but to adapt it to my subject, with which I conclude my remarks upon your sixth letter: "Hence jarring sectaries may learn "That brother should not war with brother, * 2 Tim. iv. 2; 2 Tit. 15. + Letter to the Church of England, p. 15. Shunning division here below, That each in charity may grow, Till join'd by Christian fellowship and love, The Church on earth shall meet the Church above. I proceed now, Sir, by way of appendix to this letter, to bring the subject of Church communion and schism into one collected point of view; that I may, if possible, leave a more consistent idea upon your mind, than you at present appear to possess upon it. After what was said on this subject in my book, I had flattered myself that no addition to it had been necessary. The nature and constitution of the Christian Church having been clearly pointed out, the reader, it was presumed, could be at no loss to know where to find it; for a visible society, under a regular and publicly appointed government, is not a thing that can be hid in a corner, Having found the Church, the reader must still be less at a loss to know what was meant by schism, or unwarrantable separation from it; because he must know the difference between being a member of a certain visible society, and not being a member of it. The confusion which has generally been introduced into this subject, has chiefly arisen from an attempt to argue from false premises, by a substitution of the invisible for the visible Church; by exchanging a society, of which, from its outward and visible form of government, we are enabled to form a judgment; for that or which, from its invisible nature, we can form little or no judgment at all. To such a confusion, I am inclined to think, your imperfect ideas upon this subject may be attributed. Most of the quotations you have brought forward, if I mistake not, apply to the invisible Church; and, therefore, do not immediately belong to the matter in hand. The "Guide to the Church" professed to treat (not of that society which is invisible, and known only to God, but) of that which has been made known to man, for the purpose of his being a member, and as such, being governed by the rules of it; not about an idea to which we are incapable of giving form or substance, but about an actual reality existing in a settled form before our eyes; and for an attention to which, as a Divine institution, all Christians must one day be accountable. For Christians to discriminate, therefore, in this case, seems essential not only to their acquiring a proper notion of the Christian Church; but, what is of still greater importance, to their discharging their duty toward it. Should it please God, that in these days of general ignorance in Church matters, I may prove in any degree instrumental in promoting so desired an object, I should think I had not altogether lived in vain. To heal divisions in a Church, and displease none that make them, are two such works of charity as can scarce consist together. I could wish, if it were possible, to effect both; for my hearty desire to God for my brethren is, that they may be saved: at the same time I feel conscious of a disposition to think charitably, and to give offence to no man. Should, therefore, our sentiments upon the ensuing subject not coincide, allow me to hope, that you will not suffer yourself to run away with such ideas as are connected with Pope, Cardinal, ecclesiastical excision, or wholesale |