an easy prey to the always subsisting lust of dominion of the nearest tyrant. In every state, the patriot and citizen, whatever difference of opinion may exist between them, must always agree in this one thing-the defence of their country. Although great differences of opinion on minor points arise, their attention must never be diverted from this one common object. But when schisms spring up in the state, this oneness is lost sight of. "A house divided against itself cannot stand:" the community is in the certain road to ruin. Place such a society before the eye of the mind. You see it first as one body, acknowledging and acting upon the common grounds of the preservation of the whole. Differences of opinion spring up out of the evil soil, nourished by the bad passions of the human heart; and then you observe the whole society agitated: leaders, men of more than ordinary boldness, become the spokesmen and active heads of these differing factions. We will imagine one party to be adhering to the existing laws and customs, and the other to be the innovators, and, as they will of course call themselves, the reformers. Doubtless both parties have some reasonable grounds of complaint among their various points of difference. The one party are perfectly certain that many of the principles and practices of the existing government are sound, and cannot be altered for the better; yet cling to the whole with a tenaciousness which can only be justified as it respects parts of that whole. On the other hand, the innovators are perfectly assured of the evils existing; and, tracing many of them to their palpable causes in the present system, are inflexible in insisting upon a reformation. But, then, they are not satisfied with moderation; for, having discovered several undeniable defects, they begin to distrust all the fabric, and seek the destruction of the whole, for reasons only applicable to a part. Each is in certain respects right, and so far is bound in conscience to be firm to its principles; but, unfortunately, each looks only at the golden side of his own opinions, and enlists with all his might in defence of the indiscriminate mass of right and wrong of which his own system is composed. Meeting with mutual opposition, the passions on each side rise up and cloud the common reason; the darkness of prejudice gradually thickens; only passions are at last discoverable upon the field of contention mutual wrongs cause a complete division, and there is no longer any cordial acting together. Two wills are now seen in the body politic, each organizing its members to its own separate ends. This terminates in not only having no common interest, but contrary interests: each takes up arms to defend itself, and to wrest from the other what it considers the other unjustly to withhold from it; and here we find them at

last neutralizing each other, and the fit and ready victims of the nearest foreign power. This foreign power is, perhaps, first called in by one party, under the plausible name of ally, but, in truth and in fact, is only the suicidal instrument which is first to fall upon the head of the rival, and then reverberate and crush the survivor.

I have here, though briefly and imperfectly indeed, drawn a sketch of the natural process of schism in a civil society, which the reader may authenticate for himself by referring to the histories of those states and communities of men wherein this process has been acted out.

It will not be difficult to strip the above conception of its peculiar characteristics, in order to see that the same remarks are capable of an evident application to the Christian church. In addition to all the prudential and patriotic motives for avoiding schism, which present themselves to a member of a merely political society, others are brought before a member of the Christian church, which, even without the reflected light of the former illustration, ought to be received as sufficient to direct him. In the light of our Lord's declaration, cited at the beginning of this paper, I feel justified in affirming that schisms and divisions lead inevitably to the destruction of the body in which they are cherished; and as no person would administer a deadly poison in order to remove a disease in the human body, so must no one, under pretence of healing the defects in a Christian church, adopt this most fatal of all measures.

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As Christians, we are commanded to act upon the principle of love, and not of self-gratification. It behoves a Christian to submit to every privation and burden from his brethren, rather than, in order to obtain personal relief, to originate a schism. We are commanded to make the greatest possible sacrifice for the sake of the brethren : For greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends" (John. xv. 13); and this we are exhorted to do 1 John iii. 16: "Hereby perceive we the love of God, because he laid down his life for us; and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren." If, then, it be our duty to make the greatest possible sacrifice, all inferior sacrifices are included. We must on no account have any fellowship with sin, but faithfully denounce every thing which we see to be evil, and use every means in our power, of rebuke, hortation, and patient endurance of unkind treatment, for the sake of our erring brethren; yet never leave them, and set up a separate establishment more agreeable to our ease and feelings; but, while the faith of the church of which we are members, as set forth in all its standards, be sound, and there be nothing absolutely antichristian in its constitution, we must remain at

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our posts, and be faithful to Christ. As long as men retain their profession of adhering to the church, we must be filled with hope, and act towards them with love, having faith in the ability of God to bless our efforts towards the enlivening and strengthening them in the divine life: " And I will very gladly spend and be spent for you, though the more abundantly I love you the less I be loved" (2 Cor. xii. 15).

Such being the general principles necessary to the well-being and preservation of all societies of men, and especially of the Christian church, I shall proceed to point out their application, after making one observation with respect to the Reformation, and the essential difference between the relation in which the Protestants stood to the Papal Church, and that in which Dissenters stand to the Church of England.

Nothing short of apostasy from the faith can justify men in separating themselves from a church: then, indeed, it becomes a duty, for that body has ceased to be Christian, and, if Christians they would remain, no other course is left. This was the case with the Reformers, when they separated from the Roman church, after long and arduous struggles to reform it. In bringing about this emancipation from the thraldom of the Romish church they fulfilled a painful duty; and had this church not been antichristian, their separation from it could not be cleared of the guilt of schism. But as these observations are addressed to my Protestant brethren, I must conclude that they admit the fact of the Papal church being antichristian, and that the Reformers stand fully acquitted of the crime of having been schismatics. This separation, then, we all justify and rejoice in; but it is the divisions and subdivisions, the cruel rents and schisms which followed among the Protestant churches, and which are still being carried on amongst us, that are to be condemned, as contrary to Christian principles and many plain precepts delivered to us by our Lord and his Apostles.

As the instance of one of the Protestant churches will be sufficient to serve all the ends in view, I shall confine my remarks to the Church of England. It has been ably proved, by the great and venerable Hooker, that the principal charges brought against the Church of England are groundless, and none who separate themselves from her communion can be acquitted of being schismatics. Those who separated themselves did so upon the pretence of her not being enough reformed, and flattered themselves that they could bring about a purer state of things. This is the pretence common to all the schismatics who have so fearfully distracted and divided our fellow-countrymen and fellow-Christians. It is true that this was the bold and necessary language of the noble body of Reformers; but the cases how different! Hardly did they contend to reform the

whole of Christendom; but when they had entered upon the work, it was found that the great body of professors of Christianity included two distinct parties: the one willing and struggling for greater purity and liberty in Christ, and earnest to be reformed; the other preferring their thick darkness to the rising light, and rejecting and suppressing, in every possible manner, the desire and endeavour to reform; and this latter party was headed by the Papal hierarchy. Thus doubtful matters stood, until men, by the diligent study of the Scriptures, and the learning and light of holy men who had studied the Scriptures before them, arrived at the momentous conclusion, that the corrupted system, actuated by and acting with the Papal hierarchy, was the antichristian body prophesied of in the Scriptures *.

"At this important era" (the Reformation) "the great mystery of iniquity was clearly revealed; Antichrist was fully laid open and exposed........ But how extravagant soever some Protestant interpreters have been, when they gave a loose to their imaginations, yet the soberest of them have universally concurred with the wildest, that this man of sin, this Antichrist, could be no other than the man who fills the Papal chair; whose usurpation in Christ's kingdom and tyranny over conscience, by intoxicating the kings of the earth with the cup of his enchantments and himself with the blood of the saints, so eminently distinguishes him from all other unjust powers, that the various churches who broke loose from his enchantments agreed in supporting the vindication of their liberty on this common principle, that the Pope, or Church of Rome, was the very Antichrist foretold. On this was the Reformation begun and carried on; on this was the great separation from the Church of Rome conceived and perfected: for though persecution for opinion would acquit those of schism whom the Church of Rome had driven from her communion, yet, on the principle that she is Antichrist, they had not only a right, but lay under the obligation of a command, to come out of this spiritual Babylon (Rev. xviii. 4). On this principle (the common ground, as we say, of the Reformation) the several Protestant churches, how different soever in their various models, were all erected."-Bishop Warburton's Discourse on the Rise of Antichrist. I can hardly apologize for this

long note, and one much longer which I am about to quote from Bishop Newton's Dissertation on the Prophecies, because I regard them so valuable and important to the illustration of the subject before us." Justin Martyr, who flourished before the middle of the second century, considers the man of sin,' or, as he elsewhere calleth him, the man of blasphemy,' as altogether the same with the little horn' in Daniel, and affirms, that he who shall speak blasphemous words against the Most High is now at the doors.' Irenæus, who lived in the same century, hath written a whole chapter of the fraud, and pride, and tyrannical reign of Antichrist, as they are described by Daniel, and St. Paul in his Second Epistle to the Thessalonians. Tertullian, who became famous at the latter end of the same century, expounding those words, only who now letteth will let until he be taken out of the way,' says, ' Who can this be, but the Roman state, the division of which into ten kingdoms will bring on Antichrist, and then the wicked one shall be revealed?' And in his Apology he assigns it as a particular reason why the Christians prayed for the Roman empire, because they knew that the greatest calamity hanging over the world was retarded by the continuance of it.' Origen, the most learned father and ablest writer of the third century, recites this passage at large, as spoken of him who is called Antichrist. To the same purpose he likewise alleges the words of Daniel, as truly divine and prophetic. Daniel and St. Paul, according to him, both prophesied of the same person. Lactantius, who flourished in the beginning of the fourth century

The Reformers then stood upon firm ground, and called upon all faithful servants of Christ to "come out of her," as they valued their salvation; and denounced the Romish church as liable to the heavy impending judgments of God. They denounced her at first as corrupt, and saw it to be clearly their duty to bring about a Reformation; and, finding all their endeavours to reform her ineffectual, were compelled to declare her antichristian; and then nothing remained for them but to leave

describes Antichrist in the same manner, and almost in the same terms as St. Paul; and concludes, 'This is he who is called Antichrist, but shall feign himself to be Christ, and shall fight against the truth.' A shorter and fuller character of the Vicar of Christ could not be drawn even by a Protestant. Cyril of Jerusalem, in the same century, alleges this passage of St. Paul, together with other prophecies concerning Antichrist, and says, that This, the predicted Antichrist, will come when the times of the Roman empire shall be fulfilled, and the consummation of the world shall approach. Ten kings of the Romans shall arise together; in different places indeed, but they shall reign at the same time. Among these the eleventh is Antichrist, who by magical and wicked artifices shall seize the Roman power.' Ambrose, archbishop of Milan, in the same century, or Hilary the Deacon, or the author (whoever he was) of the Comment on St. Paul's Epistles which passeth under the name of St. Ambrose, proposes much the same interpretation, and affirms, that after the falling or decay of the Roman empire Antichrist shall appear.'-Jerome, Austin, and Chrysostom, flourished in the latter end of the fourth, or the beginning of the fifth century. St. Jerome, in his explanation of this passage, says that Antichrist shall sit in the temple of God, either at Jerusalem (as some imagine), or in the church (as we more truly judge), shewing himself that he is Christ and the Son of God: and unless the Roman empire be first desolated, and Antichrist precede, Christ shall not come. "And now ye know what withholdeth that he might be revealed in his time:" that is, ye know very well what is the reason why Antichrist doth not come at present. He is not willing to say openly that the Roman empire should be destroyed, which they who command think to be eternal for if he had said openly and boldly that Antichrist shall not come unless the Roman empire be first destroyed, it might probably have proved the occasion of a persecution against the church.' Jerome was himself a witness to the barbarous nations beginning to tear in pieces the Roman empire, and upon this occasion he exclaims, He who hindered is taken out of the way, and we do now consider that Antichrist approaches, whom the Lord Jesus shall consume with the spirit of his mouth.'-St. Austin, having cited this passage, affirms, that no one questions that the Apostle spoke these things concerning Antichrist; and the day of judgment (for this he calleth the day of the Lord) should not come unless Antichrist come first. "And now ye know what withholdeth." Some think this was spoken of the Roman empire; and therefore the Apostle was not willing to write it openly, lest he should incur a præmunire, and be falsely accused of wishing ill to the Roman empire, which was hoped to be eternal.'—St. Chrysostom, in one of his Homilies upon this passage, speaking of what hindered the revelation of Antichrist, asserts, that when the Roman empire shall be taken out of the way, then he shall come: and it is very likely: for as long as the dread of this empire shall remain, no one shall quickly be substituted; but when this shall be dissolved, he shall seize on the vacant empire, and shall endeavour to assume the power both of God and men.' And who hath seized on the vacant empire in Rome, and assumed the power both of God and man, let the world judge.--In this manner these ancient and venerable fathers expound this passage; and in all probability they had learned by tradition