hand of time has thrown over them, and calls attention to them afresh-if, while he is blind to all the honors of their 'scutcheon, he is ever mindful of its blots-if he cares much less about the injury which the general cause of religion may sustain by his exhibition of their defects, than for the pleasure he seeks in their humiliation-hesitates little to wound religion, provided he can inflict the stab through their side can he scripturally account for this conduct except on the principle of a factious spirit?

9. While the reader very properly contends that there are doctrines which constitute the essence of Christianity; which characterise it as a system, and make it what it is; and that all are capable of perceiving these doctrines, and bound to receive them; he has no doubt also heard of those constitutional varieties of individual minds which naturally lead men to view the same object under different aspectsone, giving a preference to this outward modification of religion, and another to that; yet both agreeing in the reception of essential truth. Now, if he often wonders at the obtuseness, and animadverts on the perverseness, of those who thus differ from him in religion, without ever giving them the benefit of those obvious reflections; if he never places himself, by a slight and very common effort of the imagination, in their circumstances, nor asks himself how much like them he should probably have been in their situation; never makes allowances for the educational and other influences through which they have passed; or,

making these reflections, feels no remission of his displeasure towards them, how can he explain this inconsistency except by confessing to a bigoted spirit?

10. The Bible enjoins, and no doubt the judgment of the reader assents to, the duty of prayer for all men. Perhaps he is ready to add that he performs this duty. But if there be a class of Christians for whom he could not easily bring himself to pray by name; if he only brings himself to comprehend them in his intercessions at all by concealing them (so to speak) among a multitude of other objects-by allowing them to pass under some term of vague generalisation-surely he does not deceive himself by supposing that he prays for them.

Had the Jewish high-priest erased the name of one of the tribes from his breast-plate, and yet pleaded that he prayed for that tribe when he prayed for all Israel, could the mockery have passed? And if the reader can thus carry a feeling of dislike towards those supposed into the presence of God-to the very throne of grace-if he can only advert to them there as if they were enemies-can pray specifically and cordially for unbelievers, while he is silent concerning them; in what way can he account for his conduct except by ascribing it to a sectarian spirit?

11. The cause of God is one, and his Church one. Every believer has his appropriate place in that one Church and every instance of usefulness takes place in virtue of that one design of mercy. And you, reader, doubtless, profess

to believe, whether formally or not, in the holy catholic church, and in the communion of saints. But if, instead of rising to the contemplation of this great whole, your habitual conception of the Church is confined to your own party-if when that is languishing you feel as if the entire kingdom of God were in a crisis, though, perhaps, every other section of the Church is flourishing-if by laboring in the vineyard, you mean laboring only in a party corner, and evince dislike at associating with the members of another party, even when the work to be done can be accomplished only by such association-in fine, if your best sympathies circulate only among those of your own denomination, how can you account for it or describe it, but as a sectarian spirit?

If, as the result of these hints for selfexamination, the reader should begin to suspect that he is personally implicated in the subject, he will further evince his impartiality by considering the evils of schism.

CHAPTER VII.

THE GUILT AND EVILS OF SCHISM.

WERE men to be distributed according to the various opinions which they entertain concerning the moral nature of ecclesiastical divisions, they might be ranked in the following classes-Those who look on every separation from themselves as schism, and who describe it in terms of labored exaggeration.-Those who, considering themselves unjustly condemned for separation, have, in the consciousness of their own comparative innocence, come to undervalue the external unity of the Church, and to speak of its divisions in terms of comparative extenuation. Those who, confining their attention to the emulation and increased activity to which, by the overruling providence of God, some of those separations have led, have come to speak of division in terms of implied approbation. And those who, taking their views from the word of God, regard those separations only as schism which violate the great law of Christian love; and those only as schismatics who either give or unnecessarily take occasion of separation; viewing the guilt of such divis

ions as depending on circumstances so various that God alone can determine its amount. But however different their estimate of schism, they all unite, in certain circumstances, in denouncing it as an evil. Only attempt to fasten the sin on those even who appear to hold it most lightly, and the manner in which they writhe under the charge, betrays how odious it becomes when turned into a personal imputation. In the same way, each party, in a time of angry division, has been eager to fasten the imputation on the other; thus evincing the general sense of its demerit, by the advantage they hoped to gain in casting it at their opponents.

'In dealing about this business among Christians," writes Owen in his treatise on schism, "the advantage hath been extremely hitherto on their part who found it their interest to begin the charge. For whereas themselves perhaps were, and are of all men, most guilty of the crime, yet by their clamorous accusation, putting others on the defence of themselves, they have in a manner clearly escaped from the trial of their own guilt, and cast the issue of the question purely on them whom they have accused. . . . . It is the manner of men of all persuasions who undertake to treat of schism, to make their entrance with invectives against the evils thereof, with aggravations of its heinAll men, whether intending the charge of others, or their own acquitment, esteem themselves concerned to do so."

ousness.

But while schism is thus branded by universal consent, and while parties have been ban