Chapter I: AM fully aware that some among the ministers of the church to which I

belong, may have entered into her service without understanding or fully approving the articles to which they subscribed their assent and consent, and consequently may preach doctrines differing from those of the church whose ministers they are. The possibility of the supposed case appears from the painful necessity, under which a late Bishop of London was laid, of depriving an unsound clergyman of his office. But such ministers cannot do this without exposing their own ignorance or hypocrisy; nor can their own unbelief make the faith of the church of no effect. These articles I consider to be the bulwark of orthodoxy or true doctrine in our church,—the means of her preservation from apostacy in the lowest state of spiritual life to which she has been or may be reduced, and of providing for her recovery from such a state whenever God is pleased to breathe upon her. A declaration or subscription to the truth of the Bible would afford no security, as all who bear the Christian name, however heretical or unsound in opinion, pretend to derive their creed from the word of God. I conceive therefore that it is of high importance to have the principal articles of the Christian faith embodied in such a way, that no heretic can, without manifest dishonesty, subscribe to them. If the incumbent or minister of any parish be thus dishonest, having subscribed to what he never cordially believed, and preaching doctrines contrary to the articles he has subscribed, when his incumbency or ministry in that parish ceases by death or any other cause, the articles of the church remain in full force. But if no such test existed, and if the election to church preferment were vested in the people, a single incumbency might so corrupt the opinions of the congregation as to perpetuate heresy from generation to generation.

I continue therefore in the communion of the Church of England, because she has fixed principles, and those principles are, in my judgment, scriptural and “according to godliness.”

REASON VI.

_I maintain communion with the Church of England_, _because her mode of worship is primitive and scriptural_, _and in my judgment best calculated to promote general and individual edification_.

“Mr. Wheatly has proved (referring us to the testimonies of Josephus, Philo, Paul Fagius, &c.) that the ancient Jews did always worship God in public by precomposed forms. Dr. Lightfoot not only affirms the same thing, but sets down both the order and method of their hymns and supplications. Now it appears from the general tenour of the four Gospels, and particularly from Luke iv. 16. that our Saviour habitually attended at the service of the Temple, or of the Synagogue, on every Sabbath-day. {12a} He therefore, by this act, from week to week, gave a public sanction to all the Jewish forms of Divine worship. And had it been otherwise, the Scribes and Pharisees, His implacable foes and persecutors, would not have failed to load Him with their severest reproaches, as an open enemy to all godliness. He lived and died a member of the Jewish Church. He moreover gave a set form of prayer to His Apostles, which has ever since been used in the Christian Church. And it is evident from many passages in the book of their acts, that they also, in conformity to His Divine example, did attend on the service both of the Temple and Synagogue; and it is expressly said, (Acts xvii. 2.) that it was ‘_the manner_’ of Paul so to do. The apostolic practice is therefore another sanction to the same religious institution.

“Mr. Wheatly has also shown, by sundry appeals to ancient Christian writers, that the three first centuries joined in the use of precomposed set forms of prayer, besides the Lord’s prayer and Psalms; and that these were styled by so early a writer as Justin Martyr, who died in the year of our Lord 163, ‘_Common Prayers_;’ by Origen, ‘_Constituted Prayers_;’ and by Cyprian, ‘_Solemn Prayers_.’—From hence the inference is fairly drawn, that a liturgy composed for public use, is warranted by the practice of our Saviour, of His Apostles, and of the primitive Christians.” {12b}

REASON VII.

_I maintain communion with the Church of England_, _because her Liturgy is scriptural in its doctrine_, _plain in its style_, _comprehensive in its addresses to the throne of mercy_, _and therefore adapted to general use_.

IN confirmation of this reason, I shall content myself with the declaration of one, whose testimony may have the more weight in consequence of his being unconnected with the Church whose liturgy he has extolled, the eloquent and candid Robert Hall. At the Leicester Bible Society he spoke thus of our Liturgy. “I believe that the evangelical purity of its sentiments, the chastised fervour of its devotion, and the majestic simplicity of its language, have placed it in the very first rank of uninspired compositions.”

REASON VIII.

_I maintain communion with the Church of England_, _because a separation from her_, _without a sufficient reason_, _would_, _in my opinion_, _be a great sin_.

“THERE is, undeniably, such a sin as _schism_, against which we are precautioned in the New Testament, as being one proof of carnality in a religious professor, (1 Cor. iii. 3.) and as being diametrically opposite to the duty of ‘endeavouring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace’.”

“By _schism_ we are to understand a _causeless_ secession from our Church, into the communion of which we have been solemnly admitted by baptism. And that such a secession would be causeless on our part, is evident from this simple consideration, that our Church neither proposes to our faith any doctrine which is not evidently contained in the Scripture; nor obtrudes on us any practice which the Scriptures forbids, nor restrains us from the observation of any rule which the Scripture enjoins.” {14}

It is not, in my humble opinion, a sufficient reason for a separation from the general Church to which I belong, that the gospel is not preached from the pulpit of the particular place in which I live. To admit for argument sake, the worst case that can occur, viz. that a Socinian clergyman had, through his own hypocrisy in subscription, got possession of the pulpit of my parish; my removal from that parish to another, if I could find no other way of remedying the calamity, would be a less evil than the act of separation, and the encouragement of a spirit of division in the Church of Christ. The word of God prohibits my making such a division; but it no where forbids me to make any sacrifice of temporal emolument or accommodation for the benefit of my own soul, or the souls of my family.

REASON IX.

_I maintain communion with the Church of England_, _because I have discovered no sufficient reason for a separation from her_.