she is allied appears in a political, point of view. Our Reformers followed no human authority; they had recourse to the Scriptures themselves, as their sole guide. And the consequence has been what might be expected our Church is SCRIPTURAL.”* "It is built upon the Apostles and Prophets,Jesus Christ himself being the chief cornerstone."

* Bishop Tomline.

THE PARTIES OF THE CHURCH.

"The vicarage of vacant," said Sir T. L

is at length

a weak, but well

disposed man, to a young Curate, who had, for some months, been officiating, with equal earnestness and ability, in the Baronet's parish Church, and I have been strongly solicited by many of the principal parishioners in your behalf. Before, however, I decide on its disposal, I should like to hear definitely and explicitly from yourself the party in the Church to which you belong, and the leader whom you acknowledge in religious matters?"

"I belong to no party; but am most anxious to be ranked among those who are sincerely desirous to do their duty. And the only leader whom I am content to follow in Church matters, is one who can never deceive or betray,HER GLORIOUS HEAD AND FOUNDER."

66

I understand. I am obliged to I am obliged to you, Mr. Cd, for your candour, and believe you mean well; but you are not a decided character, and the living will be bestowed elsewhere?"

Now, that there are parties in the Church, is a fact as notorious as it is lamentable; and that these parties are sources of mutual disquiet will be admitted by both. Yet so has it ever been, from the Apostolic age downwards. Those who had heard with their ears, and looked upon with their eyes, and handled with their hands," the word of life, were not prevented, great as had been their privileges, from viewing the same grand truths through a very different medium, and arriving at the most diverse conclusions. The Apostles themselves, in a very early stage of their mission, entertained, on an important subject, conflicting sentiments. On the question of circumcision, St. Paul stood opposed to St. Peter. With the latter, those sided in the sacred College of the Apostles who tolerated the rite. With the former, those who condemned it. If, then, so near the very fountainhead of divine and unquestionable truth, the stream of Christianity,-that stream which was

to fertilize and bless the nations, so that the wilderness and the solitary place might be made glad,— ran in a divided channel; can we, in this our distant day, reasonably expect that a more perfect union of these healing waters shall be found to exist? If we are assured, on authority which will admit of no doubt or gainsaying, that "the Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath,”— we are led to the plain inference, that all the other provisions and institutes of a religion, emanating from the Lord of the Sabbath, are founded on a kindred principle. They are adapted to the exigencies, the weaknesses, the frail and perishing nature of man. And so long as the Church Militant is made up of human beings, so long as mortal man, with all his variety of feelings, habits, and constitution, forms the component parts of this collective whole, so long will there be parties in the same general Church,-sects in the same gene

ral faith.

And how indomitable the mind is in this particular, the experience of all ages abundantly testifies. Nothing can trammel, nothing can fetter, that subtle agent; and the

myriads that have poured out their blood upon the scaffold, or given their bodies to be burned, are so many proofs of its unconquerable supremacy.

But there are other grounds wherefore this general view of the divisions of the Christian world will apply to the Church of England, in particular, as divided into parties. "It is believed by some of our ablest divines, that the articles are framed with comprehensive latitude, and that neither Calvinism nor Arminianism was intended to be exclusively established." High authority has declared that her thirtynine articles, agreed upon in convocation, are purposely contrived to admit of such latitude of interpretation, as to enable ministers of Calvinistic and Arminian views conscientiously to subscribe them.

If this be the state of the case, and that much argument of an "a posteriori" nature may be advanced in its favour will be admitted, from the practice of excellent men of both opinions; we may, without difficulty, come to this conclusion, that there must be common ground to a sufficient extent; and that men may differ within the bounds permitted by