The following Works, all in single volumes, or pamphlets, and recently published, will be found more or less to uphold or elucidate the general doctrines inculcated in these Tracts: Bp. Taylor on Repentance, by Hale.-Rivingtons. Bp. Taylor's Golden Grove.-Parker, Oxford. Vincentii Lirinensis Commonitorium, with translation.—Parker, Oxford. Pusey on Cathedrals and Clerical Education.-Roake and Varty. Hook's University Sermons.-Talboys, Oxford. Pusey on Baptism (published separately).—Rivingtons. Newman's Sermons, 4 vols.-Rivingtons. Newman on Romanism, &c.-Rivingtons. The Christian Year.-Parker, Oxford. Perceval on the Roman Schism.-Leslie. Bishop Jebb's Pastoral Instructions.-Duncan. Bp. Andrews' Devotions. Latin and Greek.-Pickering. Herbert's Poems and Country Pastor. Evans's Scripture Biography.-Rivingtons. Le Bas' Life of Archbishop Laud.-Rivingtons. Jones (of Nayland) on the Church. Bp. Bethell on Baptismal Regeneration.-Rivingtons. Bp. Beveridge's Sermons on the Ministry and Ördinances.-Parker, Oxford. Bp. Jolly on the Eucharist. Fulford's Sermons on the Ministry, &c.-Rivingtons. Rose's Sermons on the Ministry.-Rivingtons. A Catechism on the Church.-Parker, Oxford. Russell's Judgment of the Anglican Church.-Baily. Larger Works which may be profitably studied. Wall on Infant Baptism.-Do. Pearson on the Creed.-Do. Leslie's Works.-Do. Bingham's Works.-Straker, London. Palmer on the Liturgy.-University Press. Palmer on the Church.-Rivingtons. Hooker, ed. Keble.-Do. TRACTS FOR THE TIMES. ON DISSENT WITHOUT REASON IN CONSCIENCE. "As one mass doth contain the good ore and base alloy; as one floor the corn and the chaff; as one field the wheat and the tares; as one net the choice fish and the refuse; as one fold the sheep and the goats; as one tree the living and dry branches; so doth the Visible Church enfold the true universal Church, called the Church mystical and invisible. And for this reason, and because presumptively every member of the Visible Church doth pass for a member of the invisible (the time of distinction and separation being not yet come,) because this Visible Church, in its profession of truth, in its sacrifices of devotion, in its practice of service and duty of GOD, doth communicate with the invisible, therefore commonly the titles and attributes of one are imparted to the other."Altered from Barrow on the Unity of the Church, vol. vii. p. 631. It is often asked, "Why should not a man attend both the Church and Meeting, if he derives benefit from both ?" And again, Why should not a man be a Dissenter, though he have nothing particular to object against the Church, if he is not violent in his opposition to the Church?" The following remarks, in answer to these questions, were written by a clergyman for the use of his parishioners. Many of you have made remarks to me on the subject of Dissent, when I have been visiting you in your cottages : and the substance of these remarks has apparently been, that it was of very little importance, whether a man belonged to the Church or dissented from it, because the difference is after all but small between Churchmen and Dissenters. You have thus spoken (as it would seem) sometimes with a view of drawing out my opinions, sometimes as a sort of defence or apology for your own, sometimes in VOL. II.-51. order to invite an argument. I have purposely in my answers abstained from entering into the question, and confined myself to saying simply that I did not think as you did upon the matter. It would by no means have fallen in with the purpose for which I visited you on first coming to the parish, to have entered into any lengthened reasonings. My object in calling was to express my good-will towards you, and therefore to seek our points of agreement, and not our points of difference. At the same time you are not to suppose that I at all wish to conceal my sentiments, and it is because some of you may perhaps have an erroneous impression of what my opinion is on this subject, that I now write this. My observations will be as short as I can well make them. I shall avoid as much as possible any thing like controversy, or any expressions of opinion as to the relative merits of this or that form of dissent, or any discussion of the particular Articles of Faith (so far as there may be said to be such at all) among the several persuasions around us.-Bear in mind, my object is to show you that Dissent is a sin. But before I proceed further I must make two observations, which I wish you to keep in mind, while you read these remarks, because they will remove some difficulty, which you might otherwise feel in what follows. 1. I allow there may be conscientious Dissenters, nay, I hope in charity, there are many ;--but by a conscientious Dissenter, I mean a man who separates himself from the Church, because he thinks he finds something in her doctrines or discipline so far contrary to scriptural truth, and the precepts of the Gospel, that by adhering to her, he would be putting an obstacle in the way of his own salvation. Other persons may think themselves conscientious Dissenters who do not go nearly so far in their condemnation of the doctrines or practice of the Church; nay, so far from it, that they would defend their Dissent upon the ground that there is no material difference between the system and teaching in the one, and the system and teaching in the other. But such men I do not call conscientious Dissenters, but careless or weak-minded persons, who cannot have thought much or seriously upon the subject, and who can hardly have read with attention what is to be found in the New Testament respecting the sin of schism, or on the authority of the Church, and the duty of obedience to it. Indeed a man ought to consider very seriously what account he can give of his faith, who is so far both Churchman and Dissenter, and so far disposed towards both, as to attend indiscriminately one or other place of worship; who also could give very little better explanation of the difference between one and the other than a statement of the difference in the public services of each, and other particular matters of form, and of external observance. Such a person can be neither a true Churchman nor a conscientious Dissenter. He cannot be a true Churchman, for if he was, he would not attend a Dissenting place of worship. For Dissent from the Church must imply a condemnation of something or other, be it of more or less importance, in the doctrines or discipline of the Established Church. And whoever attends service in a Meeting-house, when he has the opportunity of going to the Parish Church, does, by so doing, give his silent approbation to the principle of Dissent, and shows that at least he does not disapprove the opinions of the particular body to whose meeting he goes. He cannot be, on the other hand, a conscientious Dissenter, or he would not frequent the Church, i. e. a place of worship, which is supported by a system, which he considers one of injustice, and which excludes and condemns' that to which he himself belongs; to say nothing about the probability of his hearing something, which, though not directly levelled against Dissent, still is in spirit a reproof and protest against it. 2. When I say that Dissent is a sin, I by no means thereby imply, that for that reason every Dissenter is at once and necessarily a sinner. To say that a particular thing is a sin, is a very different thing from saying that every one who does it is a sinner. It will be as well to make this quite clear to you, and therefore I will give you some cases in which you would, without hesitation, make the same remark that I have done.-To kill a fellowcreature is undoubtedly a crime; but you would not say that the 1 E. g. by the sentences in the Litany against "false doctrine, heresy, and schism," and that GOD may "bring into the way of truth all such as have erred and are deceived," and by the prayers for the unity of the Church. person who killed another by accident, or in defence of his country, or of his own life, or by command of lawful authorities, was a criminal. There are, indeed, few deeds which are in a general way sins, which may not be committed under such circumstances as to rescue the person who did them from being on that account a sinner. There was once a nation which did not think thieving wrong: there is a nation which does not consider a parent's destroying a child, when too poor to maintain it, as a sin; and there is a class or sect in another nation who hold the same opinion as to the lives of their parents, when too old to be serviceable to themselves. You see from these illustrations that the degree of criminality attaching to a person for his actions, depends very much on the extent of knowledge he has of the nature of the act, his education, and various other circumstances. It is very difficult to weigh these exactly in estimating how far any particular person himself does wrong while he is committing a wrong act; GOD alone can see the heart; and, therefore, it is better to speak without immediate reference to persons, and only as to the character of the opinion or action under consideration. With these explanations, first, on the score of conscience causing it; next of circumstances varying the degree of criminality in different persons, I repeat dissent is a sin, which I now go on to prove to you. Persons dissent from the Church on account of some difference or other, this is plain; and, from what I have already said, it is also plain that I do not intend to say any thing in what follows concerning the greater differences which cause Dissent, i. e. differences which are founded upon a different interpretation of Scripture. For when a man thinks the Church unscriptural, he has a good reason for leaving it, and is (what I have called above) a conscientious Dissenter; though at the same time I am bound to say, I think his conscience a very erroneous one, which leads him to consider the Church unscriptural; and while I allow him to be conscientious in one sense of the word, yet I also think him heretical,-just as those men who (as our LORD foretold') thought, when they persecuted the Apostles," they did God service," were wrong, not in that they obeyed their conscience, but because |