Изображения страниц
PDF
EPUB

one of her ministers; and in my official capacity, I know of no Ministry outside of her fold."

We remind Dr. Smith, also, that if, before presuming to sit in judgment on a Pastoral Letter from his Bishop, he had taken the wise precaution to write from the stand-point of Scriptural, Primitive, and Churchly Theology, which underlies and interprets all the Offices of the Prayer Book, and is, in turn, interpreted by them, instead of writing from that of an Andover emasculate Calvinism, which he has inherited, and which pervades his whole production, he would have saved himself the unbecoming imputations in the last few pages of his Letter. This modern diluted Calvinism, while it has given up every one of the main points of that false but strictly logical System, and while it has dared to renounce Divine Institutions, the Ministry and Sacraments, and to declare them unessentials in Christianity, and has substituted in their place an undefined, chameleon-like, Transcendentalism, it has, at the same time, adopted a habit of thinking and of reasoning, which has led, by necessary sequence, first, to the growing Infidelity of New England, and then, to all the heathenish blasphemies of Parkerism and the Boston "Music Hall.” Meanwhile, it has not lost one particle of its narrowness, its selfconceit, and its spirit of denunciation. It is the old story; the contortions of the Sybil, without her inspiration. Judging of this modern System by some of its leading representatives, it is thoroughly Jesuitical, very pretentious, and utterly unscrupulous.

It is a singular fact, that these three gentlemen who have taken in hand to instruct the Bishop of New York, and to set him right before his people, are New England Calvinists. A true Churchman of New England is relieved, almost of necessity, from that provincial narrowness which belongs to that section, and from the clannish sectarian spirt which Calvinism naturally fosters. But let a New Englander, with all his other peculiar characteristics, become possessed with the idea that he is the special favorite of God, and that it is his "mission" to dictate to, and rebuke other people, to assail dignitaries, to be an intermeddler and a busy-body generally; or, as St. Pe

ter has it, to play the Bishop in another man's field, (1 Pet. iv. 15,) and we have the secret at once of a great deal that we hear and see about us. And yet, we have heard Dr. Tyng boast, publicly, in one of his slack-rope performances, that he was a Puritan thus identifying himself, openly, with a party, whose injuries to the Church and whose quenchless hatred, are known and read of all men. The three "Letters" which we have criticised bear, everywhere, their distinct marks of race and origin. Of the Puritans, we remind Dr. Tyng of what King James said of them. This king, who gave our present English Bible to his people, was, at the first, flattered and fawned upon by the Puritans; but when they found he would not be their tool to destroy the Church, they then turned to cursing and reviling him. This is what he says of them :

"Take heed, therefore, my son, of such Puritans; very pests in the Church and Commonwealth; whom, no deserts can oblige, nor oaths or promises bind; breathing nothing but Seditions and calumnies; aspiring, without measure; railing, without reason; and making their own imaginations, without any warrant of the Word, the square of their consciences."

We have examined these several replies to Bishop Potter's Pastoral Letter with the more care, not only because these gentlemen are altogether in the wrong in the ground which they have taken, but because of the incalculable mischief which they have done, and are now doing to the Church, of which they are Ministers. There is, abroad, a deep and growing distrust of the popular Sectism of the day. Thoughtful men, by scores and hundreds, are searching for a Christianity which hath stability; which is founded on a Rock; some place, where their wearied spirits may find rest; some System, some Church, which is not a mere Sect among Sects, but which can claim to be, the Old, Scriptural, Catholic Church of Christ, against which the gates of Hell were not to prevail. They do not believe Romanism to be that System. They do not believe the Sects, any one of them, to be that System. Their attention is turned, more and more, to that Church, at whose altars

*King James's Works, Folio, p. 160.

[ocr errors]

we worship. Her Faith appeals to their judgment, as Catholic, beyond question. Her Worship charms them, by its simple beauty and grandeur. Her Ministry, in its claims to validity, challenges their closest scrutiny. Multitudes are leaving the Sects and flocking to her shrines. At such an hour, these gentlemen, blindly, and most unfortunately, listen to the Church's enemies, and seek to arrest the great work which she is quietly, but most surely accomplishing. We beg these gentlemen to pause in their career.

So far as we have attempted a vindication of Bishop Potter's Pastoral Letter, we have merely placed ourselves on the side of Law and Order. As independent Reviewers, no one shall go further than we in defending the just rights, and guarding the true prerogatives of each Order of the Three-fold Ministry of Christ, as well as of the Laity. So help us God, neither the spiritual despotism of Rome, nor the miserable Erastianism of England, shall ever find place on these shores, to cramp and curse our American Church. Pope-free and State-free she is, and such she shall remain. The government of the Church is a government of Law. The Bishop of New York, as the chief Executive Officer of the Diocese, charged, in virtue of his office, with the paternal duty of watchful oversight, and discretionary care, has only done what rightly belonged to him, and he has done it well. We have no fears that he will be found wanting, in any future exigency. The spirit of the age is a spirit of Vandalism. It is irreverent, insolent, insubordinate, and reckless. In such a time, firmness for Justice and Truth is a great virtue. It is more. It lost,

all is lost.

In conclusion, we quote, first, the common, but immortal words of the great Hooker. He says:

"Of law, there can be no less acknowledged than that her seat is the bosom of God, her voice the harmony of the world. All things in heaven and earth do her homage-the very least, as feeling her care, and the greatest, as not exempted from her power-both angels and men, and creatures of what condition soever, though each in different sort and manner, yet all with uniform consent, admiring her as the mother of their peace and joy."

Not unworthy of a place, in this connection, are the words of the Rev Dr. A. H. Vinton, which he once wrote for our own pages:—

"The modern appeal to a "higher Law," which is fast becoming the common rule, and not the rare exception, is, in its nature and spirit, a real denial of all positive and objective Law, either in the Family, the State, or the Church. The individual is himself his own Law, and he ignores and defies all other. Such things as sin, vice, rebellion, treason, heresy, murder, adultery, theft, cannot exist, so long as the man is true to his own nature. And of this, he, and he alone, must be judge. This is the infidel theory, endorsed and propagated by our modern reformers, in the name of Christianity. In respect to the Family, it is Socialism. To the State, it is Treason. To the Church, it is Schism. In all, it is one and the same, poor fallen human nature, warring against the Ordinances of Heaven. The time has come when the State, the Family, and the Church, must keep sentinel by night and by day over the sacred deposit committed to their trust, even though the press and the pulpit unite in raising the cry of tyranny and bigotry."

ART. III.-LETTERS ON ROMISH ERRORS AND CORRUP

TIONS.
LETTER I.

TO THE REV. T. W. COIT, D. D., LL. D.,

Rector of St. Paul's Church, Troy, New York.

MY DEAR Doctor :

I have received, through our mutual friend, Mr. your request that I would present, in popular form, the more prominent Errors and Corruptions of the modern Church of Rome. You allude to the ceaseless efforts of that Church to establish herself in this country. This is, indeed, true. This vine, dying out at Rome at the root, is striving to put forth fresh shoots in its most distant branches, and especially on Protestant soil. This Church, repudiated and abhorred at home by her own children, where she has had, for centuries, every opportunity for showing what she really is, and for moulding and controlling public sentiment, now comes among us with strong hopes and bold pretensions. She claims to be the one only Catholic Church of Christ. She classes all who differ from her in the same rank, as heretics and schismatics. Her aims among us are lofty. She has calculated, long since, the greatness in every aspect, physical, numerical, commercial, literary, and religious, of this Republic. She is fearful, lest, with the spread of the English language and influence, that here, as at home, the English Church rear her gigantic form.. She is busy, like the great masters of antiquity, in laboring, not for the present, but a future age. She is at work everywhere, at the East and the West, the North and the South, planting Schools and Colleges, erecting Churches and Cathedrals, and sending her well-trained missionaries, of every grade, throughout the length and breath of the land.

She presents her system before the public in its most attrac tive form. She says nothing respecting the more repulsi ve

« ПредыдущаяПродолжить »