ficiency that in no one other point will her eagerness be greater and more sustained, than in carefully examining the records of past and present times, and in zealously following the slightest and most distant ray of light on the subject; in order that from any possible quarter she may discover some means for adequately coping with this subtle snare, which, to her most bitter sorrow, is enmeshing the souls of so many among her dear and beloved children in the faith.

Again, a Church which is ever on the watch to catch souls, will take especial advantage of those moments when, from reverse in worldly business, or sickness, or sorrow, or from some temporary religious impression, an impulse towards good is felt by one who has hitherto led a worldly or an openly immoral life. She will fall on the neck,' as it were, of such an one, and kiss him;' she will endeavour to place religion before him in a light as attractive as truth will permit; and to make that task as easy and joyous to him as the case allows, which at best must be most wearisome and grievous, of retracing his steps, and disentangling himself, under God's grace, from the miserable thraldom of sinful habits. At the same time, some wisely and religiously constituted system of observance must be always at hand, to fan the embers of piety into a steady glow; to obtain possession of him, as it were, and secure him from the world, before the latter has had time to reassert its dominion; to bring before him religious truths and sanctions, and impress them on his whole nature; to strengthen and protect him in holy seclusion: till he may be able again to go forth into the world, without imminent danger of falling a second time away from the narrow path.

But the father who fell on the younger son's neck and kissed him, said also to the elder, "Son, thou art ever with me, and all that I have is thine." An object then still dearer to her heart even than comforting and retaining the penitent, will be to guide those aright, who have never wholly withdrawn themselves from under her Lord's light yoke; to relieve their perplexities, point out their duties, direct their

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obedience, shew them their spiritual dangers, guide their penitential acts, and mould their habits after the Christian model. And all this, without cramping or fettering, while she directs, the free and natural development of their character; or interfering with that endless diversity of opinion, which must ever exist, on the application of true principles in each particular case. This diversity was plainly intended by God, and is an important means whereby He works out His purposes in our regard; nor could the Church more seriously mistake her duty, than by any attempt to substitute, on such matters, arbitrary Ecclesiastical dictation for wellregulated individual responsibility.

A function of the Church, even more important than any that we have yet named, is what may be briefly described as the training up of Saints; the sedulously tending of those who, whether in reward for a consistently holy walk in time past, or by the free workings of God's grace, have aspirations within them which tend to a high and noble strictness of life, and who thirst for a far more entire self-abnegation and devotion to God's will, than that for which the ordinary walks of life afford sufficient scope. To place before Christians such as these the opportunity of consecrating wholly to heavenly realities those ardent and enthusiastic feelings which men among us ordinarily squander on earthly and transitory objects, objects which neither are worthy of them, nor can possibly satisfy or repay them; this is an office which an ideal Church will prize and cherish to her heart of hearts, as her noblest and most transporting privilege; she will feel it as the greatest of all the mercies that she has received from God, that she is allowed, in return as it were for His infinite loving-kindness, to offer before Him specimens of the capabilities of our common nature, and visible proofs of the inexhaustible power of His wonder-working grace. But in times like the present, (as indeed at all times more or less,) for the mere purposes of practical efficiency, such institutions will have an absolutely inappreciable value. We are, if I may use a homely expression, at a perfect stand-still for want of saints and saintly men; surrounded and menaced on

all sides by dangers the most imminent; from which, humanly speaking, we see no means of escape, until it shall please God to raise up for our needs, and to do His work among us, intrepid, self-devoted, ardent, enthusiastic, humble, holy, heavenly-minded men. A truth, to which I shall have occasion more than once to recur in what will follow.

From what has been said, it results that a Church such as we are now contemplating, will possess a profound and accurate system of moral, of ascetic, and of mystical theology. On every other subject except theology it is an universally admitted axiom, and I suppose even in theology few would deny it in terms, that empirical knowledge is worth very little, but that scientific knowledge may be worth a very great deal. It seems very plain, that a person whose peculiar study it is to gather facts from all quarters, to examine them carefully, to classify and arrange them, is likely to take a very much more enlarged view of any given phenomenon, than one whose experience is partial and (as it were) accidental that one whose special business it is to speculate, whose education has been directed to that very object, and whose life is one continued practice in its performance, will certainly speculate to very much better purpose, than one whose habits have been in quite a different direction: lastly, that principles formed after deep and patient study, under no present bias, and with a single eye to truth, may possibly be very good; but that principles extemporized on the spur of the moment, to meet a present emergency, and under the bias caused by the peculiar circumstances of that emergency, will to an absolute certainty be altogether bad. But how much stronger does the contrast become, when we remember that the phenomena now in question are not those accumulated by one man, however candid, observant, and indefatigable, but the recorded experience of all past ages of the Church; and that the speculation is not that of one thinker, however gifted, but of a series of doctors, each one reviewing, and modifying or confirming, the dicta of those who have preceded him; and whose theories are confronted and verified every year by an almost innumerable number of practical ap

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plications. This then being granted, it follows that, whereas the Church witnesses in the midst of us the great principles of morality; and is bound moreover to assist her children in applying them to their peculiar circumstances, in knowing what is and what is not sin, and how grievous in themselves are particular sins; she must needs have a recognised body of moral theology: that whereas she is bound to guide them to the various moral and theological virtues, to all holy and Christian tempers of mind; and to implant maxims of conduct and inculcate practices of piety, which shall lead to those virtues and tempers; her ministers must be sufficiently versed in a certain uniform and recognised body of ascetic theology : that whereas her highest office is to train, not ordinary Christians, but those predestined to be Saints; and whereas those of her children, who are climbing up that arduous and dizzy path, are free in great measure from the temptations which beset ordinary men, but exposed to perils of a more subtle indeed and transcendental, but no whit of a less fatal, character; whereas they require to be warned against the very masterpieces of Satan's subtlety, who would fain transform' himself even into an angel of light,' if by so doing he may rob but one among those exalted spirits of the crown prepared for him; and whereas their salvation (speaking generally) is no more assured before the end of their pilgrimage than that of the humblest Christian; she must possess a certain number of thorough proficients in the noble and wonderful science of mystical theology.

3. Further. The duty of a Christian (as distinguished from his gifts and privileges) may profitably be contemplated according to the well-known division of faith and obedience. In the former is included (though much more is also included) knowledge of the great Christian doctrines. Christian precept and Christian doctrine, these are the two great external facts which essentially claim the Christian's attention and allegiance.' And in a very remarkable manner they react on, and correspond to, one another. Pure doctrine requires for its reception a purified heart; a purified heart requires for its support and progress in holiness pure doctrine.

'In no other way than by the habit of strict and anxious conscientiousness, can that faculty be acquired, which alone hears God's voice where others hear it not, or interprets His words aright where all hear them.' In no other way than by the contemplation, reception, and hearty appropriation of sound doctrine, is this conscientiousness made really Christian obedience; preserved in its first fervour, or rather in a continually increasing degree strengthened, deepened, extended; led forth into a wider range, and endued with a higher and more generous quality; adding refinement and delicacy to zeal and warmth, confident hope to godly fear, joyous exultation to deep contrition and humility. Other studies, however profitable; even the religious study of Holy Scripture; much more its critical examination, or the knowledge of Christian antiquities, or of Church History; still more again the evidences of religion, or the geography of the Holy Land, or the harmony of sacred with profane history— no part of which latter class indeed has any pretension to be considered any part or parcel of theology at all;-but all these, except so far as they are contained in one of the two first named classes, are no essential part of the Christian's knowledge. Many barbarous nations," says St. Irenæus, "believe in Christ without written memorial, diligently preserving the old traditions:" without reading Scripture, or knowing a word of it, men may be good Christians; without obeying Christ's commandments and believing in His doctrines, they cannot. And the Church from the first has acted upon this principle. She has never thought of authoritatively determining the sense of any one text in Scripture, however sacred. She has excommunicated those, and those only, who were sinful in life or heretical in doctrine." f

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The drift of this theorizing is to explain the intimate and indissoluble connection which exists between the combats sustained by a pure Church against sin, (which we have already viewed in some of their multiform aspects,) and the witness borne by her to Christian doctrine. There is perhaps no one principle in all history on which there is so surprising On St. Athanasius,' pp. 389, 90.