The restoration of unity is, we believe, to be effected by totally different means from that which you suggest. We look for it, not by the re-establishment of papal authority,-not by committing the keeping of our consciences, our liberties, our souls and bodies to him, who "as God, sitteth in the temple of God, shewing himself that he is God,"* -not by putting it into the power of any man, and least of all, into the power of a man who usurps the high prerogatives of Deity, to give or to withhold at pleasure, the scriptures of truth, to bind us again in those fetters, and subject us again to that yoke which our fathers were utterly unable to bear. No; the worst divisions which can disturb the peace of the church, are a less evil than such a tyranny. The unity which might be attained by committing into the hands of one man, a supremacy which enables him to anathematize and excommunicate, to burn and to destroy, is the unity of imprisonment and not of liberty, it binds men together by chains and not by the cords of love! What we desire and pray for is, a more abundant effusion of the Spirit of grace upon "all orders of men in God's Holy Church," for increasing zeal, earnestness and fidelity in the "ministers and stewards of God's mysteries," for the removal of existing impediments to the free * 2 Thess. ii. 4. See an excellent discourse on this text, by the Rev. R. W. Sibthorp, preached at St. John's, Bedford Row, Feb. 11, 1829. course of God's word,—for the enlargement and multiplication of the channels by which religious instruction is to be brought home to every neighbourhood and every door; and for the diffusion of that degree of sound information, which shall render men more averse on principle than they now are to needless separation. Then may we hope for a kind of unity worthy of the name ; for a common bond of brotherhood among Christians which shall unite them much more closely together, than that of Romanism; for that holy, spiritual, and divine union which St. Paul implored on behalf of the church, when he prayed that its members might be "perfectly joined together in the same mind, and in the same judgment." What you deplore as "the disasters of the sixteenth century," we shall never cease, we trust, to regard as the greatest blessing, civil and religious, which it has pleased God, in his great mercy, to bestow upon our church and nation. We too, could speak of "the disasters of the sixteenth century," but we should point to a different series of events from that which you intend. We should direct attention to the cruelties of Her, whom, you are said to have styled, "the much calumniated Mary!" Had you, dear sir, during the reign of this arbitrary queen, dared to preach the Sermons which you preached in Tavistock Chapel, in the year 1827, or in St. John's, Bed ford Row, in the year 1828, she would surely have sent you to the stake. Would you then have talked about the "much calumniated Mary?" Spirits of Ridley, and Latimer, and Cranmer ! with "the noble army of martyrs" who mingled their ashes with yours, in the conflagration lighted up by that unhappy woman, what testimony have you to give to the character of her, whom a faithless son of your own church, standing in the pulpit of the Oxford University, could call "the much calumniated Mary?" But this is a note which strikes no responsive chord in British bosoms, and brings dishonour only on those who could harbour or give utterance to such a senti ment. The Reformation from Popery, though accompanied, as great revolutions generally are, by many evils, we can regard in any other light, rather than that of a disaster; we cannot therefore think of it as needing a remedy. We only want to see its principles more widely spread, and more fully developed. We advert to it with admiration of the men by whom it was conducted, and of the divine mercy by which it was brought to a successful issue. We rejoice to call it the "BLESSED REFORMATION," and pray God that our latest posterity may enjoy its happy fruits! Your main argument being closed, you pass to some minor considerations, which, in your opinion still bear strongly upon the question of unity, and corroborate your views of its nature. The church, you argue, (p 23.) is a positive institution of Christ, for the diffusion and maintenance of his religion throughout the whole earth: "That religion is harmonious and immutable truth. There is not one system or set of truths for one age or part of the world, and a different one for another;" and therefore you conclude, that there is but one form of government, and mode of worship and displine; and that every deviation from that government or form of his church which he gave it, and from that discipline and worship which he personally, or by his apostles approved, is a most presumptuous innovation, and a daring disregard of the divine will, and fraught with danger to the souls of men." Are you aware, that you are here "laying the axe" directly" to the root" of your own argument? For if no "deviation" was to be permitted, what becomes of your great scheme of "development?" It will scarcely be pleaded, that the primacy of the tenth century was no deviation from that of the first, even supposing the validity of your own interpretation of Christ's commission to Peter. But what, if this interpretation be proved utterly invalid? Then the primacy, and Rome itself become "a most presumptuous innovation and a daring disregard of the divine will, and fraught with danger to the souls of men." You could not well have framed a more accurate description of the character of the Papacy; and that not only in reference to the nature of its power and pretensions, but also in reference to the endless innovations which it has introduced into the "harmonious and immutable" religion which Christ and his apostles first promulgated. It is not necessary here to enter minutely into particulars; but we ask, where does Christ, by himself or by his apostles command us to pay homage to the Virgin Mary and the saints; where does he enjoin the worship of images; where does he insist upon the celibacy of the clergy, seeing that Peter the Prince of the Apostles, was a married man, and we do not even read that Christ reproved him for it, though he would in a succeeding age of the church have been accused of keeping his concubine; where does he enjoin the establishment of monkish institutions; where does he give Rome the authority to lay nations under ban and interdict, and to burn men's bodies for the good of their souls? Are not these innovations, monstrous innovations on the immutable religion of Christ, tending directly to violate its first principles, to destroy its beauty, and to subvert its firm foundations? Your remaining subsidiary argument rests on the supposition that, in the opinion of Protestants generally, (p. 24.) "the only unity designed by Christ for his church is spiritual." "It is affirmed, that the family and household of Christ |