The Sun.
London, England, 1861-06-06 00:00:00

THE SUN, LONDON, THURSDAY EVENING, JUNE 6, 1861.

THE ESSAYS AND REVIEWS.

(From the Brighton Observer.)

The following is the second Supplemental Discourse, de-
livered in Christ Church, New-road, by the Rev. Robert
Ainslie, on Sunday, the 26th May :

The Book of Numbers, chapter 22, a part of the 6th and
12th verses—" Come, now, therefore, I pray thee, curse me
this people, for they are too mighty for me; peradventure
I shall prevail that we may smite them, and that I may
drive them out of the land : 12th verse—And God said unto
Balaam, thou shalt not curse the people, for they are
blessed."

1 am not about to expound the text nor the context, but
on reading the narrative last week I saw the humanity of
the present time expressed in the humanity that Hied
about 3,300 years since. Balak, the king of 'the Moabites,
had some people to deal with who were very troublesome.
Balak knew that they were too mighty for him, and he sent
for Balaam to come and curse them. But God said to him
thou shalt not curse the people, for they are blessed. A
certain bishop of the Established Church has just sent to
the Court of Arches, and in the spirit of Balak has said,
" Come, now, therefore, and curse these Essayists, for they
are too mighty for me ; (a multitude within the Church is
on their side, and a greater multitude outside the Church)
peradventure I shall prevail, that we may smite them, and
that I may drive them out of the Church." But truth,
justice, and charity, which God has given to Englishmen,
say to the bishop, and to the Court of Arches, thou shalt
not curse the people, for they are blessed. They are doing
for humanity what it requires. They are breaking the
fetters from off the human intellect, and the human heart,
and telling men to receive, and walk in the truth wherewith
Christ has made them free. The Moabites are smitten with
fear, and they are crying out, they are too mighty for us,
because of the way in which they have done their work.
Learning and the Christianity of Jesus will not put them
down. Our creeds and canons are useless. Might from
"Balaam" must come, and crush them, but Balaam is told
they are not to be cursed, but to be blessed.
Before I close, I shall again allude to the unwise, the
rash, the obsolete act, of calling down the strong arm of the
law for religions opinions, and enlightened Christian faith.
I must now continue my answer to the question "NI hat
is it that a clergyman of the Church of England is required
to believe ?" The graver and more serious questions which
have keen dogmatically dictated and imposed by ecclesias-
tical authority, and which in thoughtful minds awaken
doubt and create difficulty, are those to which we would
chiefly refer. The first of these, coming under notice this
evening, is what is commonly called the Nicene Creed. It
occurs in the Communion Service of the book of Common
Prayer. The words on which there must necessarily be a
great diversity of opinion among the thousands who give
their assent and consent to them are these "Begotten of
his Father before all worlds, God of God, light of light'
very God of very God, begotten not made, being of one sub-
stance with the Father." There are other versions of them.
In the Ecclesiastical history of Socrates we are told that the
words as determined by the Council were, "We believe in
one Gcd the Father Almighty, Maker of all things, visible
and invisible ; and in our Lord Jesus Christ the Son of God,
the only begotten of the Father, that is of the substance of
the Father; God of God, and light of light, true God:of
true God, begotten not made, consubstantial with the
Father." Eusebius, Bishop of Caesarea, who was present
at the Council, has loft us the following account of that part
of the creed we have already quoted, and which he origi-
nally sent to the Church of which he was the bishop. "We
believe in one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of all
things visible and invisible—and in one Lord Jesus Christ
the Word of God, God of God, light of light, life of life,
the only begotten Son born before all creation, begotten
of God the Father before all ages." It has been said
that this celebrated Council was held in the year
A. D. 325, at the command and in the presence of
Constantine ; but beyond the fact that it was held, very
little intelligence of what actually occurred has come down
to our time. Fifty-six years after the eouncil was held the
creed was enlarged more effectually to confute and suppress
the Arian heresy. Mosheim tells us "that the ancient
writers are neither agreed concerning the time nor place in
which it was assembled, the number of those who sat in
council, nor the bishop who presided in it. No authentic
acts of its famous sentence have been committed to writing,
or at least have been transmitted to our times." It is said
that the time of keeping Easter was determined by this
council, and had it not been for Paphnutius, a bishop of
great influence, a decree would have been passed for the
perpetual celibacy of the clergy.
1. The first remark I make upon the Nicene creed is, that
we have not the exact words determined by the council;
and the circumstance of its alteration and enlargement be-
tween 50 and 60 years afterwards renders it no longer the
creed of the celebrated Council of Nice. 2. Neither the
phrases nor the thoughts, in the extract I have read to you,
are taken from the Scriptures, nor are they sanctioned by
them. 3. The idea of a derived God, untreated yet begot-
ten, is repugnant to Holy Scripture, to common sense, and
is destructive to the scriptural truth of the absolute eter-
nity of the blessed Creator. 4. The attempts made in the
creed ascribed to Athanasius, and in the one under conside-
ration, to define the nature, analyse the essence, and de-
scribe the mode of the Divine existence, have egregiously
failed, and must fail. How different is the laboured scho-
lastic jargon of these two creeds from the simple and' beau-
tiful utterance of JesusiChrist, " God is a spirit, and they
that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth."
Considering the purposes for which these creeds were com-
piled, their utter disregard of and opposition to Scripture,
the scholastic and incomprehensible phrases employed,
the inconsistencies and self-contradictions they contain,
it must be considered a standing miracle in the Esta-
blished Church, that thousands and thousands of the
finest and most highly cultivated minds, from
generation to generation, see so much beauty, simplicity,
intelligibleness, and Scripturalness in these two creeds that
they conscientiously and heartily give their assent and con-
sent to them—at least till they are within the pale of the
Church I Calmly to think of this mental phenomenon
creates great distrust of the integrity of men, when they
are compelled to attain the most sacred objects by means
which ecclesiastics and politicians have declared to be neces-
sary, without any respect to the teaching of Jesus, or the
will of God. How many of those who have denounced the
Essayists are quite sound as to these two creeds it is not
easy to say ; nor in the selecter circle of the Episcopal
Bench is it easy to define the shades of opinion—the private
explanations--the mental reserve—the ineffectual labour to
harmonise these creeds with Scripture. The masses of
confused thought, and the amount of unsettled and un-
happy feeling in the minds of the more conscientious of the
clergy form a sad penalty, daily and nightly paid for posi-
tion, for office, and for power. Release from these two
creeds, and a return to the language and statements of
Scripture, would be for thousands of the clergy an emanci-
pation they would gladly celebrate with a holy carnival.
In the Rubric at the close of the Communion service we
read, " The sacramental bread and wine remain still in
their very natural substances." In the Catechism the child
is taught the doctrines of transubstantiation. The question

is, " What is the inward part, or thing signified? The an-
swer—The body and blood of Christ which are verily and
indeed taken and received by the faithful in the Lord's
Supper. These statements are utterly opposed to each other
—the one is scriptural, the ether unscriptural and Popish;
but all the clergy, including the bishopi, have given their
assent and consent to both of them.

After the communion service, there follows " the public
baptism of infants." I can here but indicate, in a few words,
the extraordinary things and doctrines to which all the
clergy have given their unfeigned assent and consent in this
service. Ist. There shall be for every male child to be bap-
tised two godfathers and one godmother, and for every
female one godfather and two godmothers. How strange it
is that men will not receive Christianity as Jesus left it. It
has been the work of councils and creeds, and churches
perpetually to add to it, encumber, and disfigure it. I know
of nothing more monstrous than what godfathers and god-
mothers undertake to do, and the amount of falsehood
which the Church of England perpetrates and upholds by
the administ ration of infant baptism is fearful and appalling.
clergyman knows two things. First, when he asks
the godfathers and godmothers "Dost thou in the name of
this child renounce the devil and all his works, the vain
pomp and glory of the world with all covetous desires of the
same, and the carnal desires of the flesh, so that thou wilt
not follow nor be led by them ?"he knows they cannot do it
they have no power to do it, that the thing is an absurdity,
and yet be receives the answer, " I renounce them all."
And he knows a second thing and sees it daily before his
eyes—that when nine-tenths of them have made their solemn
promise, they do not intend to keep it. And then he asks
them not what they believe, but in the name of the child,
what he believes or will believe, and he asks or rather demand s
of the stupid as well as of the intelligent godfather, of the
irreligious as well as the religious godmother, the belief of
the child in no less than 15 different theological doctrines,
and every one, without having thought of these questions
before, or having well pondered them, replies in behalf of
the unconscious and helpless babe, " All this I steadfastly
believe." And the clergyman not only sanctions this, but
demands it. All the bishops and all the clergy have given
their assent and consent to it. They know that they have
no warrant forityatSwerhipattuirsec, a
lyl
ee
dt tthheey
"spreadnf or c enforce it
of
infidelity," el ity," when .
Can any man b
such wickedness can be deliberately
per-
petrated in Christian Churches, and by intelligent clergy-
century in England. Among other things
prayed for in behalf of the child I
e surprised from Holy
l
s—" to release him of his
thought has entered into the child's
in the 19th cen
sins" before one solitary tho
mind. In the collect before the address to the godfathers and
godmothers the priest says, " give thy holy spirit tV thie

fant that he may be born again and be made an heir of ever-
lasting salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ"—and im-
mediately the child is baptised the priest declares—" Seeing
now, dearly beloved brethren, that this child is regenerate
and grafted into the body of Christ's Church," and this is
said over every one of the millions of children baptised by
the priest of the Established Church—and then without
any proof or evidence of the fact, he dares with a temerity
as to the Supreme Being, paralleled I admit in the Ordina-
tion Service—to thank God for the regeneration of the child.
" We yield the e hearty thanks most merciful Father that it
hath pleased thee to regenerate this infant by thy Holy
Spirit" --this is d °he habifually and deliberately—and by vir-
tue of the power received by the priest from the bishop in a
reformed Protekant. Episcopal Church, established by law.
The high Anglican does it, and glories in it; the broad church-
men do it, 'but they are ashamed of it—they must do it or
become Nonconformists—the low church bishops sanction
it and practice it, and so do the low church clergy, but a ma-
jority of them' do not believe it. They attempt to explain
it by all that is evasive and jesuitical ; they use palliatives
for their conduct and opiates for their consciences ; but they
know that the whole thing has no warrant from Holy Scrip-
ture, and that. common sense and common honesty utterly
repudiate it.

I am obliged to pass over many things I should like to
notice, and to touch lightly other things on which I oughtto
dwell, but there is so ranch for comment and censure that
it would require a volume instead of two or three discourses
to do justice to the varied topics to which the clergy have
given their assent and consent. See that brief but meagre
document called the Church Catechism, " which has to be
learned by every person before he be brought to be confirmed
by the bishop."
The first thing that a child is taught to do is to utter false-
hood respecting his baptism. He is taught to say "Wherein
I was made a member of Christ, a child of God, and an in-
heritor of the kingdom of heaven." This is theologically
untrue ; it is false as a matter of fact, as proved by the state
of children and of society generally. The high Anglican
party believe this Romish dogma the low Evangelical party,
including their bishops, do not believe it. Nevertheless the
Act of Uniformity compels them, miens volens, to carry it
out and practice it. And then the child has to repeat what
his godfathers and godmothers promised he should do and
believe, and is required to say that he is bound to believe
and to do what they promised on his behalf. All this is
worthy of the darkestdays of popery and priestly power ;
in-
fusing into the mind of the child all that is repugnant to
scripture—inimical to a sound faith in the gospel and dero-
gatory to human nature, making the human being a mere
believing machine. After the child has rehearsed the
articles of his belief, the question is put to him " What
dost thou chiefly learn in these articles of thy belief ?"
The " believing machine" is then made to utter without
any explanation or qualification, the following tritheistic
confession of faith :—First, I learn to believe in
God the Father, who has made me and all the
world ; secondly, in God the Son, who has
redeemed me and all mankind ; and thirdly, in God the
Holy Ghost, who sanctifieth me, and all the elect people of
God." After this the child is taught to utter the Popish
doctrine respecting the sacraments—that there are two only
as generally necessary to salvation—Baptism and the Lord's
Supper. 'Where is there in Holy Scripture a shadow of
proof or of authority for this Popish teaching, and to which
all the bishops and clergy have given unfeignedly their as-
sent and consent. Now we come to an unscriptural service
that can only be performed by a bishop. It is the Popish
sequel to a Popish baptism, and a Popish catechism : it is
called "The Order of Confirmation." The qualifications
in order to be confirmed are, " to be able to say the Creed,
the Lord's Prayer, the ten Commandments, and the shorter
catechism, and to acknowledge that they are bound to be-
lieve and to do all those things which their godfathers and
godmothers undertook for them." How humiliating it is,
as a man, an Englishman, a disciple of Christ, merely to
read such priestly dicta when sanctioned by the Church of
England, and how the cheek must blush and burn of him,
who conscious that the whole thing has no warrant from
Scripture, is compelled to take part in this ecclesiastical
pageant, and to strengthen the buttress of the priestly hie-
rarchy. Conceive of a motley group of all grades of society
flocking from villages and towns to a central spot to be con-
firmed. And then listen to the Bishop's communication
that he makes to Almighty Grd—" Almighty and everlast-
ing God who has vouchsafed to regenerate these thy servants
by water and the Iloly Ghost, and hast given unto them
forgiveness of all their sins :" this is said to God by a Pro-
testant Bishop. 'When did he hear it ? 'Who told him of it ?
Is it not possible that he may be in error? "Who hathknown
the mind of the Lord or who hath been his councillor ?" Is
it not presumptuous to tell God, without any authority,
what he has done, and is it net wicked and even blasphemous
to tell God that he has given to some hundreds of children
(and to repeat it at every confirmation) the forgiveness of
all their sins, when at any rate in many cases he has done
nothing of the kind ? But to this popish and unscriptural
service the bishops and clergy have " unfeignedly given
their assent and consent."

I pass over the Marriage Service and come to the " Visi-
tation of the Sick." And here we have at once the rankest
popery and blasphemy. The Rubric orders—that the sick
person shall be moved to make a special confession of his
sins—if he feel his conscience troubled with any weighty
matter. After which confession the priEst shall absolve
him (if he humbly and heartily desire it) after this sort.
Our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath left power to his Church
to absolve all sinners who truly repent and believe in him ;
of His great mercy forgive thee thine offences ; and by His
authority committed to me, I absolve thee from all thy sins
in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy
Ghost. Amen.

The archbishops, bishops, priests, and deacons have one
and all of them unfeignedly given their assent and consent
to this wicked assumption of a divine prerogative. Where
is it that Jesus Christ hath left power to his Church to
absolve all sinners ? Who constitute the Church—the
laity as well as the clergy ? Have the laity, as a part of the
Church, power to absolve all sinners ? Have all the clergy
power to do it ? Certainly not, it is confined to the arch-
bishops, bishops, and priests. Where is the proof and
where the authority of Holy Scripture for any human being
to forgive the sins which a fellow-creature has committed,
not against himself but against God ? There is none what-
ever. The priest says it has been left to the Church and com-
mitted to him. When was this done, and where in Holy
Scripture is the proof of it ? In the truly popish style, some
of them would fall back upon the extraordinary powers con-
ferred upon the Apostles, forgetting that these men had
proofs to bring forward which no men since the days of the
Apostles dare to allege. On one occasion you remember a
man sick of the palsy was brought lying on a bed to Jesus.
Jesus said to him, " Son, be of good cheer, thy sins be for-
given thee." Certain of the scribes said within themselves
"This man blasphemeth," and Jesus knowing their thoughts
said, " Wherefore think ye evil in your hearts ? For whe-
ther is it easier to say Thy sins be forgiven thee,' or to
say, ' Arise and walk ?' But that ye may know that the
Sun of Man hath power on earth to forgive sins, (then saith
he to the sick of the palsy,) Arise, take up thy bed, and
go unto thine house ;' and he arose and departed to his
house." Now, whenever I see an Archbishop, a Bishop, a
Priest, or any one forgive sins in this manner, and with such
proof of his divine mission, I will receive him as from God ;
but falsely assuming a power which no man possesses—and

officially employing it as a part of a Church system, whoso-
ever he may be, I will say with the scribe of olden time,
" This man blasphemeth." It is but justice to say that
hundreds and thousands of the clergy, who have unfeign-

edly given their assent and consent to it, ignore and repu-
diate it, and in their hearts utterly reject it. We now come
to the solemn and truly grand service for the " Burial of the

Deatrue Church theory : —the child is regenerated by the priestly
';--This service is constructed like the others on the
administration of baptism—then be is confirmed—and is in
every way treated as a true Christian, whatever may be his
character or his opinions. If a man or woman has been
baptized and has not been excommunicated, it matters nob
the wickedness of his or her life—the manner of his or her
death—or whether they die athiests or infidels, the clergyman
is bound to bury such a person under the severest penalty for
Conceive of the feelings of an honest
refusal. IV by should he refuse ? Having known before
an when the worst and lowest female
his ordination what is the Ecclesiastical law of the case and
ht to him for burial ; or when the most
behaerryllegYorduie is the corpse. There is the clergyman.
:ginned man—who by his crimes is brought
thatoptofrconscientiousoth iehs egatrparisheaa mustvne
d. oaseTbbl
1 There are some of the worst people in the parish around
the grave, and they listen and hear the priest say :—" For-
asmuch as it bath pleased Almighty God of His great mercy
to take unto himself the soul of our dear brother here de-
parted, we therefore commit his body to the ground ; earth
to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust, in sure and certain
hope of the resurrection to eternal life, through our Lord
Jesus Christ." Again the priest says :—" We give thee
hearty thanks for that it bath pleased thee to deliver this
our brother out of the miseries of this sinful world." Again:
—" When we shall depart this life, we may rest in Him,
as our hope is this our brother doth." What is more
natural than after the funeral is over the attendants should
talk about it. And the inevitable conclusion is, that what
the priest said in the presence of God, in such a solemn ser-
vice—over a dead body—is either true or false. If true, the
wretched man is all safe ;—nothing more could be said over
the holiest man that ever lived—plainer, more definite, and
more consolatory to the weeping mourners. If, on the other
hand, it is untrue, and the con
science of the priest tells him
it is a most unsuitable service to read over a profligate dead
man or dead woman, what can the attendants think of the
minister who thus deceives the mourners and degrades him-
self? Verily his position is not to be envied.
Then follows the Commination Service, the like of which
is certainly not to be found in Christ's Holy Gospel. Ten
distinct curses are deliberately pronounced under the
C4risfian disPeusatioll upon diffigent classes of offenders,

many of which were offences against and the curses were
the penalties inflicted by the Jewish law, which, however
loudly :the clergyman may pronounce them, and however
fervently he may desire them to be inflicted the civil magis-
trate in England can take no cognisance of them as such.
To the Commination Service all bishops, priests, and dea-
cons have unfeignedly given their assent and consent. We
shall now very briefly refer to the form and manner of mak-
ing deacons, and of making priests. It is not pretended
that they are copied from any model contained in the New
Testament. An archdeacon takes the lead, of whose office
the Scripture is silent. Before we enter upon the services
themselves let us listen to the Rubric. "No man shall be
accounted, or taken to be a lawful bishop, priest, or deacon
in the Church of England, or suffered to execute any of the
said functions except he be called, tried, examined, and ad-
mitted thereunto according to the form hereafter following,
or hath had formerly Episcopal consecration or ordination."
Now at that time such was the power of the Church, and-
such was the abuse of the civil law, that no other Church
was permitted to exist but the Church of England. Any
one who said that any other congregation was a true church,
or any minister not of the Church of England was a true
minister, was to be excommunicated and punished accord-
ingly. Be it remembered that the theory of the Church of
England remains the same ; the rubrics are unchanged, and
the canons and ecclesiastical constitutions have not been
revoked. Nevertheless a great change has taken place in
defiance of the Episcopal power. Education and public
opinion have triumphed, and while the theory of the Eng-
lish Church remains in all the bigotry and uncharitableness
of a past age, religious libeity has been secured for all.
There are two or three things in the manner of making
deacons, and of making priests, that cannot be passed
over. At the ordination of a deacon, the bishop puts
this question :—" Do you trust that you are inwardly moved
by the Holy Ghost to take upon you this office and minis-
tration to serve God for the promotion of His glory and
the edifying of His people ?" And the candidate has to
reply :—" I trust so." He is not called upon to banish and
drive away strange doctrine ; nor has he any miraculous
powers committed to him by the Bishop. But the fami-
liarity of the Bishop's knowledge of the mind of God in
relation to all the Deacons ordained is to me unscriptural,
presumptuous, and necessarily untrue. There may be ten,
twenty, or thirty Deacons ordained at the same time. Some
of them may be morally unfit; others of them may be in-
tellectually unfit ; and although they may be as the Rubric
requires, " learned in the Latin tongue," their tastes,
habits, and abilities may not be adapted to the pulpit, nor
to the clerical work. And yet the Bishop in prayer uses
these words :—" Almighty God, giver of all good things,
who of thy great goodness has vouchsafed to accept and
take these tby servants unto the office of Deacons in thy
Church." I his is fearfully presumptuous. The Bishop
has accepted and taken them, but what proof has he that
the individuals he has just ordained have been put into the
office by Almighty God ? Not a Deacon has been ordained
since the founding. of the Church, but what the Bishop has
made over him the declaration in the solemn language of
prayer which I have just quoted : the worst one that has
ever disgraced the Church; and the best one that has ever
adorned it. But now we come to the form and manner of
ordaining priests. The candidate for the order of priest-
hood is not asked if he is inwardly moved by the Holy
Ghost : that question is unnecessary, as will presently
appear. The candidate has to promise to be ready wife
all faithful diligence to banish and drive away all erro-
neous and strange doctrines contrary to God's Word ;
to promote peace, and reverently to obey his superiors ;
and at length kneeling down the bishop and the
priests present lay their hands upon the head of the
candidate, and the bishop uses these words :—" Receive
tee Holy Ghost for the office and work of a priest in the
Church of God now committed to thee by the imposition of
our hands. Whose sins thou dost forgive they are for-
given, and whose sins thou dost retain they are retained ;
and be thou a faithful dispenser of the Word of God and of
His holy sacraments in the name of the Father, and of the
Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen." These are not the
words of a prayer, but of a charge, or command, and the
bishop imperatively says, "Receive the Holy Ghost." The
worst bishop who has ever sat upon the bench has said this
to the worst priest that has ever disgraced the Church. Let
us now understand who it is the bishop means by the Holy
Ghost ? The Creed of St. Athanasius will give us the in-
formation. The Holy Ghost is one of the persons of the
Trinity, of co-equal glory and co-eternal majesty with the
Father. Uncreate, Incomprehensible, Almighty; the Holy
Ghost is of the Father and of the Son. neither made, nor
created, nor begotten, but proceeding"—This is the bishop's
view of the Holy Ghost, and yet without any hesitation,
this mortal assumes the power of giving a God, an eternal
and almighty Being, to his fellow men. He says, " Receive
the Holy Ghost," and then tells him, a fellow creature, a
fellow sinner, " Whose sins thou Most forgive they are
forgiven, and whose sins thou dost retain they are re-
tained." Some who are ordained believe what the bishop
says, others do not; but all are obliged to use the power in
the visitation of the sick and to absolve sinners if they de-
sire it. Bishop Wilberforce, in a sermon delivered at an
Ordination in 1845, put the matter plainly and forcibly—he
said, "All this is blasphemous frivolity; if it be not deepest
truth." I believe it to be blasphemous frivolity ; deepest
truth it cannot be. Common sense is against it ; both
as to a bishop giving the Holy Ghost and conferring
upon a fellow creature the power of forgiving
sins committed against Almighty God. Holy
Scripture of tee Apostlesevercertainly
they committed to no man the power to forgive sins. It is
the Notn
Holye
Ghost,"
an assumption of power worthy only of the severest censure,
while there is no attempt to prove it by the working of
daredto sa is
y, against
~lte ce
miracles: To assume an invisible power over an invisible
substance in man in its relation to an invisible God is one
thing; but visibly to exert power over a paralytic limb or a
dead body, is another thing. When I see a man doing the
visible, I may have some faith in his doing the invisible. It
is not, however, the disrespect nor the contempt that men
bring upon themselves for such wicked arrogance and blas-
phemy, but it is the injury inflicted upon Christianity ; and
until there is a thorough reform, national Christianity will
be chiefly valued as a means of getting a good living, and by
political influence aspiring to the highest preferment in the
gift of the Crown and of the Prime Minister.
But we are on the way to great changes. Trivial incidents
often occasion great results. The Bishop of London has
truly said in his recent publication, "If infidelity is to be
resisted, it can only be by our opposing true criticism to the

false, and being able to bring as great an amount of philo-
sophical and historical knowledge and deep research to aid
the cause of Christian truth as are sure tG be employed in
the assaults by which it is menaced." But the Bishop of
Salisbury prefers compulsion and the strong arm of the law,
and has therafore during the past week declared an Eccle-
siastical war. Fair, candid, and legitimate reason, and a
just, honourable, and learned appeal to Holy Scripture, he
ignores, and seeks for might against truth. He has given
notice to the Rev. Rowland Williams, of Lampeter College,
that he will immediately commence legal proceedings
against him in the Court of Arches. It has not publicly
transpired on what part of his Review of Bunsen the proceed-
ings will be founded. The terms used in the letter are not

those of a truth seeker, a philosopher, a biblical student, a
disciple of Jesus who venerates Holy Scripture and is de-
sirous of bringing the Christianity of the 19th ceutury
into harmony with that taught by Jesus Christ. The
Bishop has nothing to do with that. The defence of
Christianity he leaves to others. In the true spirit of a
bishop who has a seat in the House of Lords, he undertakes
to def,nd -what was done in the time of Elizabeth, and re-
done in the time of Charles 11. He has been on scent for
heresy for some months, and some genial wind and shower
have directed him to the right track, and with all the keen-
ness and gladness of one who has found something in his
enemy that will enable him to take vengeance, this Chris-
tian Bishop under " the best advice" pounces upon his
prey. His words are these in a letter he has just addressed
to the Archdeacon of Dorset : "As I believe on the very
best advice that the writer cf this Essay (the Rev. Dr.
Rowland Williams) has brought himself within the reach
of the Ecclesiastical law, I cannot escape from the conclu-
sion that I am bound to endeavour to show that the Church
of England does protect her members against such false
teaching as is contained in different parts of his essay."
The Bishop has had " the best advice" on what subject—
the unreasonableness, the unscripturalness of the Dr.'s

teaching? nothing of the sort, but "that he has brought
himself within the reach of the Ecclesiastical law." What
he has written may be true, Christian, and worthy of the
Ist and 19th centuries, but about that the Bishop does not
trouble himself; he will put the Dr. into the Ecclesiastical
Court, and he will agitate the country and convulse the
Church in support of Ecclesiastical law. All moderate
men upon the Bench, and all wise clergymen who have not
attained that honour, will deprecate this rash act.
It is not every old building in a state of great dilapi-
dation, that is proof against a hurricane ; nor is it every
Church, with such obsolete laws, doctrines, superstitions,
and ceremonies, that can come forth unscathed from the
ordeal of popular criticism and the renewed cry for Church
reform which will be heard from one end of the kingdom to
the other. Admit, for a moment, that Dr. Williams is in
advance of Ecclesiastical law and nearer to Scripture and
primitive Christianity, is he to be punished for this? And
is all the superstition, the unscriptural statements, the
popish rites and ceremonies and doctrines, with the usurped
episcopal power of the Church of England, to be retained
and upheld ? It may be that Dr. Walter Ker Hamilton,
Bishop of Salisbury, in his innocent joy that he has caught
an Essayisi, in his ecclesiastical trap, may be bitten before
he lets him go; and though not blind, like Sampson, nor
possessed of Herculean power, he may cause such a shock
to the crazy old edifice of Ecclesiastical law, that Dr. Wil•
Hams may be the last victim whose persecution shall dis-
honour the Church, and lead to, and bring about a reform
band upon the Christianity and laws of the New Totameilts