DEDICATORY EPISTLE

TO THE

Clergy of every Protestant Communion.

GENTLEMEN,

of

IN complying with the demand that is made for the publication of a Discussion undertaken and conducted in the secrecy confidence, I cannot but be desirous of addressing it immediately to you. Indeed it seems to me most reasonable and just to present it, in the first instance, to those members of the Reformed Communions, who, while they are more particularly interested in becoming acquainted with its contents, are also, by their superior attainments, better qualified to decide upon its merits. Now therefore it shall go forth to the world, with the hopes that it may find access to its most desired destination. May it speedily appear before you, to undergo its first examination and receive its first judgment at your tribunal. Whilst I bespeak your indulgence for the defects and imperfections you will discover in the style and manner of the work, I am bold to defy your most rigid and unsparing scrutiny as to its matter and substance. This may look to you like presumption: but assuredly it is not so: for never were quoted with more feeling conviction those words of the apostle-" Not that we are sufficient to think any "thing of ourselves, as of ourselves; but our sufficiency is from God." (2 Cor. III. 5.) I feel the full force of this passage: it penetrates to my heart: it alone inspires me with courage and confidence.

If, Gentlemen, you would take the trouble to study the character of your first Reformers, as depicted mutually by themselves, you would join with us in no longer considering them as men raised up by God to repair the ruins of his Church: if you were shocked equally with myself at the enormity of their schism and the frivolous pretexts alleged in its excuse, your zeal and utmost energies would be called into immediate exertion to effect its termination: if you were convinced equally with myself that the doctrines retrenched by them were the doctrines of antiquity, you could no longer be induced to believe that the suppression of such articles has tended to approximate you to the primitive Church; you would rather unite with me in attributing their mistaken conduct to the ignorance of the age in which they lived. Pay only a little attention to the proofs presented in this discussion on that head: weigh them as candidly as they have been collected: peruse them as they have been written, with calm composure of mind and in the presence of God. I look for this favour from all you, who respect religion and tender your salvation. But as for those, who, blinded by prejudice and ignorance, and hurried away by their passions, run eagerly in pursuit of the enjoyments of this life, and are reckless of the world to come, from them it is in vain to expect a hearing. For such I do not write, but pray.

Gentlemen, you are well aware that highly distinguished individuals belonging to your body, have, from the Reformation down to our times, unceasingly proclaimed to the world that the points at issue between you and us are but slight abuses introduced into the Church; (a) that it would be most easy to put an end to all disputes; (b) that if, on the one hand, there exists an indispensable necessity for all Christians to become again, united; it is certain, on the other, that Protestants will never accomplish this union among themselves, unless by becoming previously re-united to the See of Rome; (c) that there is no

(a) Confession of Augsbourg, art. XXI.—(b) Melanchton's Letter to Francis I. (c) Grotius, last Reply to Rivet.-Thorndike, On Forbearance. p. 33.

dogma, essential to salvation, but what is taught by the Church of Rome; nor any propounded by her which are incompatible with salvation; (a) and that, according to the judgment of all well-informed theologians, the distance between you and us is not so great as is generally imagined. (b) Seeing that your own teachers have thus publicly professed these sentiments and numerous others of similar tendency, permit me to ask, what are you doing by thus prolonging a schism, which, according to the opinion of these impartial and enlightened individuals, ought never to have been begun; according to their convictions and wishes should have ceased as quickly as possible: and which in their opinion there would be but little difficulty in destroying? What, I ask, are you doing by thus prolonging the schism? You are rendering yourselves accomplices of the greatest evil that Christians can effect of an evil which has not indeed originated with you, but which receives the support of your ministry. By you, and as far as in you lies, it is held together and per petuated; you hold the people attached to it by your example; and generations are enchained to it by your talents—nay, even by your virtues. You defeat (and perhaps, Gentlemen, you may have never seriously reflected on this awful point) you defeat, 1 say, the views of our Divine Legislator, whose desire was to establish unity in his Church: you rob him of the most striking and most generally palpable proof of his divine mission; the proof to which he himself has referred us in the unanimity of his followers. (c) By the substitution of divisions and discords in the place of union and unanimity, your ancestors, and you, who continue the work, have thrown confusion and dismay into the minds of the weak and superficial. They no longer know which way to turn, or what communion to prefer. Some of them you have led into indifference, and others into positive incredulity. Hence the crimes that deluge the world, to which you and we can equally bear testimony. These your first reformers clearly fore

(a) Thorndike, Epist. p. 146.- -(b) Declaration of the University of Helmstadt; 1707.-(c) St. John, Ch XVII. v. 21–23. See the second letter.

saw-they announced them at a distance, almost as soon as they had established those principles, from which they saw them inevitably derived upon future generations.

Destroy the schism-and you will eradicate the evil, you will arrest its progress and instantaneously diminish its frightful ravages. Destroy the schism-and you will accomplish the wish of the most religious and enlightened persons of the reformation; they who had hitherto regarded one another as strangers, would thenceforth act as friends, and, like brethren meeting after a long separation, would prevent each other with the kindly salutations of brotherly affection. Then would beam forth once more the joy and glory of the Church, indebted to you for the renewal of her pristine universality. The sixteenth century beheld your forefathers leave her bosom and curse it; the nineteenth would behold their descendants, flocking from all sides to their too long abandoned mother, who now can no longer remember the pangs and the miseries occasioned by their separation, for joy of their return to her embraces. How admirable a spectacle! to behold so many learned and zealous ecclesiastics, hitherto at variance with themselves and with us, now spontaneously retracing their steps to the fold of unity! What a striking lesson would such an event read to an age obstinately deaf to every other ! What a triumph for the religion of our Saviour! Then would the splendour of his divinity become irresistible; the indifferent and incredulous would come in crowds, and, prostrate at his feet, acknowledge and renounce their ignorance and blind stupidity. The upright and fervent Christian, who is serious in the affair of his salvation and a fervent adorer of Jesus Christ, of whatever country, or religious communion must certainly feel his heart burn within him at the idea of so glorious a prospect, and pant with impatient anxiety to co-operate in its accomplishment.

Here is another visionary scheme, it will be said; another attempt at what is impracticable. Impracticable indeed! What! talk of impracticability, when we are under the most absolute necessity of effecting its realization! And why impracticable, when by the re-union there is every thing to be gained in the next world and nothing to be lost in this? Whence shall

the insurmountable obstacles arise ? Surely, Gentlemen, not from yourselves-You who are more alive to the obligation, and who can fully appreciate the advantages of unity, would, I am confident, be disposed generously to make a sacrifice of transient advantages, if such sacrifice were called for. But, so far as I can anticipate, this re-union, far from costing you sacrifices, would bring you even temporal advantages. I will suppose that you were left for a time in your present offices; even so, you would exercise them on а more eminent theatre: the esteem and consideration, which you now enjoy, would acquire by the fact additional lustre and would appear in bolder relief. But numberless titles and dignities suppressed by the Reformation would again bloom forth to these you would be called by the voice of the Church, who would naturally be inclined to give this preference to the children so happily recovered and if houors and preferments should prove to be insufficient for her eagerness to invest you with them, our prelates would not be backward in imitating the example of their ancient predecessors, by quitting their episcopal chairs and pressing you to take their places.

I am equally unable to foresee insurmountable obstacles on the part of the government. I am aware that the privileges, claimed in former times for the sovereign pontiff over the temporal power of 'kings, have, not unfrequently, given just cause of jealousy to the reigning powers. But these pretensions to temporal dominion have on no occasion been generally asserted or recognised by Catholics; they are abandoned there even where they first appeared: they are vanishedand to fear them at this time of day, would really be to tremble at a phantom. 'Tis true, we acknowledge a primacy of honor and jurisdiction, which distinguishes the successor of Peter from the successor of the rest of the apostles, and constitutes his see the centre of all other sees. But this hierarchical and spiritual order, absolutely distinct in its object from all earthly governments, and on that account applicable to them all, far from producing mischief to them, can only tend to serve their cause and