magistrates and civil ordinances, to suspect and investigate the grounds of their dissent, and to inquire whether their parents may not have erred through ignorance; in the minds of these, more happily initiated, the obligations of loyalty and subjection will gather strength from being intertwined with the demands of filial respect. They will hold fast the profession of their faith without wavering and the form, of sound words which has been committed to them, without departing from it (Heb. x. 23; 2 Tim. i. 13).

We have, however, far more cogent reasons for conforming to the established church, than the respect due to civil institutions, and the duty of "honouring father and mother." It has claims on us as subjects, and as sons and daughters :but we are more especially required to comply with it, as obedient Christians.

Divisions are contrary to the precepts of Christ and his Apostles; to the Christian profession, to the peace, the unity, the proper character of the church of Christ: and, lastly, they are hin drances to the Gospel (Rom. xvi. 17). If our Lord, in his human capacity, prayed to his heavenly Father, that his disciples might be one, even as he and that Father are one (John, xvii. 11), and this to the express end that the world might be lieve him to be the Messiah :-if St. Paul represents the church, the mystical body of Christ, under the similitude of a natural body, from which

none of the members should be dissevered (1 Cor. xii. 27; Ephes. v. 30; Galat. iii. 28; Ephes. iv. 4-6);-if the same Apostle exhorts Christians to humility, charity, and adherence to the form of sound words (2 Tim. i. 13), condemning as strenuously, heresies, strifes, divisions, vain jangling, and oppositions of false science (1 Tim. iv. 6, and vi. 4, 20, 21, &c.); if he derives a further argument for unity among Christians, from the unity subsisting among the doctrines and ordinances of the church (1 Cor. xii. 13, and Ephes. iv. 4, 6); if he beseeches the Ephesians to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace (Ephes. iv. 1—3); the Philippians to stand fast in one spirit, and with one mind (Phil. i. 27); and the Romans, with one mind and one mouth, to glorify God (Rom. xv. 6): if he conjures some disciples to be like-minded, having the same love, of one accord and of one mind; by the consolation of Christ, by the comfort of love," by all that is valuable to believers; further, if he promises that the God of love and peace will dwell with those who live in peace and are of one mind (2 Cor. xiii. 11):-and if mutual charity, the test of Christ's disciples (John, xiii. 35), cannot easily be supported independently of this consolidation of minds: if these things be so, and they are only so many excerpts from the Bible, we shall not hastily and petulantly condemn those as formalists, who are ear

nest in enforcing the duty of unity, and in exposing the danger of schism. But further: since St. Paul dissuades his brethren against dissensions and divisions, even by the solemn adjuration of the Lord Jesus (1 Cor. i. 10); since he numbers heresies, seditions, variance, emulations, envyings, among the works of the flesh (Gal. v. 20); and directs that those who caused these divisions and offences, preaching Christ out of contention, subverting houses, teaching what they ought not, and understanding not what they affirm, creeping into houses, and leading captive silly women (Phil. j. 16; Tit. i.,11; 1 Tim. i. 7; 2 Tim. iii. 6), should be marked and avoided (Rom. xvi. 17; Tit. iii. 10) since another Apostle condemns those who separate themselves from the church, as sensual, having not the Spirit (Jude, 19); and since the denunciation is extended to persons of itching ears, who, not satisfied with the doctrine of their appointed ministers, heap to themselves unauthorized teachers*; and thus participate the guilt of schismatical teaching, by encouraging it; nay, since, by disunion and schism, we cause OFFENCES, or hindrances-offences contrary to the doctrine of love (Rom. xvi. 17), and hindrances to the gospel of peace (2 Cor. xiii. 11, and Ephes. vi. 15), as well as to that order which St. Paul recommended (1 Cor. xiv. 40); unity

must be regarded as still more desirable and important.

There is undoubtedly a degree of strong conviction, which may supersede all these considerations. But strong it must be: a complete conviction of the understanding; after long, patient, and unbiassed investigation, The desertion of a religion consecrated by the allegiance we owe to governors and laws; a religion pure in its doctrines, apostolic in its ordinances, spiritual in its forms, simple in its ceremonies; sublime, rational, conducive to sound morals; and sufficient for eternal salvation: a religion bearing every token of its being the ark of God, the church of Christ preserved for ages, but purified from base corruptions; more especially when this is the religion in which we have been trained: the desertion of such a system, we must needs allow, is not by any to be enterprised rashly and wantonly; to gratify itching ears, or fickle propensities, or slight objections to minor arrangements; and that man incurs a heavy responsibility, who forsakes the established church of England, without being able fully to disprove to his own mind, by satisfactory reasoning, its pretensions to all the characters of a true church, above recited. But, alas! how scanty is the number of dissidents, who are competent to investigate the merits and principles of the church abandoned! how few take the trouble of pursuing such an investigation! Even of those few, how pre

carious is the situation! Like doves escaped from the ark, they may attempt to nestle on the waves; but may, perchance, in the end, regret that they had not abided in a habitation of greater safety*.

Nothing less than SINFUL terms of communion can justify a separation such as the idolatries of the church of Rome. Now the old dissenters, the Brownists, accused the English church as idolatrous; and the old non-conformists conformed as laymen. It was reserved for late years to deem schism justifiable on slight grounds. The Scotch Presbyterians, in their memorial to the House of Commons, of 1790, allow that their members may occasionally hold communion with the church of England. But it is remarked by the Presbyterian Assembly of England, in 1649 (Papers for Accommodation, p. 48), that separation from churches, visibly and ordinarily, with whom you may occasionally conform, seemeth a most unjust separation. The Irish Presbyterians allow, that Episcopalians belong to the true church of Christ-that presbytery is not essential, and has no divine right, &c.-Nicholson's Letters to Rogers, p. 17, 1810. That the French Protestants are of the same opinion, is manifest from Bingham's Apology of the French Church, &c.

If, then, occasional communion may be admitted, why not perpetual? or, why should the sin of schism be hazarded, if the things complained of are such non-essentials as to admit of occasional communion? Nothing, says Dr. Bennet, can justify non-conformity, except the siN of conformity.

New Testament,

Nor can the am

See Hooker, Collinson's Abridg. p. 195, 332. Unity, so strongly recommended in the can only be kept up by visible communion. phibious men, who divide their affections betwixt a church and conventicle, be excused from the charge of schism. Each visit to the conventicle is a schismatical act. St. Cyprian would not have permitted men, after it, to join in the church com, munion. See Barwick, p. 62.

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