DISCOURSE X.

PROTESTANTISM ITS OWN PROTECTION.*

EPH. vi. 10.-Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord, and in the power of his might.

THESE words, which, in their common acceptation, apply to individual Christians in all hours of temptation or trial, may likewise be applied to churches on any occasion of trouble or alarm. They were applicable, particularly, to the primitive churches in the seasons, or under the apprehension of persecution; and although such seasons are not now, mercifully, likely to return, yet there are ever incidents arising in particular portions of the Church of Christ, which may naturally excite among them, for a time,

* Preached at the Episcopal Visitation held by the late Right Rev. Daniel Sandford, D.D. in St John's Chapel, Edinburgh, on Wednesday, June 17, 1829. See Note Y.

just or unfounded alarms, and may require the word of exhortation or encouragement to carry them nobly through their dangers, or to assist them in quelling their fears. Such a crisis has lately arisen in the circumstances of the Churches of these Kingdoms. A great measure of national policy, which has seemed to bear closely upon their external relations and internal purity, and which men of the greatest wisdom, authority, and piety, have contemplated with very opposite sentiments, has, at last, been effected, not without agitation and dismay throughout the body of the Protestant Establishments. With respect to the extreme difficulties in which the government of this country was placed, and the patriotism and purity of its views upon this occasion, there has been, and could be, but one opinion; but, while some have hailed the accomplishment of its measures as the salvation, not only of the State, but of the Church, others have foreseen, in the insecurity of the latter, a source of national corruption and decay, to which the former, too, must finally become a victim. Whether there has been any just ground or no for the apprehension of these political or ecclesiastical dangers, it is yet impossible not to regard, with respect and vene

ration, those who have conscientiously entertained it. They have, generally, been thoughtful and pious men, upon whose minds a deep impression has been left by the awful history of former times, and who have felt a religious horror at the idea of shaking the foundations of those glorious establishments which were laid by the hands and cemented by the blood of martyrs; but now that the measures in which their conscience refused to concur have been assented to by the legislature of their country, sure I am, there are none whose prayers or exertions will be more ardent and strenuous than theirs, that they may meet with a successful issue, and be made to redound to the glory of God, and to the common benefit of mankind.

It is far, you may believe, from my intention, to go over again the grounds, so often repeated, which have influenced the supporters of the different opinions on this delicate question :-this would not, at any time, be the fitting place for such an examination, and now that it has been settled by the only power with which the decision could rest,-all that remains to us, either as ministers or members of the Protestant Church, is to endeavour to draw from the result all the good which we trust it will pro

duce, and to guard against all its likelihoods of evil. You will permit me, then, I hope, from the words of the Apostle, to lay before you a few reflections upon this limited view of a subject, upon which I have ventured, both from the deep interest at present attached to it, and from the important general conclusions to which it leads; although it might have appeared, I am aware, more suitable to my powers, and to the character of the humble and unassuming Church of which we are members, if I had chosen some theme less intermingled with the agitations of the world's politics for our pious meditation on this day. Protected, as we are, from the storm, by our own humility, we may, in truth, seem little affected by the hazards of powerful and prosperous establishments; and however these may terminate, the pure embers of Protestant Episcopacy may equally seem capable of being kept alive, as they have already been in the worst times of this church, in the lowly but faithful bosoms of an unestablished priesthood. Yet we can never be without a lively interest in whatever may appear to affect the honour or stability of any of our great Protestant establishments, more especially of the united Churches of England and Ireland, of which several of us are

members, and in whose fortunes and feelings all of us possess a kindred sympathy; and possibly, too, in our seclusion from the heat of the conflict, we may have had a clearer and a truer perception, than the parties themselves more immediately concerned, of the real position in which its termination has left them.

There is no situation, indeed, in which a church can be placed, to which the words of the Apostle, in the text, do not apply with powerful efficacy. In what we might think its most prosperous circumstances, if its members do not make it their leading aim to "be strong in the Lord, and in the power of his might,"-if they rely on any other ground of strength, they are, in fact, introducing into their establishment a principle of weakness and decline. And in situations of the utmost danger, this divine strength can carry them successfully through them, and raise them, as it has raised, before now, the churches of this land, from the depth of seeming destruction to the highest exaltation and security. When they are instructed, however, to "be strong in the Lord," it is not meant that they are to place their dependence upon such almighty aid, without any means being resorted to, on their own parts, to