PREFACE.

THIS Sermon, with the Dedication which precedes it, has been in print this year and a half, as part of a volume, the publication of which has been delayed by a variety of causes. Its appearance by itself at present is occasioned by the advice of some friends, for whose wisdom I am bound to feel the highest reverence, and who have thought it might be of service in helping to allay the calamitous dissensions in our Church.

The rock on which we are splitting now, as we have been again and again, ever since our Church asserted her national independence at the Reformation, is the notion that the only way of preserving the Unity of the Church is by enforcing a rigid Uniformity. This notion has been maintained with a singular consistency and pertinacity by the chief part of the persons who have been called to exercise authority in our Church during the last three centuries; and the recent agitation has shewn how widely it is spread at this day. Were a judgement formed from the opinions which have found vent on this occasion, on whatsoever side, and from whatsoever position, at least among the clergy, it would seem to be held by all as an uncontroverted and incontrovertible truth, a truth so plain and self-evident as to need no argument for its demonstration; which in one point of view is lucky for it, as assuredly it is indemonstrable. Yet, so far is it from being a universal b

truth, or even an opinion to which man is universally led by the tendencies of his nature, that the English branch of the Church since the Reformation is the one sole portion of the whole Church, which has brought this notion prominently forward as the regulative principle of her policy. The wiser principle of the universal Church, the principle which she has recognized speculatively, and which she has in great measure desired to realize practically, is that exprest in the celebrated threefold maxim, In necessariis unitas, in dubiis libertas, in omnibus caritas: and this is in exact accordance with the spirit of the Apostolic Epistles, to which our rigid enforcement of uniformity is utterly repugnant. Even the Church of Rome, in those ages when she was most imperiously wielding her usurpt dominion over Western Christendom, being ever largely endowed with the wisdom of the serpent,—a wisdom which indeed seems almost natural to the Italian intellect,acted far more judiciously than we have done in this respect. Though she oppressively curtailed the libertas, which ought to have been allowed in doubtful things, she was too sagacious not to discern that the multitudinous combinations of the elements of human nature are not, all and each, to be shaped in a single mould, but require a multiplicity of institutions, and divers modes of training, and divers spheres to act in, if the powers dormant in them are to be drawn forth for their own good and that of the community. And with reference to our immediate subject, we are told in the Preface to our Common Prayer, that "heretofore there hath been great diversity in saying and singing in Churches within this realm; some following Salisbury Use, some Hereford Use, and some the Use of Bangor, some of York, some of Lincoln.”

It would seem owing to that want of any distinctive religious principle, and that spirit of compromise, which characterize our Reformation, that, inasmuch as there was no one mighty inward power, which might have formed a living source of unity, our ecclesiastical rulers fancied themselves compelled to impose some uniting bond from without. The actuating idea of our Reformation, the idea which exercised the chief influence in determining the course of events, being the nationality of our Church, and its consequent independence of all forein dominion, far more stress was laid in England, than in the other countries. which vindicated their Christian liberty at the Reformation, on the union between the Church and the State. Thus the State came to act a principal part in regulating the concerns of the Church; and the ordinary mode in which the State acts is by Law. But Law is essentially rigid and compulsory; wherefore its appropriate office is vetative and prohibitive. This very rigidity unfits it for such delicate tasks as that of propagating and nurturing and shaping anything so tender and variable and multiform as life, above all, religious life. It should be content with its twofold work, that of repressing evil, and thereby fencing in and protecting the ground on which good is to grow. Hence, as Law makes no distinctions, and as the Liturgy was to be imposed by Law, it could not but happen, even without any excessive arbitrariness on the part of the legislators, that the Act by which the Liturgy was imposed became an Act of Uniformity. Moreover the Government, sharing in the common proneness of mankind to invert the right order of things, and to fancy that the heart and the will are to be moulded and controlled by outward force, deemed that, if it could ensure the submission of its

subjects to one prescribed form of worship, it should thereby secure their obedience and allegiance. At all events the notion of the indispensableness of Uniformity became more and more firmly establisht, until in the succeeding century it produced the most disastrous results: and yet even these did not avail to root it out of our Church.

That this notion is utterly groundless and delusive, I have endeavoured to shew in the Dedication prefixt to the following Sermon, not of course in the form of a systematic treatise, but following the line pointed out by the passage cited from the Charge of my most dear and honoured brother Archdeacon. The arguments brought forward might indeed be greatly strengthened; and with many they might carry more weight, if they were propt with a greater number of authorities: but when my cause is supported by the whole order of Nature, by the whole course of History, by Bacon, and by St Paul, I will not fear to incur the charge of presumption, though a thousand or ten thousand second and third-rate men should be summoned into court against me.

But though the question was discust without reference to the present disputes, it was not without a direct practical object. For in the discharge of my official duties I had several times been distrest by symptoms of a restless craving after uniformity in petty things; and I was afraid that this craving might lead to idle and vexatious bickerings. It was chiefly however from among the inferior Clergy that I apprehended such evils. I could not anticipate, more especially after the sad consequences which had ensued from a very cautious and temperate attempt to recommend ritual uniformity, that any person invested with authority in our Church, would risk her peace by

trying peremptorily to enforce what in itself is worthless, and cannot be enforced without vehement opposition. With my strong convictions on the subject, it is not to be wondered at that the very first announcement of this effort filled me with dread, and that I exclaimed that, if it were persisted in, it would probably drive three fourths of the Diocese into the arms of Dissent and somewhat similar views, I found, were entertained by all the most judicious persons with whom I had the opportunity of conversing. Alas! our forebodings have been too rapidly and dismally justified. An angry, jealous spirit has been called up, which it will not be easy to lay; and among the miserable effects of this ill-fated measure, one is, that our rites and ceremonies are become a matter for ceaseless loquacious jangling with those who pour out their spleen and ignorance and impertinence into the sink of the daily press. They are the subject of idle disputatious talk at every breakfast-table, and in every pothouse; dissenters laugh in scornful triumph; and what can the dutiful son of the Church of England do, but mourn?

This disastrous controversy is, for the moment at least, one of the worst checks that has befallen the Church in our times; and it threatens to arrest the progress of the improvements which were gradually and not slowly spreading. A cry, almost a yell, has been set up by the lovers of anile torpour, and by those who are fond of letting the dust and cobwebs, which they would sweep out of their parlours, accumulate in their pews, to the effect that every change which has been made in the last ten or twenty years, must immediately be reverst, and that we must return to the decent quiet worship of the good old times. With this clamour, I trust, few will comply, none without strong