of the non-eternal sonship, and of the sinful humanity, of our Lord, and such as pre-existerianism in regard to his human body or soul, with their respective clippings and offscourings of false doctrine, clearly prove that this is not the time for abating one particle of the only antagonist-testimony which meets and detects such errors in all their obliquities and distortions,—that this is not the time for relinquishing a single stated season of reciting it in, and with, our congregations? Only let us be the more careful to point out at those seasons in our sermons, its true scriptural common-sense meaning.

The result, however, upon the whole, of the revision of the Liturgy in the Protestant Episcopal Church of the United States, is asserted, on the authority of superior clergymen of that Church, to have been "its annual increase." For the only two points (it is said) to be settled among the people there are, first, the evidence for the episcopal ministry in three orders; and, secondly, for the use of a pre-composed Liturgy. As soon as a person is sincerely convinced on these two points, he joins the protestant episcopal Church, as a matter of sacred obligation ;"-that is, I suppose, if he escape the toils which Popery is now extensively spreading in the United States.* For there

* The American Almanack for 1832, reckons the number

the inquirer, heart-sick of the distraction and scepticism growing out of their fatal experiment of having no established religion at all, often gladly takes refuge in any Church, however corrupt, which maintains some settled rules of doctrine and government. But in this country,— where the great body of modern Dissenters, avowedly hostile to our established profession of sound Christianity simply because it is established, have been protected hitherto, by means of that very Establishment, from tasting all the bitter fruits of separation,-it is to be feared that similar effects to those in America would not follow a similar revision of our Liturgy. Probably not a single individual would now return in consequence of it to the bosom of the National Church, nor would future secessions be effectually obviated.

Still, under present circumstances, the questions have been, and will be, bandied about in various quarters, "What is the present Christian duty of the Church of England? Ought certain passages in her Liturgy to be altered or modified, with which many weak and some tender of Roman Catholics in the United States at 500,000; for 1833, at 800,000. The Protestant Episcopal Church is estimated at 600,000, in both 1832 and 1833! See also the pregnant Charge at the Visitation in Hampshire, in 1834, by William Dealtry, D.D. F.R.S., Chancellor of the Diocese, p. 25.

consciences, however unreasonably, have been aggrieved;-witness the successive complainants, from the members of the Lower House of Convocation in 1562, (who lost their motion for alterations only by a majority of one,*) down to Non-conformists at this day? Or would not such readjustments of her already sound formularies be made at the risk of shaking fundamental principles, or impairing essential truths?" Again;

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ought not we that are strong, to bear," in the present instance, the infirmities of the weak, and not to please ourselves; but every one to please his neighbour for his good to edification, even as Christ pleased not himself?" (Rom. xv. 1-4.) Or is not this a case in which to please ourselves would be to violate conscience case in which, in order "that the truth of the Gospel may continue with us, we must not give place, no not for an hour?" (Gal. ii. 5.)

Now where can these questions be set at rest? Where could the revision, if it were really requisite, be prepared for the royal and legislative approbation or allowance? And where, if inadmissible, can the reasons for its rejection be at all definitively and authoritatively set forth, except in an efficient Convocation? Without this settlement, will not every speculator be still meddling,

* See the particulars in Burnett's Hist. Ref. vol. iii. pt. 1, p. 443. 8vo. Edn. 1830.

and, to the continual injury of truth and peace, be still trying his own feeble hand at corrections, which mighty masters in piety and learning in former times trembled to attempt?

CHAPTER VI.

The Church's own consultations the best means of publishing her testimony in regard to various false doctrines.

A FARTHER step towards preserving the doctrinal purity and promoting the practical efficiency of THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND, might be to circulate among her members, and to publish her testimony in pastoral addresses, or synodal epistles, drawn up by the Bishops and Clergy in Convocation, and adapted to guard, inform, encourage, and exhort their flocks and the people at large, in respect of false doctrines, or other spiritual dangers and temptations characteristic of the times. I am not aware that the use of precisely this method can be traced in any convocational precedents; but representations of the existing state of irreligion in the country have been sometimes agreed to and