Transcribed from the 1833 J. H. Parker edition ,
BY
JOHN KEBLE, M. A.
FELLOW OFORIEL COLLEGE, AND POETRY PROFESSOR
IN THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD.
OXFORD,
PRINTED BY S. COLLINGWOOD, PRINTER TO THEUNIVERSITY,
FOR J. H. PARKER.
SOLD ALSO BY J. G. AND F. RIVINGTON, ST.PAUL’S CHURCHYARD,
AND WATERLOO-PLACE, LONDON.
MDCCCXXXIII.
Since the following pages wereprepared for the press, the calamity, in anticipation of whichthey were written, has actually overtaken this portion of theChurch of God. The Legislatureof England and Ireland, (the members of which are not evenbound to profess belief in the Atonement,) this body hasvirtually usurped the commission of those whom our Saviour entrusted with at least onevoice in making ecclesiastical laws, on matters wholly orpartly spiritual. The same Legislature has also ratified,to its full extent, this principle;—that the ApostolicalChurch in this realm is henceforth only to stand, in the eye ofthe State, as one sect among many, depending, for anypreeminence she may still appear to retain, merely upon theaccident of her having a strong party in the country.
It is a moment, surely, full of deep solicitude to all thosemembers of the Church who still believe her authority divine, andthe oaths and obligations, by which they are bound to her, p. ivundissolvedand indissoluble by calculations of human expediency. Theiranxiety turns not so much on the consequences, to the State, ofwhat has been done, (they are but too evident,) as on theline of conduct which they are bound themselves to pursue. How may they continue their communion with the Churchestablished, (hitherto the pride and comfort of theirlives,) without any taint of those Erastian Principles on whichshe is now avowedly to be governed? What answer can we makehenceforth to the partisans of the Bishop of Rome, when theytaunt us with being a mere Parliamentarian Church? And how,consistently with our present relations to the State, caneven the doctrinal purity and integrity of the most Sacred Order be preserved?
The attention of all who love the Church is most earnestlysolicited to these questions. They are such, it will beobserved, as cannot be answered by appealing to precedents inEnglish History, because, at most, such could only shew, that thedifficulty might have been raised before. It is believed,that there are hundreds, nay thousands of Christians, and thatsoon there p.vwill be tens of thousands, unaffectedly anxious to berightly guided with regard to these and similar points. Andthey are mooted thus publicly, for the chance of eliciting, fromcompetent judges, a correct and early opinion.
If, under such trying and delicate circumstances, one couldventure to be positive about any thing, it would seem safe tosay, that in such measure as it may be thought incumbent on theChurch, or on Churchmen, to submit to