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 ODE HOLY AM) OUE BEAUTIFUL HOUSE, 
 THE CHUECH OF ENGLAM). 
 
 A SERMON, 
 
 PREACHED AT THE RE-OPENING 
 
 OF THE 
 
 PARISH CHURCH OF LEEDS, 
 
 September 3rd, 1848, 
 WITH REFERENCE TO A LATE ACT OF APOSTACY. 
 
 BY 
 
 WALTER FAEQUHAR HOOK, D.D., 
 
 VICAB. 
 
 LONDON : F. & J. RIVINGTON : 
 
 PARKER, OXFORD ; I. & J. J. DEIGHTON, CAMBRIDGE ; 
 AND T. HARRISON, LEEDS. 
 
 1848
 
 ^
 
 TO 
 
 THE CHURCHWAR[)ENS 
 
 OF THE PARISH OF LEEDS. 
 
 Gentlemen, 
 
 I preached this Sermon on Love to the Church of Eng- 
 land, and, at your request, I publish it, because, as you 
 are aware, a clergyman has apostatized to the Church of 
 Rome, who, a few months ago, was officiating as a curate in 
 this parish. I was desirous of laying before my congregation, 
 in one short discourse, the important subjects upon which I 
 am accustomed to enlarge, 
 
 Air. Jephson was recommended to me as a curate, by a 
 clergyman holding a high position in the Irish Church ; who 
 informed me that Air. Jephson had at one time been unsettled 
 in his principles, but assured me that he was now devoted 
 to the interests of the Church of England. He shewed me a 
 letter from Mr. Jephson, in which he expressed himself to the 
 same effect. Mr. Jephson, who had been curate of Wilby in 
 Norfolk, produced the necessary testimonials, signed by three 
 beneficed clergymen, and countersigned by the Lord Bishop 
 of Norwich. To me he was a perfect stranger, but he de- 
 clared himself to be " a decided Anglican," His license 
 beais date the 8th of January, 1847.
 
 During the time of his residence in Leeds, he never ex- 
 pressed to me any doubts or difficulties with respect to the 
 doctrines of the Church of England, but en the contrary, 
 agreed with me, whenever in conversiition any of those doc- 
 trines were discussed, in which our differences with the 
 Church of Rome are most apparent. 
 
 In the spring of the present year he gave me notice of his 
 intention to resign his curacy, simply aiid entirely on the 
 ground of his ill health; his medical adviser, Mr. Hey, 
 having informed Mrs. Jephson that her husband's constitu- 
 tion could not stand another winter in the !N'orth. He ac- 
 cepted an offer that I made to him, of endeavouring to obtain 
 for him a Church of England chaplaincy abroad. 
 
 Mr. and Mrs. Jephson remained in Leeds after his resigna- 
 tion of the curacy till August. Not the slightest hint did 
 Mr. Jephson give to the clergy or any of his friends, even 
 when bidding them farewell, of his intention to leave the 
 Church of England. To the very last he accepted the hospi- 
 tality of a lay member of the Church, which was offered to 
 him solely on the ground of his being a Church of England 
 clergyman. He stated that they were going into Norfolk, to 
 remain with the relations of Mrs. Jephson, until, on the 
 restoration of health, he could obtain another curacy. 
 
 A few days after they had left Leeds, and two months after 
 he had resigned the curacy on the plea of ill health, Mr. 
 Jephson sent to the senior curate of the Parish Church an 
 insulting letter, in which he announced the fact that he, 
 together with his wife, had been received at Birmingham into 
 the Church of Rome. 
 
 You will judge, gentlemen, of the surprise which, under 
 these circumstances, I experienced, when I received informa- 
 tion last week that Mr. and Mrs. Jephson had been received 
 into the Church of Rome, not on their quitting Leeds in 
 August 1848, but in the year 1846, before his coming to 
 Leeds ; that, even then, while professing himself to be " a 
 decided Anglican," he was a<;tually a member of the apostate 
 
 uiuc!
 
 Church of Rome. Of this fact you may receive the proof by 
 referring to " The (Roman) Catholic Directory Almanac and 
 Ecclesiastical Register," for 1847, of which a copy will be left 
 at the publisher's. This work, which was published in January 
 1847, is of indisputable authority, being the Annual Register 
 of the Romanists, which is issued Permissu ^uferiorum. At 
 page 18G you will find the following passage : 
 
 " CONVERSIONS. — In the Directory of last year we 
 chronicled a few of the leading conversions to our holy faith, 
 most of which were then recent. We now give the names of 
 other converts, who made profession of the (Roman) Catholic 
 faith after the Directory went to press, and also the names 
 of others who have since been admitted into the Church. 
 The list, though select, is by no means complete, for we have 
 reason to know that other distinguished names could be given. 
 AVere an enumeration made of all the converts since our last 
 publication, its vastness would excite surprise. The names 
 of the new converts we now give are as follow :" — Then follow 
 the names of fourteen clerical apostates, the j&fth name in 
 the list being that of " the Rev. J. M. Jephson, Curate of 
 Wilby." At page 187 a list is given of " other converts," 
 and in that list occurs the name of Mrs. Jephson, who is 
 described as " Mrs. Jephson, wife of the Anglican minister 
 who also became a (Roman) Catholic." 
 
 Although it is not my intention to enter into any contro- 
 versy upon this subject, I have now stated to you the facts of 
 the case as far as they are known to me, and in accordance with 
 a wish expressed by you ; and I cannot but think that, when 
 all these circumstances are taken into consideration, together 
 •\vith the other artifices to which the Romanists are resorting ; 
 and when we consider also the opportunities which Mr. and 
 Mrs. Jephson possessed, in the entire and friendly confidence 
 which was placed in them, it is creditable to the ])arishion- 
 ers of Leeds, that they left us without having been able to 
 pervert a single soul. 
 A 2
 
 6 
 
 For the kind sympathy expressed towards me on this occa- 
 sion by you, and by my parishioners generally, I am grateful ; 
 as I am, indeed, for the invariable kindness I have experien- 
 ced from my congregation, during the eleven years of my 
 ministrations in this parish. 
 
 • I am, Gentlemen, 
 
 Your faithful Friend and Servant, 
 
 W. F. HOOK. 
 
 Vicarage, Leeds, 
 4th Sept. 1848.
 
 SERMON, 
 
 Isaiah, lxiv. 11. 
 
 "Our holy and our beautiful house, where our fathers 
 praised Thee." 
 
 I select this sentence to introduce my present dis- 
 course, without reference to the context, because it 
 expresses a sentiment which I have always sought to 
 encourage, and describes the feelings by which we are 
 all of us animated upon the present occasion, when we 
 are readmitted into this, " our holy and our beautiful 
 house," which has for several weeks been closed, in 
 order that it might be cleansed and repaired. 
 
 What strong affection do these words imply, what 
 tenderness of heart, what generous feeling, on the part 
 of the prophet Isaiah ! And even to inanimate things, 
 when they are associated in our minds with those we 
 honour and love, an attachment arises in the soul of 
 every one who is capable of experiencing a disinter- 
 ested affection. Because we love our God, we love 
 the place where His honour dwelleth ; and the services 
 we render to the God of our love, we desire to be the 
 very best we arc capable of offering. 
 
 Seven years have now elapsed since, by your 
 generosity, this church was reared in its magnificence ; 
 and what I said to you then I now repeat ; It is a 
 beautiful house that we have reared, let us make it a 
 holy house, by frequenting it with hearts made holy 
 by the mighty operations of God the Holy Ghost.
 
 Seven years have now elapsed since the consecra- 
 tion of this church, and by your continued liberality, 
 the services have been performed, according to the 
 model provided for us at the Reformation, in all the 
 beauty of holiness. No attempt has been made to ape 
 the services of that apostate Church, the Church of 
 Rome, but the Prayer Book has been our guide, not 
 more and not less. By the Prayer Book, the option is 
 given us of either singing or saying the services ; and 
 it is the glory of our Prayer Book that our services 
 are always sublime and edifying, whether they be sim- 
 ply said, or whether, the aid of a choir being called in, 
 they are chanted and sung. The mode is a thing 
 indifferent, or rather it is a matter of taste and feeling : 
 and your choice devolving upon a choral service, as 
 that in the first j)lace enjoined by the Prayer Book, 
 you have enabled us to perform that service in a man- 
 ner not surpassed by many of our cathedrals. Here 
 thousands on a Sunday, and hundred's often on week 
 days, have been accustomed to bear their part in our 
 sublime services; and here those services have been 
 solemnized by a due but not overstrained attention to 
 the decent ceremonies enjoined by the reformed 
 Church of England ; ceremonies often peculiar to 
 our Church, though consonant with primitive usage, 
 and distinguishing it equally from Geneva and Rome. 
 
 These things have only attached us the more to this 
 "our holy and our beautiful house;" we have loved 
 the house and the services performed therein. 
 
 It has been reported, that in attention to the services 
 of this church, preaching has been neglected ; but I 
 question much whether in any church in England 
 more sermons have been delivered. Four times at 
 least in every week are sermons preached from this 
 pulpit, and very seldom so few as four ; for Sermons are 
 delivered on every festival of the Church, while every
 
 9 
 
 day in Lent there has been a sermon ; nine sermons 
 in each Lenten week ; and a similar course of daily 
 preaching has been pursued before Confirmations, and 
 other special occasions. And blessed be God, many 
 seals to my ministry, since the church was consecrated, 
 hath He vouchsafed me ; many there are w^ho love 
 this " our holy and our beautiful house" the more, be- 
 cause here, by the Spirit of God, the conversion of their 
 souls was first effected ; and never do we forget that 
 preaching is one of the chief instruments in the hands 
 of the Holy Spirit, Who speaks, through the voice of 
 His minister, not only for the edification, but also for 
 the conversion of souls. 
 
 Here too, from the hands of our revered pastor, the 
 Bishop, by w^hom labour is accounted nothing when 
 the benefit of his spiritual children is concerned, up- 
 wards of five thousand young persons have, within the 
 last seven years, received the grace of Confirmation. To 
 those who have approached that blessed ordinance with 
 faithful and penitent hearts, " this our holy and our 
 beautiful house," in which their baptismal vows were 
 renewed, and they received their bishop's blessing, 
 must needs be dear. And inexpressibly dear it is to 
 them, and to others, who have been accustomed to 
 seek the strengthening and refreshing of their souls 
 in the sacrament of the Lord's Supper, that sacrament 
 administered here, at least once in every week. 
 
 And ye who seek and find happiness in a happy 
 home, dear to you is this " our holy and our beautiful 
 house," wherein ye were joined together in the bonds 
 of a holy matrimony, and to which you brought your 
 little ones when you desired to graft them into Christ 
 through the laver of regeneration. 
 
 Because you have these and other good reasons for 
 loving "our holy and our beautiful house," you have, 
 my brethren, with your accustomed liberality, come for-
 
 10 
 
 ward with subscriptions for its cleansing and renova- 
 tion, and will contribute further this day to exonerate 
 the lay officers, the wardens of this church, by whose 
 zeal, good taste, and sound judgment, this good work 
 has been accomplished, from the burthen of a debt. 
 
 This you have done, and will do, because you love 
 your "holy and your beautiful house." 
 
 But I have had a further object in selecting the 
 words of our text, and I would apply them not merely 
 to the material fabric ; I would apply them also to 
 that of which this building is but a symbol or type, to 
 the Church of England itself, which we should love to 
 contemplate as " our holy and our beautiful house." 
 Unless we love her as such, we shall never dutifully 
 serve her. They do not serve her dutifully, they are 
 not her true and faithful children, jwhose hearts go a 
 whoring after the abominations of other lands, and who, 
 with alienated affections, are ever dwelling on what 
 they call the " miserable deficiencies" of the Church 
 of England : who, if they dare not, as yet, declare 
 our house to be unholy, still hesitate to pronounce it 
 beautiful, and sigh for the garish ornaments, if not 
 for the images and idols with which foreign temples 
 are adorned. 
 
 Let us take warning from the conduct and the fate 
 of the Israelites. 
 
 Before the Babylonian captivity, there was not that 
 devoted attachment among the sons of Israel to the 
 institutions of their Church and country, which, after 
 their return, became almost a superstition. They 
 accepted their theocratic government, and the peculiar 
 rites of their divine religion, but they were discon- 
 tented under them : they regarded their isolation 
 among the nations of the world, not as an honour, but 
 with feelings of impatience; and in the prevalent 
 idolatiy, for which they could find a palliation, they
 
 11 
 
 wished to participate. They could not, in their pre- 
 tended modesty, believe that a single nation could be 
 right, and the rest of the world in error; and there- 
 fore, although they were willing to worship Jehovah 
 as the supreme God, they desired to multiply media- 
 tors, to have "Gods many, and Lords many," and 
 like the nations around them, to bow down to wood 
 and stone, the work of men's hands, and even to 
 " burn incense to the Queen of Heaven. "=5= 
 
 The consequence was, that, in the absence of love 
 to their own institutions, of attachment to that which 
 was their peculiarity and distinction, not only were 
 individuals continually perverted, but the whole nation 
 not unfrequently lapsed into idolatry. 
 
 It often happens that we know not the value of 
 what we possess, until, for our ingratitude, we are 
 deprived of it. It was not until their holy cities were 
 a wilderness, and Jeiiisalem a desolation :f it was nofc 
 until their " holy and their beautiful house," was burnt 
 up with fire, and all their pleasant things laid waste ; 
 it was not until, weeping by the waters of Babj'lon, they 
 had dwelt among the disgusting rites and the gross 
 immoralities of the idolatrous nations, that they per- 
 ceived the value of the divine institutions, and made 
 their peculiarities their gloi-y and their boast. 
 
 After the return of the Israelites from Babylon, 
 they loved their national institutions, and the very 
 peculiarities of their worship ; and thus being ani- 
 mated by love, although, as a peiTcrse and stiff-necked 
 people, they fell into other sins, they could not be 
 accused of a want of patriotism, or of apostacy from 
 the God of their fathers. 
 
 God grant, my brethren, that we may be taught to 
 value, ere it be too late, the blessings which we as 
 
 ♦ Jer. xliv, 17. + Isa. Ixiv. 10.
 
 12 
 
 Englishmen possess in Church and State. Our fore- 
 fathers loved their country, as the terms, " old Eng- 
 land," and " merry England," applied to their native 
 land, sufficiently attest ; and for their country they 
 fought and bled, when a nation's greatness was erro- 
 neously supposed to consist in success in war. Our 
 immediate ancestors, enamoured of that glorious con- 
 stitution, the coping stone of which was laid in the 
 revolution of 1688, spared no expense of money or of 
 blood, to defend those rights and that liberty, which, 
 dearly purchased, were highly prized. 
 
 And so also with respect to " our holy and our 
 beautiful house," the Church of England : our fore- 
 fathers loved it, as the purest and best reformed 
 Church in the world, the bulwark of the Reformation ; 
 and in defence of what they loved, our great divines, 
 Hooker, and Andrewes, and Laud, and Taylor, and 
 Barrow, and Bull, and a host of others, laboured by 
 day, and robbed themselves of rest by night, and 
 sharpened their pens in controversy : for this, " our 
 holy and our beautiful house," confessors "had trial 
 of cruel mockings and scourgings, yea, moreover, of 
 bonds and imprisonment ;" and martyrs died at the 
 stake ; and yet further, for his insidious attempts to 
 undermine " our holy and our beautiful house, where 
 our fathers praised their God," our noble ancestors 
 hurled a popish and profligate monarch from his 
 throne, and condemning his offspring to perpetual 
 banishment, effected a revolution which is justly term- 
 ed glorious ; a revolution which has attested the devo- 
 tion of Englishmen, (a devotion, not yet, I trust, 
 extinct,) to the cause of Protestantism and the Church, 
 to the cause of our constitution in Church and State. 
 
 I say, a devotion not yet extinct : but that devotion 
 is waxing fainter and more faint, even because in our 
 eagerness to correct abuses, which is right, we are too
 
 i;3 
 
 apt to be oblivious of the blessings which we possess. 
 That there may be cobwebs on the walls of the most 
 cleanly abode, of which the removal is desirable; that 
 there are imperfections in every thing, which, though 
 reared on a divine foundation, has been reared by 
 human hands ; that new apartments may require to 
 be added to the most commodious house ; that ancient 
 furniture may need to be burnished and repaired, and 
 to be adapted to modem uses ; all this we may freely 
 admit ; but if men exaggerate deficiences or defects : 
 the deficiences or defects not peculiar to ourselves, but 
 shared alike by others ; if they are continually dwel- 
 ling upon them, so that they can neither see for them- 
 selves nor point to others the peculiar holiness, the 
 peculiar beauty, the superiority of our own " most 
 holy and most beautiful house," there cannot be for 
 it that love, without which, as we have seen, no real 
 devoted service can be rendered. 
 
 This error was at one time confined to those who, 
 at heart Puritans in doctrine, if not Presbyterians 
 in discipline, conformed to the Church, either because 
 it was, as they supposed, established, or because it 
 afforded them a more extended sphere of usefulness, 
 or for some other reason not perhajDs assignable even 
 by themselves ; but who, while conforming, were free 
 in their censures of the Church, for retaining those 
 points of Catholic practice and doctrine, by which 
 the Church of England is distinguished from all other 
 Protestant communities. 
 
 But, alas ! this alienation of heart from the Church, 
 at whose altars they serve, is no longer confined to 
 these, and such as these : others there are, who, grop- 
 ing in the darkness of an opposite extreme, arc as 
 free in their censures of the Church, for asserting 
 those grand and important Protestant truths, by main- 
 taining which, the Church of England is distinguished 
 
 B
 
 14 
 
 from the apostate Church of Rome. x\t the same time 
 the two extremes unite in this, that, the one taking 
 the meeting house, and the other the mass house, for 
 their model, they, in act as well as in word, disparage 
 the Book of Common Prayer : the one extreme adds to 
 the Prayer Book, Hymns, too often the composition 
 of Nonconformists ; the other extreme introduces 
 forms and ceremonies which were wisely rejected at 
 the Reformation, and refers to the Breviary or the 
 Missal, as if these were an authority to guide us in 
 the celebration of our reformed services. Those who 
 are in the one extreme, omit whole portions of the 
 Prayer Book, because, imagining themselves wiser 
 than the Church, they reject the Church's teaching 
 with respect to baptism ; and those in the opposite 
 extreme, so comport themselves_^t the celebration of 
 the Lord's Supper, as to show that they think the 
 Church deficient in her teaching as it regards that 
 holy sacrament. 
 
 In the absence of love, the defection of such per- 
 sons, or of their disciples, to the ranks either of Pro- 
 testant or of Romish dissent, is no more wonderful 
 than the frequent idolatry of the Israelites before they 
 learned to love their theocratic system, and to rejoice 
 in its superiority to every other form of religion or 
 scheme of polity throughout the world. 
 
 Be it for us, my brethren, especially in these days 
 of change, to take off our eyes from the blemishes 
 which may slightly deface " our holy and our beautiful 
 house ;" let us dwell upon the many advantages which 
 we possess, in being permitted therein to worship our 
 God in the beauty of holiness. Let us love the Church 
 of England for her very peculiarities, those peculiari- 
 ties, which, keeping her distinct from the Romanists 
 and the Rationalists, seem to identify her with the 
 primitive and scriptural Church.
 
 15 
 
 We will love the Church of England, for that it is 
 the ancient Catholic Church of this realm, the only 
 Church, (for the Romanists form a sect of modern in- 
 troduction,) which can by an uninterinipted series of 
 ordinations, trace its origin from those zealous mis- 
 sionaries from various nations, by whom Christianity 
 was first introduced into this island, and through 
 them to the holy Apostles. =5'- In this our Catholic 
 Church, all primitive and Catholic truth is held ; 
 all the doctrines which were held universally by 
 the universal Church, before the diWsion of the East 
 and the West through the ambition of the pon- 
 tiffs of Rome ; all Catholic truth as distinguishable 
 and distinguished from medieval superstition and 
 Romish corruption. Herein we are taught to worship 
 one God in Trinity and Trinity in Unity ; while 
 we devoutly recognize in the work of man's salvation, 
 the character of God the Father, the divinity and 
 work of God the Son ; the Personality, the Divinity, 
 and the Grace of God the Holy Ghost, three Persons 
 
 * The kingdom of Mercia, containing tbe counties of Chester, 
 Nottingham, Derby, Stafford, Salop, Northampton, Leicester, 
 Lincoln, Huntingdon, Eutland, Warwick, Worcester, Oxford, 
 Gloucester, Buckingham, Bedford, Hereford, and part of Hertford, 
 was converted to Christianity by Finanus, Diuma, Ceollach, and 
 Trumhere, all Irish bishops. Bede, Hist. lib. iii, c. 21. The 
 kingdom of Northumberland, which contained York, Lancaster, 
 and the northern parts of England, and extended a considerable 
 way into Scotland, was chiefly converted by Aidan, another Irish 
 bishop. Paulinus had been sent on this mission by Justus of 
 Canterbury, successor of Augustine, but was soon obliged to retire, 
 and paganism resumed its sway, until Aidan arrived under hap- 
 pier auspices, and converted the nation. Ibid. lib. iii. c. 3, 5, and 
 (J. Essex, Middlesex, and Hertford were converted by Cedd, 
 another Irish bishop, after they had relapsed into paganism. 
 Ibid, lib. iii. c. 22. The Picts and Scots of Scotland were con- 
 verted by Columba, an Irishman, first abbot of lona, in the sixth 
 century. Ibid, lib, iii. c. 4. — See Palmer's Origincs Liturgiae.
 
 16 
 
 but one God : we are warned of the fall, the corrup- 
 tion, the guilt, the helplessness of man ; we are told of 
 the Incarnation of the Son of God, that in Him, be- 
 coming man without ceasing to be God, in the God- 
 Man, there might be a Mediator between the divine 
 and the human natures. The Church preaches to us 
 the necessity of repentance towards God, and of turn- 
 ing from every sin : the atonement for sin by the blood 
 of God : the doctrine of justification by faith in the 
 blood of the atonement ; and the necessity of having 
 that blood applied to our souls, and our union with 
 Christ effected, by the sacraments of the Gospel : 
 the Church preaches to us the sanctification of heart 
 and life by the grace of the Spirit, to be sought for in 
 the Ordinances of the Sanctuary, by earnest prayer 
 and a self-denying life : the Church preaches to us 
 the resurrection of the dead, the future judgment of 
 all mankind, according to their works; eternal punish- 
 ment in hell, as the wages of sin ; and eternal happi- 
 ness in heaven, as the gift of God in Jesus Christ our 
 Lord. In this our portion of the Catholic Church, 
 the Church here by God established in England, the 
 pure word of God is preached, and the sacraments 
 are duly administered, not mutilated as in the Church 
 of Rome ; and therefore " our holy and our beautiful 
 house," we as Catholics have reason to love. 
 
 But moreover we will love the Church of England, 
 not for her Catholicism only, but for her Protestant- 
 ism also : for the title of Protestant stands in antagon- 
 ism not to Catholicism, as deceivers teach, but to Ro- 
 manism. We glory in our title of Protestant ; for by 
 that title we proclaim to all the world that we protest 
 against " the Romish doctrine concerning purgatoiy, 
 pardons, worshipping and adoration, as well of images 
 as of reliques, and also invocation of saints" :* not only 
 * Article xxii.
 
 17 
 
 do we declare these things to be " repugnant to the 
 word of God," but while we protest against the Romish 
 violation both of Scripture and of primitive practice, 
 in withholding the cup in the Lord's Supper from the 
 people,* whereby it becomes doubtful whether by the 
 Romanists that sacrament is ever received : we pro- 
 test also against their dogma of Transubstantiation, 
 or the change of the substance of bread and wine in 
 the Supper of the Lord, which " is repugnant to the 
 plain words of Scripture, overthroweth the nature of a 
 sacrament, and hath given occasion to many supersti- 
 tions" ;f we declare that " the offering of Christ once 
 made is that perfect redemption, propitiation, and 
 satisfaction, for all the sins of the whole world, both 
 original and actual" ; and that " there is none other 
 satisfaction for sin but that alone" ; and we therefore 
 protest against the sacrifices of masses, in the w^hich 
 the Romanists say that the priest doth ofier Christ for 
 the quick and the dead, to have remission of pain or 
 guilt ; which we pronounce to be " blasphemous fables 
 and dangerous deceits". | If this do not vindicate our 
 Protestantism, I do not know what will ; but we are 
 Protestant also in the grand doctrine of justification 
 by faith only, independently of works, as that doc- 
 trine was defined at the Reformation in opposition 
 to the scholastic and medieval doctrine of justifica- 
 tion by works, adopted by the Romish Church in the 
 assembly of Trent, and the origin of some of her worst 
 corruptions : we are Protestant in the distinction we 
 maintain, and which I incessantly point out to you, 
 between justification and sanctification, between the 
 imputed righteousness by which we are justified, and 
 the imparted righteousness which, though necessaiy, 
 has no share in justifying us; between the perfect 
 
 * Article xxx. + Article xxviii. J Article xxxi. 
 
 b 2
 
 18 
 
 righteousness of Christ Jesus, through which, when it 
 is received in our souls by faith, and ajDpiied to us by 
 the sacraments, we are accounted what we are not ; 
 and the righteousness of sanctification, which, wrought 
 in us by the Holy Ghost, is our own, but is so imper- 
 fect, that when we look to this our inward righteous- 
 ness, we strike upon our breasts and say, " God be 
 merciful to me a sinner," and feel that without a 
 Saviour we should die, without a Redeemer we should 
 perish.* 
 
 There are now two extremes in the Church : the 
 one extreme would receive the Articles without the 
 Prayer Book ; the other, the Prayer Book without the 
 Articles. From either extreme all those who love 
 the Church of England as it is, must stand apart. 
 We are not so to hold justification by faith, as to set 
 aside the sacramental religion of the Prayer Book : 
 neither are we so unduly to elevate the sacraments, as 
 to set aside the doctrine of justification by faith. 
 When the Protestant element in the constitution of 
 the Church of England is too exclusively regarded, as 
 was the case a few years ago, we must contend for our 
 Catholicism ; but when Catholicism, misunderstood 
 by the weak, and perverted by the artful and design- 
 ing, is verging upon Popery, — then it becomes needful 
 to display our zeal as Protestants. Puritanism is a 
 bad thing, but Popery is worse. 
 
 It is because it is both Catholic and Protestant, (not 
 Romish nor Rationalistic,) that our's is a holy and a 
 beautiful house ; and holy and beautiful are our services 
 also, when the requisitions of the Prayer Book are 
 duly observed ; they tacitly protest against either ex- 
 
 * On this subject see Heurtley's "Bampton Lectures. These 
 Lectures, and his Sermons on Union with Cluist, are an invalu- 
 able addition to our theological treasury.
 
 19 
 
 treme : against the irreverence of Ultra-protestantism 
 on the one hand, against the mummery and the 
 superstition of Romanism on the other ; so that, as 
 (jrotius was compelled by his love of truth to admit, 
 " the English Liturgy is the finest service in the 
 world:" it is so, in the dignified simplicity of its sig- 
 nificant ceremonies, in the chastened fenour of its 
 prayers, in the heavenly aspirations of its praises. 
 Where indeed can we find a composition so compre- 
 hensive and yet so condensed, so chastened in feeling, 
 so fervent in devotion, so sublime in sentiment, so 
 simple in language, as the reformed liturgy of " our 
 holy and our beautiful house." We only turn to it with 
 the greater affection, and with more grateful admira- 
 tion of the wisdom which guided our Reformers, if we 
 chance to see what the liturgy before the Reformation 
 was, or happen to meet with the disgusting composi- 
 tions which pass under that name, which the Church 
 of Rome, in its corruption, still retains. 
 
 And now, my brethren, I have led you on from the 
 contemplation of that beautiful fabric in which we 
 are assembled, to the contemplation of the holiness 
 and beauty of the Church of England : and onwards 
 and upwards, further still, would I lead you, until 
 these feelings of reverential love, exhibited first towards 
 the creature, find their centre, termination, and per- 
 fection, in the Creator. We are to follow the course 
 of our nature in this as in every other respect ; and a 
 law of our nature it is, that commencing at a scarcely 
 discernible point, our faculties gradually expand ; we 
 begin with childish things, which, when we come to 
 man's estate, we lay aside ; we commence with what 
 is visible and material, and we grow into an acquaint- 
 ance with the immaterial and invisible ; all our facul- 
 ties have their infancy ; we gradually advance ; we 
 must creep before we can walk, and walk before we
 
 20 
 
 run ; and so it is with respect to our minds ; with 
 our principles, our sentiments, our affections. All 
 are eventually to rest upon God. As the fire to its 
 sphere, as the stone to its centre, as rivers to the 
 sea, so to the Lord God Almighty, to God the Holy 
 Trinity, as to an Absorbing Centre, through Christ the 
 only medium, the sanctified heart in every principle, 
 faculty, wish, hope, and feeling, is attracted ; until in 
 the beatific vision it will lose all, but its individuality. 
 But we arrive not at this perfection at once ; for this, 
 the end of our existence, we are to be educated and 
 trained. Our affections are first directed to our earthly 
 relations, in order to give vigour and play to our ten- 
 derness and sensibility. Before they rest upon God 
 as our Father, (as must be the case in him who is a 
 perfect man in Christ Jesus,) they are to be exercised 
 in childhood towards our earthly parents : and, in like 
 manner, we pass from the love of the brethren with 
 whom we are associated, to the love of the Church ; 
 from the love of the Church to the love of God; and 
 when by the love of God our hearts are converted, they 
 return with a more enlightened love to the Church ; 
 since the Church is then regarded as the mystical Body 
 of Christ, and in loving the Head we must love the Body 
 also. As the moisture taken from the earth and re- 
 ceived into the clouds, returns again to earth in genial 
 and refreshing showers, so the afiections, drawn from 
 this world and fixed on the things of heaven, return, 
 in their sanctification, to our churches and our homes, 
 blessing and being blessed. 
 
 As from simple coloured rays, all compound coloured 
 rays are formed, and all coloured rays combined make 
 a white one ; so will all our afiections be ultimately 
 combined in the one overwhelming affection of love to 
 God ; but until this be accompHshed, which, in its 
 fulness, will never be, until, (which God grant,) we
 
 21 
 
 are just men made perfect in the world to come, 
 each separate affection must be duly cultivated, in 
 subordination to the first and great commandment : 
 the affection of parents towards their children, and of 
 children towards their parents, of husbands towards 
 their wives, and of wives towards their husbands, of 
 patriots towards their countiy, and of churchmen 
 towards their Church. 
 
 POSTSCRIPT. 
 
 A parent, anxious for the right training of his children, 
 and lamenting the several apostacies, which have occured du- 
 ring the last few years, has written to me asking : " Can it be 
 possible that Church Principles lead so frequently to so much 
 unsoundness ?" We answer, not Church Principles, if the 
 term, Churcli Principles, be properly understood. I have 
 always understood by that term, Church of England Princi- 
 ples ; and I have supposed that persons professing to hold 
 " Church Principles," are persons ready, (like all our great 
 Divines of the 17th century, without a single exception,) to 
 stand by the distinguishing principles of the English Refor- 
 mation, and to contend against Rome with a zeal at least 
 equal to that which they display against Geneva. But of 
 late I have found myself very often mistaken in the persons 
 so trusted, and that by " Church Principles" some persons 
 mean their own opinions, whatever they may be ; " Catholic 
 Principles" in their vocabulary, being the term used to signify 
 their private judgment, or, not what the Prayer Book adopts 
 as Catholic, but what they imagine to be discoverable in the 
 primitive writers ; others there are, who by " Church Princi- 
 ples," mean all the obnoxious doctrines of Popery.
 
 ^2 
 
 It becomes necessary for us therefore to speak of Church of 
 England Principles, if we do not wish to be deceived or 
 misunderstood, and to assert that, by Catholicism, we mean 
 the doctrines of the Prayer Book. 
 
 T. HARRISON, PRINTER, BRIGGATE, LEEDS.
 
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