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 HEAR THE CHURCH. 
 
 SERMON, 
 
 PREACHED AT THE 
 
 CHAPEL ROYAL, IN ST. JAMES'S PALACE, 
 
 ON THE FIRST SUNDAY AFTER TRINITY 
 
 JUNE XVII, MDCCCXXXVIII. 
 
 BY 
 
 WALTER FARQUHAR HOOK, D.D. 
 
 CHAPLAIN IN ORDINARY TO HER MAJESTY. 
 
 THIRTY-FIRST EDITION. 
 
 I 
 
 ,. LONDON: 
 
 PRINTED FOR J. G. F. & J. RIVINGTON, 
 
 ST. PAUL'S CHURCH YARD, 
 AND WATERLOO PLACE, PALL MALL. 
 
 1841. 
 
 Price 2d, or 15s. per 100.
 
 It will be seen that the following Sermon was intended for the 
 Pulpit, and not for the Press ; but circumstances have occurred, 
 which seem to require its Publication, and it is therefore printed 
 verbatim et liteiatim. 
 
 GiLBEET & RiriNGTON, Printers, St. John's Square, London.
 
 A 
 
 SERMON, 
 
 Matt, xviii. 17. — Hear the Church. 
 
 This little sanctuary, in which we are now assembled, will 
 always be regarded by the English Churchman with feelings of 
 pious sentiment and respect. Here from time immemorial, our 
 sovereigns have worshipped, and our bishops preached ; and 
 these walls were the first which heard the sound of our English 
 Liturgy. Here young Edward imbibed the principles of Divine 
 Truth from the lips of Ridley and Cranmer ; and here, in the 
 reign of Elizabeth, her Bishops, supported by her united firm- 
 ness, wisdom, and piety, manfully upheld the principles of the 
 English Reformation, maintaining the equipoise against the 
 Papist on the one hand, and on the other, against those ultra- 
 protestants, who were anxious to introduce the foreign sys- 
 tem, and to revolutionize religion instead of reforming the 
 Church. Here too, Charles, who died a martyr for the Prin- 
 ciples of the Church, — for the Church of England boasts the 
 only royal martyr in the calendar, — sought that strength from 
 on high, which enabled him to lay down his ** grey discrowned 
 head" upon the block, with a blessed peace of m.ind, which a 
 rebel nation, while depriving him of everything else, was unable 
 to take avv^ay. Here, ever since, by faithful pastors, our British 
 Sovereigns have loyally, dutifully, and respectfully, but, at the 
 same time, I hope with firmness and fearlessness, been reminded 
 of that solemn account they will one day have to render to Him 
 who is King of kings and Lord of lords, and the Ruler of 
 princes,— here they have been admonished of the awful respon- 
 sibility of high office, of the temptations by which they are 
 surrounded, of the example they are bound to set, of their duty 
 as the nursing fathers and nursing mothers of the Church — and 
 here those Sovereigns, in the ordinances and sacraments of the 
 Gospel, have sought for that Divine Grace, of which they have 
 stood in need as much as, yea, from their increased responsi- 
 bility, from their greater temptations and difficulties, if possible, 
 more than the very meanest of their subjects. 
 
 In such a place then it cannot be deemed improper, if I briefly 
 lay before you the claims, the character, and the privileges of 
 the Church. May God the Holy Spirit be with me while I 
 speak, and with you while you hear ; with me, that I may 
 speak boldly as I ought to speak ; with you, that you may re-, 
 ceiye the word with pure affection ; with me that I ra^^ 
 give, with you that you may not take, offence. \ 
 
 Now, at the very outset, I must state that I refer i 
 Church, not as a mere National Establisment of Religion 
 
 A 2 \
 
 as the Church, a religious community, intrinsically independent 
 of the state ; that is to say, I am about to treat of the Church, 
 not in its political, but simply and solely in its religious character. 
 
 No one, who reads the Bible, can for one moment doubt, 
 that Religion is or ought to be a national concern, so long as 
 the Bible contains such awful demmciations against national 
 apostasy and national vice, and while among the predicted 
 blessings of Christianity, it was foretold as one, that Kings 
 should be the nursing fathers, and Queens the nursing mothers 
 of the Church. And to desire to belong to that religious society 
 which happens to be established in our native land, is a-senti- 
 ment patriotic, praiseworthy, and honourable. But there is 
 always a still further question to be asked ; namely, whether the 
 society of Christians established by the Government, and in- 
 vested with certain emoluments and privileges, be a pure branch 
 of that Church which was instituted by our blessed Lord 
 and his Apostles. And if it be not such, however willing we 
 might be to preserve the peace of society, by refusing to injure 
 a national institution, we should, nevertheless, be amply justi- 
 fied as Religionists, in refusing to conform to it. If the mere 
 fact that a religious society is established by the civil govern- 
 ment, be sufficient to claim for it our adhesion, see what the 
 consequence must be ; we should be obliged, on such principles, 
 to become Presbyterians in Scotland and Holland, Papists in 
 France and Italy ; nay, in some parts of the world, worshippers 
 of the Mosque, and votaries of Brahma ! whereas the consis- 
 tent Protestant could not, of course, conform to the established 
 Church in France or Italy, until those Churches have under- 
 gone a thorough reformation ; the consistent English Church- 
 man cannot conform to the Presbyterian establishment in Scot- 
 land, but in that part of the island attends the services of the 
 Scottish Episcopal Church, which, though at one time estab- 
 lished, was, at the Revolution in 16S8, from political consi- 
 derations, deprived of its endowments, which were then given 
 to the community of Presbyterians, which has there become the 
 established religion. 
 
 Bless God, then, we may, that the true Church is established 
 here in England, and that while as patriots we would support 
 its establishment for our country's good, we can also, as 
 Christians, conscientiously conform to it ; yet it is not on the 
 ground that it is established by the State, but on groimds much 
 higher and holier than these, that in this sacred place we are to 
 state its claims. So entirely independent is the Church (as the 
 Church) of the State, that were all connexion between Church 
 and State at this very moment to cease, (though we may be 
 sure the monarchy would be destroyed,) the Church, as the 
 Church, would continue precisely as she now is ; that is to say, 
 our Bishops, though dejjrived of temporal rank, would still 
 e.Kercise all those spiritual functions, which, conferred by higher 
 than human authority, no human authority can take away; 
 still to the vacant sees they would consecrate new bishops, still 
 ordain the clergy, still confirm the baptized, still govern the
 
 Church; our priests, assisted by the deacons, would still admi- 
 nister the sacraments, and preach the Gospel ; our Liturgy, even 
 though we were driven to upper rooms of our towns, or to the 
 very caves of the desert, would still be solemnized. We may be 
 sure of this, for this very thing has happened in times past. 
 When the United States of America were English colonies, the 
 EngUsh Church was there established : at the revolution, the 
 State was destroyed. Monarchy has there ceased to exist ; but 
 the Church, though depressed for ^ time, remained uninjured : 
 so that there — among the American republicans — under the 
 superintendence of no fewer than sixteen bishops, you will find 
 her sacraments and ordinances administered, and all her ritual 
 and liturgical services administered, with not less of piety, zeal, 
 and solemnity than here in England ; there you may see the 
 Church, hke an oasis in the desert, blessed by the dews of 
 heaven, and shedding heavenly blessings around her, in a land 
 where, because no religion is established, if it were not for her, 
 nothing but the extremes of infidelity or fanaticism would 
 prevail. 
 
 And so you may perceive what is meant, when we say, that we 
 wish to speak of the Church, not as an establishment, but as the 
 Church, a religious society, a particular society of Christians. 
 
 We will commence with an indisputable fact. In this country 
 there is at this time a religious society, known by the name of 
 the Church. The question is, when and by whom was this 
 society instituted ? 
 
 Now the Roman Catholics or Papists assert that it was insti- 
 tuted and founded, like the generality of Protestant sects, by 
 certain Reformers in the l6th century, and thence they would 
 deduce a strong argument against us. They would ask us, 
 whether any man can take unto himself the office of the minis- 
 try, unless he be sent by God ; and if we are scriptural Chris- 
 tians, if we take the Bible for our guide, if we act on that sound 
 Protestant principle, with the fifth chapter to the Hebrews open 
 before us, we must answer. No. Then they proceed to ask. How 
 can you prove that your ministers are called of God to the 
 office ? And if their assertion were true that our Church was 
 founded at the Reformation, we could give them no answer at all. 
 
 But at the period of the Reformation, when Cranmer and 
 Ridley flourished, there was a Church existing and estab- 
 lished in England, and as Archbishop of that Church, Cranmer, 
 our celebrated Reformer, was consecrated. That Church 
 had existed, as all parties admit, from the first planting of 
 Christianity in England. But Archbishop Cranmer found, 
 that in his time it had become in certain resj)ects corrupted ; 
 that the Bishop of Rome, for example, had usurped over it 
 an authority and influence which he did not possess by 
 right : that many practices prevailed, some of them contrary to 
 Scripture, and some of them much abused to superstition ; 
 such as the worshipping of saints and images, and the use of 
 the Liturgy in a language not understood by the people, while 
 opinions were prevalent, (such as those relating to transuy- 
 
 A 3
 
 6 
 
 stantiation,) decidedly erroneous, which the Church did not 
 protest against, but on the contrary rather seemed to sanction. 
 Now when once these errors were pointed out and proved to be 
 unscriptural, our Divines would have been guilty of heresy had 
 they pertinaciously adhered to them. Before the Reformation, 
 those who adhered to them were not guilty of heresy, for they 
 held the doctrines which (ever since the Reformation) we have 
 renounced, from a mere error of fact. They supposed them to 
 be revealed doctrines, and therefore they in humble faith re- 
 ceived them ; we, on the contrary, have ascertained that these 
 doctrines were not revealed, and therefore influenced by the 
 same faith, we reject them : so that it was by one and the self- 
 same principle, that both before and since the Reformation, tiie 
 true members of the Church of England have been actuated. 
 They said, and we say precisely the same, whatsoever is re- 
 vealed, that we will not question but believe. But as to the 
 fact, whether this or that doctrine was revealed, they were less 
 cautious than we are now ; we who, perhaps, err on the very 
 side of caution. 
 
 But, to return to the Archbishop and the Prelates who aided 
 him in the work of reformation. They discovered that all the 
 errors which they detected in their Church were innovations 
 gradually and imperceptibly introduced, and not belonging ori- 
 ginally or essentially to the Church of England ; that, even in 
 the seventh century, five councils were held in England, when 
 the doctrines denounced by the Reformers were unknown. 
 What, then, did the Archbishop and his associates determine 
 to do ? They determined, as they had an undoubted right to 
 do, not to overthrow the old Church and establish a protestant 
 sect in its place, but merely to reform, to correct abuses in the 
 existing Church. And, aided by the civil powers, this they 
 did, by asserting, first, their own independence, as Bishops, 
 against the usurped authority of the Pope, who had no more 
 authority of right in England, than the Bishop of Canterbury 
 had in Rome; by discontinuing practices which led evi- 
 dently to unscriptural superstitions ; by protesting against cer- 
 tain prevalent erroneous doctrines ; by translating the Scriptures 
 and the ancient Ritual and Liturgy, which latter, (the Ritual 
 and Liturgy we still retain,) besides translating, they re-ar- 
 ranged, tint, though they did this, they still remained the 
 same bishops and divines of the same Church. An attempt was 
 made to revive the old superstitions in Queen Mary's reign, 
 hut, hy the pious firmness of Elizabeth, her Bishops were 
 enabled to complete the work so happily commenced in the 
 reigns of her father and brother. 
 
 Now, from this historical statement, you see the absurdity 
 of which the Papists are guilty, when they accuse us of having 
 deserted or dissented from the old Church, and of having reared 
 a new Church, of human origin — the absurdity of their speaking 
 of theirs as the old Church and the old religion. 
 
 About two years ago, this very chapel, in which we are now 
 assembled, was repaired j certain disfigurements removed ; ce:-
 
 tain improvements made ; would it not be absurd, on that 
 account, to contend that it is no longer the Chapel Royal ? 
 Would it not be still more absurd if some one were to build a 
 new chapel in the neighbourhood, imitating closely what this 
 chapel was five years ago, and carefully piling up all the dust 
 and rubbish which was at that time swept from hence, and then 
 pronounce that, not Mis, to be the ancient chapel of the sove- 
 reigns of England ? The absurdity is at once apparent ,- but 
 this is precisely what has been done by the Roman Catholic or 
 Papist. The present Church of England is the old Catholic 
 Church of England, reformed, in the reigns of Henry, Edward, 
 and Elizabeth, of certain superstitious errors ; it is the same 
 Church which came down from our British and Saxon ances- 
 tors, and, as such, it possesses its original endowments, which 
 were never, as ignorant persons foolishly suppose, taken from 
 one Church and given to another. The Church remained the 
 same after it was reformed as it was before, just as a man re- 
 -Tiains the same man after he has washed his face as he was 
 before ; just as Naaman, the leper, remained the same Naaman 
 after he was cured of his leprosy, as he was before. And so 
 regularly, so canonically, was the Reformation conducted, that 
 even those who thought no reformation requisite, still remained 
 for a time in the Church ; they did not consider what was done 
 (though they did not approve of it) sufficient to drive them into 
 a schism. It was not tiU the twelfth year of Queen Elizabeth's 
 reign, that, listening to the exhortations of the Pope, they 
 quitted the Church and formed a new sect, from which the pre- 
 sent Romish dissenters have descended, and in which were re- 
 tained all those errors in opinion and practice, all that rubbish, 
 which the Catholic Church in England had at the Reformation 
 corrected and swept away. Let it always be remembered, that 
 the English Romanists separated from us, not we from them ; 
 we did not go out from them, but they from us. The slightest 
 acquaintance with that neglected branch of learning. Ecclesi- 
 astical History, will convince us of this. They left the Church 
 of England to which they originally belonged, because they 
 thought their bishops had reformed too much, had become too 
 Protestant ; just as Protestant Dissenters left us, because they 
 thought we had not reformed enough ; that we were, as they 
 still style us, too popish. The one party left us because 
 they wanted no reform, the other because, instead of a reform- 
 ation, they wished a religious revolution — the Reformers of the 
 Church of England carefully preserving the middle path. 
 
 The Church of England, then, that Church to which we be- 
 long, is the old Catholic Church which was originally j)lanted 
 in this country. But the Founders of the Church of England 
 — remember I do not mean the Reformers, for nothing but 
 ignorance, the most gross, will speak of them as our fotmders ; 
 ignorance which concedes to the Papists an argument of the 
 very greatest importance — the Founders or planters of the 
 Church of England, both Britons and Saxons, were bishops or- 
 dained by other bishops, precisely as is the case at the present
 
 8 
 
 time ; the catalogue has heen carefully and providentially pre- 
 served from the beginning. And the bishops who ordained 
 them had been ordained by other bishops, and so back to the 
 Apostles, who ordained the first bishops, being themselves or- 
 dained by Christ. This is what is called the doctrine of the 
 Apostolical Succession ; which is a doctrine of considerable im- 
 portance. For unless the ministers of the Gospel are sent by 
 Christ, what right have they to act in his name ? If we were 
 passing through a foreign land, we might be perfectly compe- 
 tent to act as ambassador for the Queen of England ; but would 
 any foreign potentate receive us as such, unless we could pro- 
 duce our credentials ? Many a lawyer may be as well qualified 
 to perform the duties of the Lord Chancellor as the Chancellor 
 himself, but is he able to act as Chancellor ? No, certainly ; 
 not unless he has first received a commission from his sovereign ? 
 And so with respect to religion. What right has a man to take 
 upon himself to act as God's ambassador, unless God has com- 
 missioned him so to act ? An eloquent man he may be, and 
 one mighty in the Scriptures, but he has no authority to speak 
 in God's name, until God has given him that authority. How, 
 asks St. Paul, shall they preach, i. e. preach lawfully, except 
 they be sent, i. e. sent by God ? No man, says the Scripture, 
 taketh this honour to himself, but he that is called of God. 
 Nay, even Christ, says the Apostle, " glorified not Himself to be 
 made an high-priest, but He that said unto Him, Thou art my 
 Son, this day have I begotten thee ;" even He entered not on his 
 ministerial office until He was externally appointed thereto. 
 
 As the Lord Jesus Christ was sent by the Father, so were the 
 Apostles sent by Him. " As my Father hath sent me,'' He 
 says, soon after his resurrection, '* even so I send you." Now 
 how had the Father sent Him ? He had sent Him to act as his 
 supreme minister on earth ; as such to appoint under Him 
 subordinate ministers, and to do what He then did, when his 
 work on earth was done, to hand on his commission to others. 
 The Apostles, in like manner, were sent by Christ to act as his 
 chief ministers in the Church, to appoint subordinate ministers 
 under them, and then, as He had done, to hand on their commis- 
 sion to others. And on this commission, after our Lord had 
 ascended up on high, the Apostles proceeded to act. They 
 formed their converts into Churches : these Churches consisted 
 of baptized believers, to officiate among whom subordinate 
 ministers, priests and deacons, were ordained, while the Apostle 
 who first formed any particular Church exercised over it episcopal 
 superintendence, either holding an occasional visitation, by 
 sending for the clergy to meet him, (as St. Paul summoned to 
 Melitus the clergy of Ephesus,) or else transmitting to them 
 those pastoral addresses, which, under the name of Epistles, 
 form so important a portion of Holy Scripture. At length, 
 however, it became necessary for the Apostles to proceed yet 
 further, and to do as their Lord had empowered them to do, to 
 hand on their commission to others, that at their own death the 
 governors of the Church might not be extinct. Of this we
 
 have an instance in Titus, who was placed in Crete hy St. Paul, 
 to act as chief pastor or Bishop, and another in Timothy, who 
 was in like manner set over the Church of Ephesus. And 
 when Timothy was thus appointed to the office of chief pastor 
 he was associated with St. Paul, who, in writing to the Philip- 
 pians, commences his salutation thus: *' Paul and Timotheus 
 to the servants of Jesus Christ who are at Philippi, with the 
 Bishops and Deacons." 
 
 Now we have here the three orders of the ministry clearly 
 alluded to. The title of Bishop is, to be sure, given to the 
 second order ; but it is not for words, but for things, that we 
 are to contend. Titles may be changed v/hile offices remain : 
 so senators exist, though they are not now of necessity old men; 
 and most absurd would it be, to contend that when we speak 
 of the Emperor Constantine, we can mean no other office than 
 that held under the Roman republic, because we find Cicero 
 also saluted as emperor. 
 
 So stood the matter in the apostolic age, when the chief pas- 
 tors of the Church were generally designated Apostles or 
 Angels, i. e. messengers sent by God himself. In the next 
 century, the office remaining, the designation of those who held 
 it was changed, the title of Aj)ostle was confined to the twelve, 
 including St. Paul; and the chief pastors who succeeded them 
 were thenceforth called Bishops, tlie subordinate ministers being 
 styled priests and deacons. And thus we see, as Christ was 
 sent by the Father, so He sent the Apostles ; as the Apostles 
 were sent by Christ, so did they send the first race of bishops ; 
 as the first race of bishops was sent by the Apostles, so they 
 sent the second race of bishops, the second, the third, and so 
 down to our present bishops, who can thus trace their spiritual 
 descent from St. Peter and St. Paul, and prove their divine 
 authority to govern the Churches over which they are canoni- 
 cally appointed to preside. Like the Apostles, they have the 
 right to appoint under them the subordinate ministers; and so 
 let the Papists say what they will, the clergy of England can 
 establish their right by commission from Christ to minister in 
 sacred things. 
 
 Such was originally the constitution not of one or two 
 Churches only, but of the Church Universal — the Church 
 Catholic. Against the Church so constituted in various places, 
 sectarians arose, even in the apostolic age. These sects were 
 generally, like modern sects, distinguished by the names of their 
 founders. But true Churches disdained to be called after any 
 human being whatever, since of them Christ was the Author 
 and Finisher. The episcopal Churches, persevering in the 
 Apostles' doctrine and fellowship, were styled collectively the 
 Catholic Church ; and in order to distinguish it from the sur- 
 rounding sects, the true orthodox Church in any particular 
 country was sometimes called a branch of the Catholic Church, 
 sometimes the Catholic Church of that place, and hence the 
 term Catholic came by degrees to signify (as Bishop Beveridge 
 remarks) much the same as our term orthodox — the orthodox
 
 10 
 
 Church, and orthodox members of the same — that Church 
 which adhered to the scriptural discipline and doctrine universally 
 received, as distinguished from the discipline invented, and the 
 doctrine propounded by individual teachers. 
 
 You see here, by the way, the folly (if it be not a sin, for it is 
 calling " evil good, and good evil,") of styling the Romish 
 Dissenters in England, as some persons in extreme ignorance, 
 and others perhaps with bad intentions do, Catholics; for this 
 insinuates, that we of the Church of England are heretics, 
 whereas you have seen that ours, not theirs, is the true and 
 orthodox Church of Christ in this country, the real Catholic 
 Church in and of England. If they dislike the name of Papist, 
 we may speak of them as Romanists, or even Roman 
 Catholics. Roman Catholics they may be styled, for (though 
 schismatics and dissenters in England) in France, and Italy, 
 they belong to a Church true by descent, though corrupted by 
 Roman or popish superstitions. A bad man is still a man, and 
 you may refuse to associate with him before he reforms, — but 
 still you will never permit him so to style himself a man as to 
 imply that you yourself are an inhuman being. 
 
 Pure in its doctrine, apostolic in its discipline, and edifying in 
 its ceremonies, this Catholic and Apostolic Church diffused its 
 blessings, and preserved its purity for many hundred years. In 
 the middle ages it existed, still working good and administering 
 grace according to the exigence of the times ; emitting a ray of 
 light when all around was dark. But the surrounding ignorance 
 and gloom prevented the detection of various corruptions and 
 disfigurements which by degrees crept into it, until in the six- 
 teenth century, the sun of learning having dawned upon Europe, 
 its defects in this country began to betray themselves too 
 obviously to be any longer tolerated. Of these defects, so far 
 as the English branch of the Church was concerned, the Bishops 
 of the Church of England, as I have before stated, by degrees 
 became aware, and while they venerated the fabric which 
 apostles had reared, and of which Christ himself was the chief 
 corner stone, they carefully removed the incrustations which 
 disfigured it, and sweeping away the rubbish by which it had 
 been overlaid, displayed the real Rock upon which it had been 
 built. Thus was the Catholic and Apostolic Church, of 
 which we express our belief in the creeds, rescued in England 
 from Popish domination, and (reformed or brought back to its 
 primitive purity, dignified in its simplicity) it retained the 
 ministry in regular succession from the Apostles, and a Ritual 
 and Liturgy which can themselves in great part be traced back 
 to the Apostolic age. 
 
 Although causelessly to separate from such a Church must 
 be a schismatical act, yet we do not uncharitably pronounce 
 sentence of condemnation upon those who have, by circum- 
 stances over which they have no control, been brought up 
 without its pale. In error, of course, we believe them to be, 
 but certainly not in such error from that circumstance as to en- 
 danger their salvation : and if we suppose them, as we must do.
 
 1 i 
 
 to lack our privileges, this ought only to make us respect them 
 the more if at any time we find them (with fewer advantages) 
 surpassing us in godliness. We do not confine God's grace and 
 favour to the Church, for we remember that though Job was 
 not a member of the then Church of God, stiil he was a man 
 eminently pious and highly-favoured ; we remember, that though 
 Balaam was not in the Church, yet he was an inspired Prophet; 
 we remember that Jethro, also, the father-in-law of Moses, 
 though not a proselyte to Israel, (and the Church at that time 
 was confined to the Israelites,) was yet a servant of God ; we 
 remember that the Rechabites were actually commended by 
 God at the very time He passed censure upon those who were 
 then his Church— the people of Israel. 
 
 Remembering all this, we say not that other denominations 
 of Christians are cast out from the mercy of God through the 
 Saviour, because they belong not to the Church ; all that we 
 say is, that it does not follow that these concessions must render 
 void the divine appointment of the Church, the divine command 
 to all nations, and of course to all mankind, to be united with 
 it, or the scriptural evidence for episcopacy as the divinely 
 sanctioned organization of its ministry, — and we contend, that 
 a treasure having been committed to us, we are not to under- 
 value it lest we should ofli'end others, but are to preserve it in its 
 purity, and in all its integrity to transmit it to our children and 
 our children's children. 
 
 And let me ask, Is not the privilege of belonging to a Church 
 thus orthodox in its doctrine, and true by descent, thus both 
 Catholic and Protestant, a privilege for which we should be 
 deeply grateful to the providence and grace of God ? And will 
 not the account we shall have to render be awful, if we neglect, 
 despise, or forego the advantages thus placed within our reach ? 
 Let us ever remember, that the primary object for which the 
 Church was instituted by Christ, its Author and Finisher, and 
 for which the apostolical succession of its ministers was esta- 
 blished, — that the primary object for which through ages of 
 persecution, and ages of prosperity, and ages of darkness, and 
 ages of corruption, and ages of reformation, and ages of latitu- 
 dinarianism, and now in an age of rebuke and blasphemy, now 
 when we have fallen on evil days and evil tongues, the primary 
 object for which the Church has still been preserved by a pro- 
 vidential care, marvellous sometimes if not miraculous in our 
 eyes, was and is, to convey supernaturally the saving merits of 
 the atoning blood of the Lamb of God, and the sanctifying 
 graces of his Holy Spirit to the believer's soul. In the Church 
 it is, that the appointed means are to be found by which that 
 mysterious union with Christ is promoted, in which our 
 spiritual life consists, — in her it is, that the third Person of the 
 Blessed Trinity abideth for ever, gradually to change the heart 
 of sinful man, and to make that flesh which He finds stone, — 
 gradually to prepare us for heaven, wliile our ascended Saviour 
 is preparing heaven for us. And oh ! my brethren! what a 
 privilege it is to have this well of living waters in which you 
 may wash and be clean ! You know that you are sinful crea-
 
 12 
 
 tures, very far gone from righteousness ; j'ou know that your 
 condition is such that you cannot turn and prepare yourselves 
 by your own natural strength and good works to faith and 
 calhng upon God ; you know that by nature you cannot love 
 the Lord your God with all your heart, and soul, and strength ; 
 you cannot discharge the various duties of your various situa- 
 ations in life ; you know that Jvliatever your condition now 
 may be, the hour must come of affliction and sorrow, of sickness 
 and sadness, the inevitable hour of death ; and the Church is 
 instituted to convey to you pardon upon your repentance, and 
 grace in time of need ; it is instituted to instruct you in your 
 ignorance, to comfort you in your sorrows, to elevate you in 
 your devotions, to bring you into comm.union with your Saviour, 
 your Sanctifier, your God ; to prepare you for the hour of death, 
 yea, for the day of judgment ; and this she chiefly does through 
 the sacraments of the Gospel, and the other divinely appointed 
 ordinances of religion, if of them you will but avail yourselves. 
 
 But this is not all ; while the Church thus ministers grace to 
 individuals, it is part of her business to preserve, hand down, 
 and proclaim the truth, the whole truth, as it is in Jesus. And 
 our duty, therefore, it is — especially, if we happen by God's 
 Providence to be called to situations of influence, rank, or 
 authority — by all the means in our power, to increase her 
 efficiency in this respect, to place her on the watch-tower, that 
 her voice may be heard through the length and the breadth of 
 the land : our duty it is to take care that her faith be preserved 
 intact and pure ; our duty it is to vindicate her from the glosses 
 of ignorance, and the misrepresentations of prejudice and 
 malice; our duty it is clearly to define, and zealously to main- 
 tain those peculiar doctrines and that peculiar discipline, which 
 have always marked, and do still continue to mark, the distinc- 
 tion between the Church of Christ, administered under the 
 superintendence of chief Pastors or Bishops who have regularly 
 succeeded to the Apostles, from those sects of Christianity 
 which exist under self-appointed teachers. 
 
 Against the Church the world seems at this time to be set in 
 array. To be a true and faithful member of the Church, re- 
 quires no little moral courage. Basely to pretend to belong to 
 her while designing mischief against her in the heart, this is 
 easy enough ; but manfully to contend for her because she is 
 the Church, a true Church, a pure Church, a holy Church, this 
 is difficult to those who court the praise of men, or fear the 
 censure of the world. May the great God of heaven, may 
 Christ the great Bishop and Shepherd of souls, who is over all 
 things in the Church, put it, my brethren, into your hearts and 
 minds to say and feel (as I do), *' As for me and my house, we will 
 live in the Church, we will die in the Church, and if need shall 
 be, like our martyred forefathers, we will die for the Church." 
 
 THE END. 
 
 Gilbert & Rivington, Printers, St. John's Square, London.
 
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