the expression of a living love for Unity, submitting its own heart and mind to do as others do for the sake of a more entire union and communion?

At the same time, seeing that one can scarcely combat any errour, without being suspected of intending to become the champion of its opposite, I must remark, that, while impugning the notion that uniformity is indispensable to unity, I have not meant to say a single word in behalf of irregularity and licentiousness. It was indeed very sad a year ago to see your pious and learned friend Dr Pusey urging differences of ritual practice as arguments against a measure designed to prepare the way, under God's blessing, for a closer communion between our Church and that of Prussia; for it has been constantly held by the highest authorities, that, in things ceremonial, great diversities may warrantably prevail between different Churches, and that these diversities should be no hindrance to communion between them. Within the pale of each national Church on the other hand it is expedient and desirable, for the sake of order and discipline, that there should be a considerable similarity of practice; and a national Liturgy is such an inestimable benefit in many ways, that, to secure it, we should readily sacrifice whatever might be gained by a more definite expression of personal and occasional feelings. What I deprecate is the endeavour to establish uniformity for its own sake, as if uniformity in itself were a thing to be sought and admired. So far as uniformity is expedient, it is expedient from our weakness and frailty, by reason of which we cannot be left to the free utterance of our own hearts and minds; and because the submission to certain general rules and restraints is a condition of social union:

moreover in divers parts of our work our power is much strengthened by our pulling together. This truth is urged with his usual judgment by him, who alone ought to have been termed the Chancellor of Human Nature, as well as the Chancellor of Nature,-whereas the former title has been given to a man far less deserving of it,in his excellent little treatise On the Pacification of the Church, which, along with the other On Church Controversies, might be profitably studied by all parties in these days; being rich in practical wisdom suited to all ages, but of a kind which has seldom been duly heeded, and often grossly sinned against. I will quote the closing paragraph of the part which speaks concerning ceremonies, as the remarks, even in their literal sense, are unfortunately not wholly inapplicable to our own time. "For the cap and surplice, since they be things in their nature indifferent, and yet by some held superstitious, and that the question is between science and conscience, it seemeth to fall within the compass of the Apostle's rule, that the stronger do descend and yield to the weaker. It will be materially said, that the rule holdeth between private man and private man, but not between the conscience of a private man and the order of a Church. But yet, since the question at this time is of a toleration, not by connivence, which may encourage disobedience, but by law, which may give a liberty, it is good again to be advised whether it fall not within the equity of the former rule; the rather because the silencing of ministers by this occasion is, in this scarcity of good preachers, a punishment that lighteth upon the people, as well as upon the party. And for the subscription, it seemeth to me in the nature of a confession, and

therefore more proper to bind in the unity of faith, and to be urged rather for articles of doctrine, than for rites and ceremonies and points of outward government. For howsoever politic considerations and reasons of state may require uniformity, yet Christian and divine grounds look chiefly upon unity." Which last sentence, among other things, may convince you that the antithesis between uniformity and unity is not altogether trivial and unmeaning. At least Bacon was so imprest with the need of enforcing the distinction, that in his Essay On Unity in Religion he again says, "They be two things, unity and uniformity," that is, two distinct things, which must not be confounded.

Yet, even where unity of spirit, and reverent obedience to the authority of the Church, and regard to the objects of social union, will produce uniformity of action, it is of no slight importance that we should well understand why we seek that uniformity, and why it is desirable. For in all action, if we are to do right consistently, we should act intelligently, knowing what is the ground of our acting, what is to be its end, and what its measure. Thus, if it be the duty of individual Christians to submit to the authority of the Church, for the sake of edification, both their own and that of their brethren, it becomes a correlative duty in those who legislate for the Church, and who exercise authority over it, not to press on its inferior members, not to burthen their consciences with that which is unnecessary, to deal tenderly with them, as loving parents deal with their children, yea, as the Lord Himself dealt with His disciples. They should keep in mind that excellent axiom, which Bacon quotes, and which sums up the argument of the foregoing pages,

"Differentiae rituum commendant unitatem doctrinae, the diversities of ceremonies do set forth the unity of doctrine." On the other hand, if it be supposed that uniformity is to be pursued for its own sake, as a thing desirable in itself, as the only outward form of unity, without which unity cannot exist, then it will be pursued at all costs, at all risks, in all things, small as well as great; and the end is, as has been seen so often in the history of the Church, of the English Church more especially, that Unity is blindly and recklessly sacrificed before the cold, empty idol Uniformity.

You indeed assert that there is a higher and weightier reason, which makes uniformity a main auxiliary in the development of the Christian life; for that "in all moral action uniformity of practice is not only a symbol but a means to unity of will." Alas, my friend ! uniformity a means to unity! Is this the lesson we learn from the history of the English Church? Is this the effect which has been produced by our own Acts of Uniformity those strange, anomalous Acts, which in their imperious character are almost peculiar to our Church, and which resulted from her singular position, when she found herself in a manner identified with the government of the State, and enabled to wield the authority of the State in girding herself round with penal enactments. Was it not the Act of Uniformity under Queen Elizabeth, that first gave birth to the Nonconformists, as a distinct, powerful, and formidable body within the pale of our Church, gathering all those varieties of feeling and opinion, which could not reconcile themselves to its requisitions, into one mass, and setting the Conformists and the Nonconformists in definite array against

each other? Many pleas may indeed be urged in excuse of the statesmen and churchmen by whom that Act was framed. The very existence of the government seemed bound up with the unity and vigour of the Reformed Church. The fallacy of that delusion, which holds unity to be inseparable from uniformity, had not then been so thoroughly exposed, as it has since been, by the teaching of philosophy, and the still more cogent lessons of history. The sanctity of man's individual conscience had never been rightly appreciated by the secular wisdom of Rome; which then, as ever, sought mainly for outward submission, and which practically sanctioned, if it did not encourage, the notion, that men might justifiably profess many things by their words and their acts, to which they found nothing answerable, and much repugnant, in their hearts and minds. For this is one of the miserable curses attacht to those who worship the idol Uniformity, that, as their aim is bent upon the form, rather than the power, of Unity, they grow to care little about the substance, provided they can get the shadow; and thus they become little scrupulous about truth, in others, and ultimately in themselves also. Nor had men learnt as yet to estimate the consequences of that epochal act in the history of the world, when by God's gracious ordinance the leaders of the Reformation put the Bible into the hands of their countrymen in their own tongue. They saw not what a mighty step this was toward the completion of the work begun on the first day of Pentecost, how a voice was now issuing over the earth proclaiming to each individual man, that he had a reason and a conscience, and that the Eternal God had vouchsafed to make known His mysterious counsels even to him, so that he was no