of leaning on an arm of flesh instead of her own divinely-provided
discipline, a temptation increased by political events
and arrangements which need not here be more than alluded
to. A lamentable increase of sectarianism has
followed; being occasioned (in addition to other
more obvious causes), first, by the cold aspect which
the new Church doctrines have presented to the religious
sensibilities of the mind, next to their meagreness
in suggesting motives to restrain it from seeking
out a more influential discipline. Doubtless
obedience to the law of the land, and the careful
maintenance of “decency and order” (the
topics in usage among us), are plain duties of the
Gospel, and a reasonable ground for keeping in communion
with the Established Church; yet, if Providence has
graciously provided for our weakness more interesting
and constraining motives, it is a sin thanklessly
to neglect them; just as it would be a mistake to
rest the duties of temperance or justice on the mere
law of natural religion, when they are mercifully
sanctioned in the Gospel by the more winning authority
of our Saviour Christ. Experience has shown
the inefficacy of the mere injunctions of Church order,
however scripturally enforced, in restraining from
schism the awakened and anxious sinner; who goes
to a dissenting preacher “because” (as
he expresses it) “he gets good from him”:
and though he does not stand excused in God’s
sight for yielding to the temptation, surely the ministers
of the Church are not blameless if, by keeping back
the more gracious and consoling truths provided
for the little ones of Christ, they indirectly lead
him into it. Had he been taught as a child, that
the Sacraments, not preaching, are the sources of
Divine Grace; that the Apostolical ministry had
a virtue in it which went out over the whole Church,
when sought by the prayer of faith; that fellowship
with it was a gift and privilege, as well as a duty,
we could not have had so many wanderers from our
fold, nor so many cold hearts within it.
This instance may suggest many others of the superior influence of an apostolical over a mere secular method of teaching. The awakened mind knows its wants, but cannot provide for them; and in its hunger will feed upon ashes, if it cannot obtain the pure milk of the word. Methodism and Popery are in different ways the refuge of those whom the Church stints of the gifts of grace; they are the foster-mothers of abandoned children. The neglect of the daily service, the desecration of festivals, the Eucharist scantily administered, insubordination permitted in all ranks of the Church, orders and offices imperfectly developed, the want of societies for particular religious objects, and the like deficiencies, lead the feverish mind, desirous of a vent to its feelings, and a stricter rule of life, to the smaller religious communities, to prayer and Bible meetings, and ill-advised institutions and societies, on the one hand, on the other, to