by a corresponding performance of mine. If you faithlessly shrink from this, then surely you will see and acknowledge, the baseness (I cannot use a milder term) of seeking to screen yourselves, by joining in a senseless outcry against the church.

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LETTER VI.

PRACTICAL ABUSES IN THE CHURCH, NO JUST GROUND FOR SECESSION.

MY DEAR

I Now come to a statement, on which you seem to lay much stress. You say, that a church consists, not of articles and formularies, but of living men; and, without denying the orthodoxy of the church of England, in theory, you nevertheless separate from her, alleging that her abuses are so gross, as to render a faithful ministry within her pale impracticable; and that, consequently, no child of God should continue in her communion.

But why should existing abuses in practice, however gross, render a faithful ministry impracticable, or justify secession ? The abuses were not enacted by the authority of

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the ruler and although they may with faithless (and I am willing, though sorry, to add, disgraceful and dangerous) supineness, be connived at, and even, in a degree, practised, by some of those, whose duty it is to put an end to them; yet they are in no way binding upon the consciences of christian members or ministers. Let none such partake of them; but carefully avoid them, and boldly and honestly protest against them.

You say, such protests are vain. The abuses form part and parcel of the system. Amendment is hopeless. And therefore, in order to separate from the abuses, the system itself must be given up altogether. It is as radically Babylonish as popery itself, yea, in some respects, it is worse than popery: for popery recognizes some great truths (the continuance of miracles for instance) which the reformers overlooked, and which modern evangelicals spurn with contempt. Yes, you exclaim, the system is doomed of God, and unfit for spiritual men !

Gently, my friend: you take hastily for granted, what I think you cannot prove— to wit, that the abuses form part and parcel

of the system. I think otherwise: and I believe, that if amendment be hopeless, it is not so from the nature of the case itself, but from the characters of the persons in whom is the management. If we cannot accomplish this desirable result, still I must deny the justice of your inference, and maintain, on the contrary, that no practical abuses can justify secession. Is a son or a brother called upon to separate himself from the domestic circle and take up his abode in a strange house, because of certain practices in the family which he condemns, in which he cannot himself participate, and which he cannot prevail with his parents to have rectified? Would he be justifiable in yielding to such selfishness? or is it not rather his higher, nobler duty to deny himself, to bear his cross, and with respectful firmness to maintain his place, as a constant protester against the evil, a constant remembrancer of the good? Is a member of our senate called upon to forsake his place in either house of parliament, because of abuses in legislation which he deems ruinous, and against which it appears utterly vain for him any longer to

raise his voice? In every such case, is not secession unfaithfulness? Instead of standing in the breach to resist the evil to the uttermost, is not the seceder doing all he can towards a fulfilment of his own predictions of evil? Jonah like, he would rather the evil should come, than that he should be proved a false prophet. Alas, for human nature! Much that wears the lofty aspect of indignant patriotism and impassioned zeal, can be traced to a source no higher than selfishness and pride.

The true prophets of God lived and died members of the Jewish church, protesting against her abuses throughout their whole ministry. They proclaimed her corruptions with unsparing severity. They exhibited her as having no soundness in her, from the sole of the foot even unto the head. They enlarged upon her various abominations and immoralities: yet they seceded not. They did not say, "A church consists not of covenanted articles, but of living men; and the living men now in the management, are so sunk in abuse, and so impenetrable to reproof, that amendment is hopeless, and therefore secession is inevitable.'