guishes the constitution of this country. If we honour the Sovereign, it is because we fear God. If we obey the laws, it is because in so doing we obey the will of God. The two duties are inseparably combined in our hearts, as they are together inscribed in our charter; and as long as the profession of the Christian faith is a component part of that charter, we have the surest guarantee against revolutionary enormities.

We are not exempt indeed from factious movements and rebellious doctrines, the offspring of discontent and love of change:—but hitherto the portion of the community is small which would sever religion from the state, and avow that they have no necessary or salutary connexion.

ness.

Wild speculations indeed of this sort we are doomed to hear, and with the increasing licence of the age they are promulgated with increased boldBut though they gain ground with minds not well trained, or not well affected to the Church, yet we may derive comfort and satisfaction from the more than proportionate increase of sound religious knowledge and of active improvement in Church affairs, which counteracts these dangers. Even the discussions with which the press teems upon Ecclesiastical questions, whether relating to the due observance of formularies or the enforcement of discipline among the Clergy, are evidence of the interest now felt in such things-deeper interest than ever was felt within the remembrance of the present genera

tion. How much fuller of hope is this state of the public mind, than the torpor and apathy which characterized the latter part of the last century; and which, in the commencement of this century, was visible in obstructing measures for rendering the pastoral office more efficient, and for raising a warmer sense of duty among the Clergy! Instead of the selfish and worldly-minded principle, then often quoted as a maxim of practical wisdom, quieta non movere, we have for the last thirty years been occupied in enlarging the boundaries of the fold of Christ-in seeking for guests to his table, among the highways and hedges and every quarter in which ignorant and wandering multitudes are to be found, and in proclaiming from the housetops the message of salvation to all "who have ears to hear."

The natural concomitants of newly-excited zeal have indeed not been wanting. They have been visible in the formation of new sects, in frequent preaching through strife and envy, in detraction from the character of opponents, and sometimes in a restless dislike of regular authority. But against all these impediments a sensible progress has yet been made, and is continually advancing. The duties of the Church, rather than her secular rights and privileges, have engaged the thoughts of men-of the friends of the Church as well as of her enemiesand it is a sign of the awakened sense of true religion among us, that the parochial Clergy have earnestly betaken themselves to the task of proving,

as far as possible, their conviction of its apostolical constitution, not by reviling their opponents and proudly asserting their own superior authority, but by infusing into the services of the Church a devout and holy character, by exhibiting a reverent regard for sacred things, and bringing back their instructions from mere moral teaching to the pattern of apostolic epistles, in which the great truths of revelation are invariably set forth as the motives for purity and integrity and charity in all the relations of life.

According to the same pattern, I wish it could be said that our controversies have kept clear of that fault, often condemned by St. Paul, of frivolous and useless disputations; such as minute inquiries into the ritual practices of early times, the precise form and use of sacred utensils, or of clerical vestments, as if any intrinsic virtue belonged to such things, or any farther obligation lay upon individuals concerning them, than to give a ready obedience to authority in all these points, and especially to avoid the indulgence of private conceit and individual opinion against the general sense of our brethren.

Some advantage has certainly arisen from recent investigation of these things, in correcting careless and indecorous practices inconsistent not only with the letter, but still more with the spirit of ecclesiastical regulations. For whoever has imbibed the spirit of apostolical discipline, can seldom be at a loss how to conduct himself in these matters of detail, and will carefully abstain from appearing to

attach greater importance to a ceremony of human institution than to the spirit of that law which tells us that all things should be done in the Church unto edification; while no man will deny, that, except through a persuasion that offence will be given to weak brethren by alteration of a custom, he is bound for conscience sake to comply with every decent and established rule that may have, for no good reason, fallen into neglect.

Much, however, as these questions have agitated other parts of the kingdom, it is a source of comfort that among us they have caused little disturbance; and I quit the topic in the hope, that while some particular faults of this kind have been amended, the general principle has received strength, and is still improving, that of keeping in view the most perfect standard, and constantly approaching to it, as far as the circumstances in which we are placed permit us to do.

In passing on however from these minor affairs, to questions of greater moment-such, I mean, as involve purity of doctrine, and observance of apostolic order, we have no ground for congratulation as being more exempt than our neighbours from the prevalence of these evils. It is not so much in transgressions of what is called the discipline of the Church among our own members, that our misfortune lies, as in an open denial of those principles of discipline in the universal Church which we maintain

to be of divine authority, by large communities of professed Christians in this part of the country.

Of wild enthusiasts, who plead special revelations made to their own minds-an inward light, of which no one but themselves is sensible-I do not now speak. With this form of error it is useless, I may say hopeless, to contend; for we have no common ground of reason on which to meet. To these may be applied the ancient saying, Sua cuique Deus fit dira cupido. But the more prevailing adversary we have to combat is he, who receiving the same Scriptures with ourselves, and interpreting them in the main as we do, yet seems blind to the frequent injunctions of union and submission to spiritual rulers, with which those Scriptures abound, as well as to the direct condemnation and reproof they contain of all who cause parties and divisions in the Church. These precepts once discarded, there is no end to the multiplication of sects; for sub-division is surely as lawful as division; and the duty of union being once set at nought, there is no limit to the confusion of which God is thus profanely appealed to as the author.

It was this consequence, early showing itself at the period of the Reformation, which brought discredit upon that holy cause, and enabled the adherents of the old system to prove, as they said, by their fruits, how pernicious the doctrines of the Reformers were. The reproach was plausible, and, in many instances, just. But the omission of Episcopacy, which, though not general, marked the constitution of many com