Edwin Proctor Denniss

“ As ministers of religion, it is our paramount duty to lose no practicable opportunity of impressing the vitality of its exercise upon those committed to our spiritual charge—of banishing all discord one with another—of evincing (not in theory only) that we are ministers of divine love and peace, so that it may be evident to all the world, in our conduct and bearing, that we live together in christian harmony and good-will. ”

“ Alas! in every community such persons are found to exist, whose element is strife; who live by faction; who, mistaking party spirit for Christian zeal, in their contest for what they allege to be truth, forget that Christianity is also a religion of Peace and Love. ”

“ At the present time such persons are busy among ourselves; some openly avow their wish to prevent a union among the Clergy; in the bitterness of their hatred towards the Established Religion, they conceive that the cause of Truth can only be supported by the formation of hostile confederacies within the Church: others covertly, and with the semblance even of friendship towards us—the better to disguise their real malignity—yet exert their utmost unholy endeavours to arm brother against brother, in the hope of waging a worse than civil war, with the deadly weapons of theological hatred. ”

“ Captivated by the amiable desire, but fallacious hope, of uniting in bonds of brotherhood, faith and scepticism, truth and heresy, they are insensibly beguiled by this deluding phantom into the net of infidelity, and are themselves entangled in its meshes ere they are alive to the consequences of so dangerous and unholy an alliance. The leading prejudice, the very key-stone of this falsely called liberality, is the notion that sincerity is all in all ”

“ We are no more at liberty to vary the mode of performing any part of public worship, than we are to preach doctrines at variance with the Articles of Religion. If there be any direction for the public service of the Church, with which a Clergyman cannot conscientiously comply, he is at liberty to withdraw from her ministry ”

“ My Reverend Brethren, I must calmly, yet earnestly protest against the injustice and inconsistency of men, either of the Clergy or Laity, who are ready to hurl anathemas against those who, mindful of the solemn vows made at their ordination, as Ministers of the Reformed Religion, are conscientiously resolved to observe, as fully and exactly as they are able, the Rubrical injunctions of the Church. ”

“ Conscious however, as I am, how many of you, my Reverend Brethren, far more competent than myself to this task, might have been selected for addressing you to-day; yet strong in the conviction of integrity of purpose, and yielding to no one in zeal for the unity and prosperity of the Church of Christ, I rely mainly on that Divine support which can supply strength to the weak, sanctifying them to be “meet for the Master’s use, and prepared unto every good work;” ”

“ We should bear in mind, my Reverend Brethren, that unity of spirit is not the only thing to be thought of and promoted; we are to have regard also to the unity of the body. Now, if the Church be a body, a visible incorporated society, she must, like other incorporations, be under the government of certain rulers, and under the guidance of certain regulations. ”

“ Let us show, by God’s help, in our lives and labours that, in the Apostolical Ministry, there resides a living influence, stamping it as the ordinance of Christ, and conforming His servants to Himself. If others must account for assuming a commission never given to them, we must account if we abuse and neglect that we have received; and ours will be the heavier reckoning. Let us then consider one another, within and without, to provoke unto love and to good works. ”

“ Suffice it to say, as I have before remarked, that in all matters of doubt, we cannot do better than fulfil the vows we have made, and be guided by the plain and literal directions of the Articles and Rubrics of our Church, rather than trust to our own fanciful and fallible interpretations. ”

“ Which of us that be worldly, heedless, unprofitable, shall endure His withering scrutiny, when He shall be revealed from heaven with fire?—or in the sunshine of His final acceptance, remember our toil and labour? ”

“ But, my Reverend Brethren, do not let us shelter our laxity of ministration under one tangible and reasonable excuse: if we are unable to do all we are enjoined, let us at least show our zeal and sincerity in our holy calling, by doing what is in our power. ”

“ For instance, it is enjoined in our Rubric, that we should have daily service; and this, in towns and populous places, is highly proper, and ought, without doubt, to be carried into practice; but with many of us, whose flocks depend on the fullest measure of daily labour they are able to perform for their daily bread, it is not possible or reasonable to expect them to sacrifice their existence, and that of their families, to attend daily service in a Church, and that Church often remote from their place of employment. ”

“ Deeply must we all participate in the agitation which now affects her, and which has so attracted the notice of several of the most eminent Bishops of our Church, as to cause them to make it the almost exclusive subject-matter of their recent Charges to their Clergy. ”

“ The movement in the Anglican Church, which, at the present time, has occasioned that violent oscillation between two extremes, has, as we all know, been set in action by the energy of a body of pious and eminently learned Divines of the University of Oxford; and whatever difference of sentiment may exist, as to their opinions and judgment, I believe I may safely assert, that the meed of commendation which has been awarded them by those Dignitaries of our Church who have alluded to their writings, is universally and most justly conceded to them by all candid and unprejudiced persons, viz. ”

“ Who shall bear in mind the contradiction and the cross, when the dead shall ascend up out of the depths of the sea, spread over the plains, and stand upon the mountains; when we and our people shall meet in the day of that mighty gathering ”

“ Upon this point no one is more eloquent or more decided than our reforming Archbishop, Dr. Cranmer. [21] Accordingly, when in the reign of Elizabeth, the thirty-nine Articles were agreed upon in a Convocation of our Clergy, this doctrine was assumed:—“It is not lawful for any man to take upon him the office of public preaching or administering the Sacraments in the congregation, before he be lawfully called, and sent to execute the same. ”

“ They thereby prove themselves the most safe and zealous advocates of the reformed faith; they present the most undaunted front against the hateful errors of Rome on the one hand, and the no less dangerous and insidious underminings of Geneva on the other. ”

“ Few in number, they would scarcely be deserving of notice, if, by anonymous misrepresentations—which ought never to be credited until they have been fully examined—and by wilful and gross exaggerations, which from their very absurdity ought to excite the scepticism of charity; they had not partially succeeded in inflaming the passions, and exciting the prejudices, of many good and zealous, but ill-judging and p. 20mistaken men, who, instead of regarding measures, respect persons; who confound opinions with principles ”

“ Intently must he, who has the welfare of our Zion at heart, view the present aspect of a controversy which threatens to shake the English Church to the centre; but which I feel the most perfect confidence will, under the sanctifying influence of Divine grace, issue in her greater and more glorious prosperity—that it will tend to refine her from many of those defects in practice, which now make up the measure of her fallibility; and cause her to emerge from the ordeal more becoming the radiant type of the Church triumphant, against which, we have p. ”

“ If we were assembled in Convocation, empowered to make further reforms in our Church, or to discuss the need of them, our opinions with respect to the value of tradition, as a supplementary explication of Scripture, would be important in the extreme ”

“ And those we ought to judge lawfully called and sent, which be chosen and called to this work, by men who have public authority given p. 22unto them IN”—not BY, but “IN”—“the congregation, to call and send ministers into the Lord’s vineyard.” [22a] And accordingly, in legislating on this subject, the Church of England ordains that, “no one shall be accounted and taken to be a lawful Bishop, Priest, or Deacon among us; or be suffered to execute any of the ministerial functions, except he be called, tried, examined, and admitted thereunto, according to our form of Episcopal Ordination ”

“ It was then, as it had been for fifteen hundred years, taken for granted that no man might presume to minister in sacred things, unless he were first appointed to the office by persons having authority to make the appointment, by their regular succession from the Apostles. ”

“ There p. 11is abroad also a spirit of Latitudinarianism—a species of counterfeit liberality, which, in the vain desire of conciliation, increases division, and multiplies heresy, by palliating the guilt of schism, or by diminishing the number and undervaluing the importance of the fundamental doctrines of Christianity. ”