tutions of these times, that Episcopacy has had its reign of authority in the dark ages and at the Vatican; and that the very genius of Protestantism is, that one church is not to utter the language of arrogance over another; and that not authority or denunciation, but SCRIPTURAL EXPOSITION, is to determine which is in accordance with the book of God.

VII.

[NEW ENGLANDER, 1844.]

The Position of the Evangelical Party in the Episcopal Church.

IT is from no desire to intermeddle with the internal affairs of another denomination of Christians, that we introduce to our readers the subject which we have placed at the head of this article. Nor is it from any wish to take advantage of the present troubles and growing dissensions of the Episcopal Church to make converts to our better faith, or to make reprisals for the accessions which they have sought to gain from the disputes and divisions of other denominations. We have listened in calmer times with proper interest to their proclamations of their own unity, while other churches have been rent into factions or threatened with schism. We have seen a few from other churches, charmed with this proclamation of unity, and professedly won by the hope of peace, leave the connections in which they were trained, and attach themselves to Episcopacy. But they have not been men whose departure. the churches have had occasion to regard as a serious calamity, or whose recovery would be worth any very serious effort. We are content that they should minister in their new connection, we hope with greater success than was promised in their former relations, and with all the peace and comfort which it may be possible for them now to obtain.

We feel that we have a right to advert to this subject only so far as it pertains to the cause of our common Christianity. In their internal affairs; their questions of precedency and order; their family affections or alienations; their domestic

difficulties, troubles, or joys; their questions about the relative rights and powers of bishops, priests, deacons, or laymen, we claim no right and have no disposition to interfere. The limits of courtesy and propriety on such matters are settled. With the domestic concerns of a neighbour-the family jars, loves, alienations, modes of living, style of dress, or intercourse we have no right to intermeddle. It is their own concern, and they have a right to manage it their own way. We are not to be "busybodies in other men's matters." We are not to attempt to foment divisions; or to aggravate a family quarrel; or to utter the note of triumph over their dissensions-though it should be to meet and ward off reproaches on account of our own; nor are we to interfere with a view of encouraging a feebler party against a stronger, in order to prolong the strife and rend the family asunder, or to make needless proclamation of what we may happen to know of the family jar. We go even farther than this. We should not feel ourselves at liberty in such a domestic difficulty to lend our aid or to give our counsel to one of the parties that we regarded as indubitably right, and that held opinions in accordance with our own, in order to prolong the difficulties there, or to prevent a reconciliation in any way which they might regard as proper.

But there is a sense in which this becomes a matter of common interest, and in reference to which there is common ground. If the community is to be affected by this difference, we have a right to express our views. If there are common interests pertaining to the good order of society that are in danger of suffering, we have a right to lift up the voice in their defence. If principles are advanced by either party which may affect the welfare of the community, we are not at liberty to be silent. If the difficulty is the regular and inevitable result of certain views which both parties publicly proclaim that they hold, we have a right to say so. And if one

party is aiming at an impracticable thing; endeavouring, though in the most peaceful manner, and with the purest motives, to maintain principles and to accomplish objects which are in their nature wholly at variance with those on which the family has been uniformly administered, and to which that party also has solemnly expressed its assent, we do not suppose that we are forbidden by any law of courtesy to express our convictions on these points, and to endeavour to derive from this inevitable want of harmony lessons that shall be of value to the common cause.

Such we consider to be the present condition of the Episcopal Church. A crisis has occurred in that communion such as it could have been foreseen, by a moderate measure of sagacity, must sooner or later occur, and which, however it may be for a time suppressed, we venture to foretell will in some form continue to break out, until "the church" is thoroughly reformed and Prelacy abandoned.

In the controversy now waging there, the great interests of our common Christianity are affected. There are momentous questions at stake in which all who love the religion of the Saviour are interested. There are points of much more importance than any which can be raised about the qualifications of Mr. Arthur Carey for the "diaconate." There are questions respecting the working of the system; its fitness to promote unity; the measures which are adopted to secure harmony; the effect of those measures in suppressing the truth, preventing free discussion, and fostering error; and, above all, the general effect of the system of Episcopacy on evangelical religion, which it is the duty of every man who conceives it possible—as it may be that he or any one of his friends should be invited to become an Episcopalian, to examine, and which the present outbreak furnishes an appropriate opportunity to examine. We have never had any sympathy for Prelacy. We have never believed that it was the form of

We have always

religion prescribed in the New Testament. regarded it as a system adapted to cramp and crush the free spirit of the gospel. But we have had no doubt that there were many of the intelligent and the good among the followers of the Lord Jesus who regarded it conscientiously as the system prescribed in the Bible; and we have supposed that there were minds so formed that they would be better edified in connection with that form of religion than under a different method of organization. We think the time now has come to examine the influence of that system on evangelical religion; and in order to make our inquiry definite, we propose to inquire into the present position of the evangelical, or as it is often called, the low-church party in the Episcopal Church. We shall inquire whether the objects at which they aim can be secured in that communion, or whether they do not necessarily meet with obstructions in the organization of the Episcopal Church which will certainly prevent the accomplishment of those objects; whether there are not in their forms of worship things which will inevitably cramp and crush the free spirit of religion; and whether the Episcopal Church is not so organized as effectually to secure the ultimate ascendency of the objects aimed at by the highchurch party. In other words, the question is, whether Tractarianism is not a fair development of the system, and whether those views, if the present organization of that church should be continued, are not destined to be ultimately triumphant.

It is well known that there have been, perhaps from the commencement of its existence in this country, two parties in the Episcopal Church. These parties are generally known by the names of the high and the low church—or, as the latter prefer, we believe, to be called, the evangelical-party. These parties have grown up, not from the nature of Prelacy, or by any tendency in the Episcopal Church to foster the