PREFACE.

THERE has, perhaps, been no age of the Church since the time of St. Augustine, when it has been more necessary than it is at present to bear in mind his own impressive sentence, that "true Religion can never rightly be instilled into the soul, except a man is first willing to believe what he will hereafter, if he is found worthy, know and understand; nor can its spirit be imbibed, except by yielding to the severe controul of authority”. There has never been a time when Catholic truth

1 Vera Religio, nisi credantur ea, quæ postea quisque, si se bene gesserit, dignusque fuerit, assequatur atque percipiat, et omnino, sine quodam gravi auctoritatis imperio, iniri recte nullo pacto potest. -De Utilitate Credendi, c. ix.

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was exposed to greater danger than it is now, in an age when that which has been taught from the beginning is too often sacrificed to the traditions of modern sects and systems, and the written Word of GOD is treated with so little reverence that it is become almost the distinguishing mark of the religious world to reject all that it does not comprehend.

Against this prevailing source of error the writer of the following Sermons has felt it to be his duty often to repeat his zealous protest; knowing that the Church, in her best and purest times, always taught her children to be content at first to take many things on trust, to wait for enlightenment by faith and prayer, and, seeking instruction from her teachers, "to follow that way of Catholic discipline which from CHRIST, by His Apostles, has flowed down to us, and must flow onwards to ages yet to come". For nothing can be more

1 St. Augustin, ib. c. viii. ad f.

destructive of Christian faith than those systems which teach the inquirer to approach the study of Revelation with distrust rather than belief, which make private opinion the standard of Divine truth, and man's finite reason the measure of the Infinite.

It must be clear, to a reflecting mind, that the true remedy for these evils lies in the restitution of the Church's authority to teach and minister the Word of GOD, under such laws and limits as were assigned with the first delivery to her of this trust. Where this authority is recognized, a humble, teachable spirit will be restored, and the number of good Christians "will be multiplied, walking in the fear of the LORD and in the comfort of the HOLY GHOST"; for they will find it more truly natural to them to confide than to dwell in doubt, and, without long questioning, they will learn to love and to adore.

1 Acts ix. 31.

At the same time, there must necessarily be difficulties, and even danger, in the way of reviving attention to truths that have fallen into neglect, and of restoring the " proportion of the faith", when it has been lost by those who preach one or more Articles of the Creed to the disparagement of the rest. In the efforts now making to reinstate the Article of the Holy Catholic Church to its proper place and due regard among Christians, it is natural that there should arise in some quarters something like a spirit of "zeal and revenge" against the error which kept it out of view; and that those who once omitted it in their system of doctrine should now, somewhat out of measure, bring it prominently forward. It, therefore, becomes necessary to examine strictly the proper limits of the Church's authority in teaching; not to press unessential practices and customs of early times as of universal obligation, and to take care

that, while we believe things of Divine revelation as above reason, not to follow superstitious usages, which have in them nothing Divine, but to let our religion be, in all points, a reasonable

service.

It is very probable that, professing these views, the following Sermons will be, by some persons, considered as going too far; by others they will be censured as not going far enough. For this difference of opinion the writer is fully prepared ; for it must almost unavoidably be encountered by those who would decidedly keep the middle position, which is that of the English Church'.

There have always been in the English Church, from the time of the Reformation, those who have thought the Reformation carried somewhat too far, and those who would have wished it to be carried further. We may call them, for the sake of distinction, the Catholic and the Pro

1 See on this subject Sermon XI. of the present Volume.