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    Untitled Article

    Bishops Jewell and Hall are quoted in defence of this opinion . Might not the testimony of the ever-memorable Mr . John Hales" have been appropriately subjoined : " Peradventure , the dregs of the Church of Rome are not yet sufficiently washed from the hearts of many men" ?

    Desiring to give full credit to both Mr * Wild and Mr . Oliver for the sin ^ cerity of their alarm lest the downfal of the Church of England should be the downfal of religion , we conclude by quoting , with unmingled satisfaction and delight , the following beautiful passage from the preface to the « Tombs of the Prophets ;"

    44 One word to those pious persons whose timidity and , I must add , want of faith , has led them to expostulate with me on the harm that may come to religion if the Church of England is abolished . " The error of this notion is to be traced partly to a confusion of terms . A church and the church are not synonymous . A church called the Church of England may be , and certainly will be , ere long , reduced to the condition

    of a sect ; but this will not touch the Church of Christ ; bo pamphlets , no books , no writings , no , not all the scribes and philosophers of the world , cam injure that church , because the gates of hell shall never prevail against it , and because one pilots the ship who can silence even the winds and the waves . But churches made by men , and fortified with gold and silver an 4 secular strength and carnal helps , may tumble down any day $ they are always in danger ; and when their ruin comes , nothing will remain but what was spiritual ; all the rest will crumble into dust , and the hirelings will flee because they are hirelings .

    < f Let every pious Christian , then , who is bewitched With a love of church , inquire diligently what church it is that he loveth ? if he is in love with Christ's Church , nothing can injure the object of his affections j for the true spiritual , eternal church is the whole company of the faithful , who form Christ ' s mystical body—a body not made of atones and timber and gothic arches , but built on the apostles and prophets , of which Jesus Christ himself is the chief corner-stone .

    " Against this building the people furiously rage together , and the heathen imagine a vain thing , for the ark may shake , but it cannot fell 5 the ship of the church may be tossed , bujt it cannot Sink , for Christ is in it , and will wake time enough to prevent its wreck ; there is , therefore , no cause for us , when the storm beats hard upon it , to disturb him , as once the disciples did , with outcries of unbelief , as if all were lost . Our faith is more in danger of sinking at such a time than the cause of Christ and his church . ' **

    * Gurnall .

    Untitled Article

    On the Corrupt State of the Churdh of England . 635

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Sept. 2, 1831, page 635, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2601/page/59/