PREFACE. FEW periods in our Church's History have been so eventful as the last six months. No times have more loudly called on Christians for prayer, patience, and submission. The Universities have been tried by Tractarianism, and Romanism has been decisively condemned in one of them. The Court of Arches have condemned stone altars; and almost before this decision was made, an Incumbent of a London Chapel has created fresh work, by adhering to the doctrines of Rome and the emoluments of England. The great battle is waging in the Church; and, that worldly men may not exult, when good men are abased, the State has its pangs. Romanism is the cause of trouble to each, and this, when three hundred years have nearly elapsed since the Reformation. Six more months have fallen into the past, and scarcely can we see any more hope of union among sound Churchmen, than at the end of 1844. Dangers are on every side increasing, men are falling into parties and bands; but the seamless robe of Christ's Church is rent, and no man desires and labours to heal this rent. There is one Lord, one faith, one baptism; and, unless Churchmen will practically as well as theoretically confess this glorious truth, surely and inevitably will trials be sent on the true Church, which will compel it to act as if truth were truth, and utterly at variance with every shade of falsity. Is there a force and an application in the words "In necessariis unitas?" If so, let us define things necessary and essential, and not unchurch every or any man who differs from ourselves in points not essential. The heart of the Christian yearns towards its fellow-Christian; and shall no fruit grow on the stem of love? May God send among us a spirit of love and fear. |