then, I say, is our position, a defensive one; we are assailed, and we defend ourselves and our flocks. There is no plea for calling on us in England to do more than this,—to defend ourselves. We are under no constraint to go out of our way spontaneously to prove charges against the Romanists; but, when asked about our faith, we give a reason why we are this way of thinking, and not that. This makes our task in the controversy incomparably easier, than if we were forced to exhibit an offensive front, or volunteered articles of impeachment against the rival communion. "Let every man abide in the same calling wherein he was called," is St. Paul's direction. We find ourselves under the Anglican regimen; let every one of us, cleric and layman, remain in it, till our opponents have shown cause why we should change, till we have reason to suspect we are wrong. The onus probandi plainly lies with them. This, I say, simplifies our argument, as allowing us to content ourselves with less of controversy than otherwise would be incumbent on us. We have the strength of possession and prescription. We are not obliged to prove them incurably corrupt and heretical; no, nor our own system unexceptionable. It is in our power, if we will, to take very low ground; it is quite enough to ascertain that reasons cannot be brought why we should go over from our side to theirs.

But besides this, there are the Apostle's injunctions against disorder. Did we go over to the Roman Catholics, we should be fomenting divisions among ourselves, which would be a primá facie case against us. Of course there are cases where division is justifiable. Did we believe, for instance, the English Church to be absolutely heretical, and Romanism to be pure and Catholic, it would be a duty, as the lesser evil, to take part in a division which truth demanded. Else it would be a sin. Those dissenters who consider union with the state to be apostasy, or the doctrine of baptismal regeneration a heresy, are wrong, not in that they separate from us, but in that they so think.

And further, a debt of gratitude to that particular branch of the Church Catholic through which God made us Christians, through which we were new born, instructed, and (if so be) ordained to the ministerial office; a debt of reverence and affection towards the

4

How arguments on the offensive

saints of that Church; the tie of that invisible communion with the dead as well as the living, into which the sacraments introduce us; the memory of our great teachers, champions, and confessors, now in Paradise, especially of those of the seventeenth century,Hammond's name alone, were there no other, or Hooker's, or Ken's, bind us to the Anglican Church, by cords of love, except something very serious can be proved against it. But this surely is impossible. The only conceivable causes for leaving its communion are, I suppose, the two following; first, that it is involved in some damnable heresy, or secondly, that it is not in possession of the sacraments: and so far we join issue with the Romanist, for these are among the chief points which he attempts to prove against us.

However, plain and satisfactory as is this account of our position, it is not sufficient, for various reasons, to meet the need of the multitude of men. The really pious and sober among our flocks will be contented with it. They will naturally express their suspicion and dislike of any doctrine new to them, and it will require some considerable body of proof to convince them that they ought even to open their ears to it. But it must be recollected, that there is a mass of persons, easily caught by novelty, who will be too impetuous to be restrained by such advice as has been suggested. Curiosity and feverishness of mind do not wait to decide on which side of a dispute the onus probandi lies. The same feelings which carry men now to dissent, will carry them to Romanism, novelty being an essential stimulant of popular devotion, and the Roman system, to say nothing of the intrinsic majesty and truth which remain in it amid its corruptions, abounding in this and other stimulants of a most potent and effective character. And further, there will ever be a number of refined and affectionate minds, who, disappointed in finding full matter for their devotional feelings in the English system, as at present conducted, betake themselves, through human frailty, to Rome. Besides, ex parte statements may easily suggest scruples even to the more sensible and sober portion of the community; and though they will not at all be moved ultimately from the principle above laid down, viz. not to change unless

clear reason for change is assigned, yet they may fairly demand of their teachers and guides what they have to say in answer to these statements, which do seem to justify a change, not indeed at once, but in the event of their not being refuted.

Thus then we stand as regards Romanism. Strictly speaking, and in the eyes of soberly religious men, it ought not to be embraced, even could it be made appear in some points superior to (what is now practically) the Anglican system; St. Paul even advising a slave to remain a slave, though he had the option of liberty. If all men were rational, little indeed would be necessary in the way of argument, only so much as would be enough to set right the misconceptions which might arise on the subject in dispute. But the state of things being otherwise, we must consult for men as they are; and in order to meet their necessities, we are obliged to take a more energetic and striking line in the controversy than can in strict logic be required of us, to defend ourselves by an offensive warfare, and to expose our opponents' argument with a view of recommending our own.

This being the state of the case, the arguments to be urged against Romanism ought to be taken from such parts of the general controversy as bear most upon practice, and at the same time kept clear of what is more especially sacred, and painful to dispute about. Its adherents' assault on us will turn (it is to be presumed) on strictly practical considerations. They will admit that the English Church approaches in many points very near to themselves, and for that very reason was wrong in separating from them that it is in danger far more as being schismatical than as heretical:-that our Lord commanded and predicted that His Church should be one; therefore, that the Roman and the Anglican communions cannot both be His Church, but that one must be external to it :-that the question to be considered by us is, what our chance is of being the true Church; and, in consequence, of possessing the sacraments :-that we confess Rome to be a branch of Christ's Church, and admit her orders, but that Rome does not acknowledge us; hence that it is safer for us to unite to Rome :-that we are, in matter of fact, cut off from the great body of the Church Catholic, and stand by our

selves :—that we suffer all manner of schism and heresy to exist, and to propagate itself among us, which it is inconceivable that the true Church, guided by the Holy Spirit, should ever do :that this circumstance, if there were no other, being an inconsistency, involves a prima facie case against us, for the consideration of those who are not competent to decide in the matter of doctrine:—that, if our creed were true, God would prosper us in maintaining it, according to the promise:-moreover, were there no other reason, that our forms of administering the sacraments are not such as to make us sure that we receive God's grace in them. These, and the like arguments, we may suppose, will be urged upon the attention of our members, being not of a technical and scholastic, but of a powerfully practical character; and such must be ours to oppose them. Much might be said on this part of the subject. There are a number of arguments which are scarcely more than ingenious exhibitions, such as would be admired in any game where skill is every thing, but which as arguments tell only with those on our own side, while an adversary thinks them unfair. Their use is not here denied in matter of fact, viz. in confirming those in an opinion, who already hold it, and wish reasons for it. When a man is (rightly or wrongly) of one particular way of thinking, he needs, and (it may be added) allowably needs very little argument to support him in it to himself. Still it is right that that argument should be substantially sound; substantially, because for many reasons, certain accidental peculiarities in the form of it may be necessary from the peculiarities of his mind, which has been accustomed to move in some one line and not in another. If the argument is radically unreal, or (what may be called) rhetorical or sophistical, it may serve the purpose of encouraging those who are already convinced, though scarcely without doing mischief to them, but certainly it will offend and alienate the more acute and sensible; while those who are in doubt, and who desire some real and substantial ground for their faith, will not bear to be put off with such shadows. Thus, for instance, to meet the Romanists' charge against us of scepticism, because we do not believe this or that portion of their doctrine, an

argument has been sustained by Protestants, in proof of the scepticism of the Roman system. Who does not see that Romanism erring on the whole in superstition not in unbelief, this is an unreal argument, which will but offend doubting and distressed minds, as if they were played with; however plausibly and successfully it might be sustained in a trial of strength, and whatever justice there really may be in it? Nor is it becoming, over and above its inexpediency, to dispute for victory not, for truth, and to be careless of the manner in which we urge conclusions, however sound and important. Again, when it is said that the saints cannot hear our prayers, unless God reveal them to them; so that Almighty God, upon the Roman theory, conveys from us to them those requests which they are to ask back again of Him for us, we are certainly using an unreal, because an unscriptural argument; Moses on the Mount having the sin of his people first revealed to him by God, that he in turn might intercede with God for them. Indeed, it is through Him" in whom we live, and move, and have our being," that we are able in this life to hear the requests of each other, and to present them to Him in prayer. Such an argument then, while shocking and profane to the feelings of a Romanist, is shallow even in the judgment of a philosopher. Here may be mentioned the unwarrantable application of texts, such as that of John v. 39. "Search the Scriptures," in disproof of the Roman doctrine that the Apostles have handed down some necessary truths by Catholic Tradition; or again, Eccles. xi. 3. "If the tree fall towards the south, or towards the north, in the place where the tree falleth, there it shall be," as a palmary objection to Purgatory.

The arguments, then, which we use, must be such as are likely to convince serious and earnest minds, which are really seeking for the truth, not amusing themselves with intellectual combats, or desiring to support an existing opinion any how. However popular these latter methods may be, of however long standing, however easy both to find and to use, they are a scandal; and, while they lower our religious standard from the first, they are sure of hurting our cause in the end. But again, our arguments must not only be true and practical, they must avoid being abstract arguments and on abstract points. For instance, it will do