A great deal of mischief is done by not attending to the limits of interference with each other's religious opinions, by not leaving to the power and wisdom of God, that which belongs to God alone. Our holy religion con

exhibit the real difficulties of the sub- | harmless in these times, and under ject; lessen the surprise and anger these circumstances. We must be which are apt to be excited by oppo-aware, too, that we do not mistake sition; and by these means, promote recollections for apprehensions, and that forgiving one another, and for- confound together what has passed bearing one another, which are so with what is to come, -history with powerfully recommended by the words futurity. For instance, it would be of my text. the most enormous abuse of this religious institution to imagine that such dreadful scenes of wickedness are to be apprehended from the Catholics of the present day, because the annals of this country were disgraced by such an event two hundred years ago. It would be an enormous abuse of this day to extend the crimes of a few desperate wretches to a whole sect; to fix the passions of dark ages upon times of refinement and civilisation. All these are mistakes and abuses of this day, which violate every principle of Christian charity, endanger the peace of society, and give life and perpetuity to hatreds, which must perish at one time or another, and had better, for the peace of society, perish now.

sists of some doctrines which influence practice, and of others which are purely speculative. If religious errors be of the former description, they may, perhaps, be fair objects of human interference; but if the opinion be merely theological and speculative, there, the right of human interference seems to end, because the necessity for such interference does not exist. Any error of this nature is between the Creator and the creature,-between the Redeemer and the redeemed. If such opinions It would be religiously charitable are not the best opinions which can be also, to consider whether the objectionfound, God Almighty will punish the able tenets, which different sects proerror, if mere error seemeth to the Al- fess, are in their hearts as well as in mighty a fit object of punishment. their books. There is unfortunately so Why may not man wait if God waits? much pride where there ought to be so Where are we called upon in Scripture much humility, that it is difficult, if not to pursue men for errors purely specu-almost impossible, to make religious lative?—to assist Heaven in punishing sects abjure or recant the doctrines those offences which belong only to they have once professed. It is not Heaven?-in fighting unasked for what in this manner, I fear, that the best and we deem to be the battles of God,-of purest churches are ever reformed. that patient and merciful God, who But the doctrine gradually becomes pities the frailties we do not pity,-who obsolete; and, though not disowned, forgives the errors we do not forgive, ceases in fact to be a distinguishing -who sends rain upon the just and characteristic of the sect which prothe unjust, and maketh his sun to shine fesses it. These modes of reformation, upon the evil and the good. -this silent antiquation of doctrines.— Another canon of religious charity this real improvement, which the parties is to revise, at long intervals, the bad themselves are too wise not to feel, opinions we have been compelled, or though not wise enough to own, must, rather our forefathers have been com- I am afraid, be generally conceded to pelled, to form of other Christian sects; human infirmity. They are indulgences to see whether the different bias of the not unnecessary to many sects of Chrisage, the more general diffusion of in- tians. The more generous method telligence, do not render those tenets would be to admit error where error less pernicious: that which might prove exists, to say these were the tenets and a very great evil under other circum-interpretations of dark and ignorant stances, and in other times, may, per- ages; wider inquiry, fresh discussion, haps, however weak and erroneous, be superior intelligence have convinced

us we are wrong; we will act in future if you wish to forbear and to forgive, it will then occur to you that you should seek the true opinions of any sect from those only who are approved of, and reverenced by that sect; to whose authority that sect defer, and by whose arguments they consider their tenets to be properly defended. This may not suit your purpose if you are combating for victory; but it is your duty if you are combating for truth; it is the safe, honest, and splendid conduct of him, who never writes nor speaks on religious subjects, but that he may diffuse the real blessings of religion among his fellow-creatures, and restrain the bitterness of controversy by the feelings of Christian charity and forbearance.

upon better and wiser principles. This is what men do in laws, arts, and sciences; and happy for them would it be if they used the same modest docility in the highest of all concerns. But it is, I fear, more than experience will allow us to expect; and therefore the kindest and most charitable method is to allow religious sects silently to improve without reminding them of, and taunting them with, the improvement; without bringing them to the humiliation of formal disavowal, or the still more pernicious practice of defending what they know to be indefensible. The triumphs which proceed from the neglect of these principles are not (what they pretend to be) the triumphs of religion, but the triumphs of personal vanity. The object is not to extinguish dangerous error with as little pain and degradation as possible to him who has fallen into the error: but the object is to exalt ourselves, and to depreciate our theological opponents, as much as possible, at any expense to God's service, and to the real interests of truth and religion.

There is another practice not less common than this, and equally uncharitable; and that is, to represent the opinions of the most violent and eager persons who can be met with, as the common and received opinions of the whole sect. There are, in every denomination of Christians, individuals, by whose opinion or by whose conduct the great body would very reluctantly be judged. Some men aim at attracting notice by singularity; some are deficient in temper; some in learning; some push every principle to the extreme; distort, overstate, pervert; fill every one to whom their cause is dear with concern that it should have been committed to such rash and intemperate advocates. If you wish to gain a victory over your antagonists, these are the men whose writings you should study, whose opinions you should dwell on, and should carefully bring forward to notice; but if you wish, as the elect of God, to put on kindness and humbleness, meekness, and long-suffering,

Let us also ask ourselves, when we are sitting in severe judgment upon the faults, follies, and errors of other Christian sects, whether it be not barely possible that we have fallen into some mistakes and misrepresentations? Let us ask ourselves, honestly and fairly, whether we are wholly exempt from prejudice, from pride, from obstinate adhesion to what candour calls upon us to alter, and to yield? Are there no violent and mistaken members of our own community, by whose conduct we should be loth to be guided,-by whose tenets we should not choose our faith should be judged? Has time, that improves all, found nothing in us to change for the better? Amid all the manifold divisions of the Christian world, are we the only Christians who, without having anything to learn from the knowledge and civilisation of the last three centuries, have started up, without infancy, and without error, into consummate wisdom and spotless perfection?

To listen to enemies as well as friends is a rule which not only increases sense in common life, but is highly favourable to the increase of religious candour. You find that you are not so free from faults as your friends suppose, nor so full of faults as your enemies suppose. You begin to think it not impossible that you may be as unjust to others as they are to you; and that the wisest and most Christian scheme is that of

mutual indulgence; that it is better to put on, as the elect of God, kindness, humbleness of mind, meekness, longsuffering, forbearing one another, and forgiving one another.

surely submit to some little softness and relaxation; honest difference of opinion cannot fall for such entire separation and complete antipathy; such zeal as this, if it be zeal, and not something worse, is not surely zeal according to discretion.

The arguments, then, which I have adduced in support of the great principles of religious charity are, that violence upon such subjects is rarely or

Some men cannot understand how they are to be zealous if they are candid in religious matters; how the energy, necessary for the one virtue, is compatible with the calmness which the other requires. But remember that the Scriptures carefully distinguish be-ever found to be useful; but generally tween laudable zeal and indiscreet zeal; to produce effects opposite to those that the apostles and epistolary writers which are intended. I have observed knew they had as much to fear from that religious sects are not to be judged the over-excitement of some men, from the representations of their ene as from the supineness of others; and mies? but that they are to be heard in nothing have they laboured more for themselves, in the pleadings of than in preventing religion from arm- their best writers, not in the represening human passions, instead of allaying tations of those whose intemperate zeal them, and rendering those principles a is a misfortune to the sect to which source of mutual jealousy and hatred they belong. If you will study the which were intended for universal principles of your religious opponents, peace. I admit that indifference some- you will often find your contempt and times puts on the appearance of can-hatred lessened in proportion as you dour; but though there is a counterfeit, are better acquainted with what you desyet there is a reality; and the imitation pise. Many religious opinions, which proves the value of the original, be- are purely speculative, are without the cause men only attempt to multiply limits of human interference. In the the appearances of useful and impor-numerous sects of Christianity, intertant things. The object is to be at preting our religion in very opposite the same time pious to God and charitable to man; to render your own faith as pure and perfect as possible, not only without hatred of those who differ from you, but with a constant recollection that it is possible, in spite of thought and study, that you may have been mistaken,- that other sects may be right,—and that a zeal in his service, which God does not want, is a very bad excuse for those bad passions which his sacred word condemns.

manners, all cannot be right. Imitate the forbearance and long-suffering of God, who throws the mantle of his mercy over all, and who will probably save, on the last day, the piously right and the piously wrong, seeking Jesus in humbleness of mind. Do not drive religious sects to the disgrace (or to what they foolishly think the disgrace) of formally disavowing tenets they once professed, but concede something to human weakness; and when the tenet is virtually given up, treat it as Lastly, I would suggest that many if it were actually given up; and aldifferences between sects are of less ways consider it to be very possible importance than the furious zeal of that you yourself may have made many men would make them. Are mistakes, and fallen into erroneous the tenets of any sect of such a de- opinions, as well as any other sect scription that we believe they will be to which you are opposed. If you put saved under the Christian faith? Do on these dispositions, and this tenor of they fulfil the common duties of life? mind, you cannot be guilty of any Do they respect property? Are they religious fault, take what part you will obedient to the laws? Do they speak in the religious disputes which appear the truth? If all these things be to be coming on the world. If you right, the violence of hostility may choose to perpetuate the restrictions

upon your fellow-creatures, no one has | Bishop Taylor in his "Holy Living a right to call you bigoted; if you and Dying.' I have not now access choose to do them away, no one has to that book, but I quote it to you any right to call you lax and indif- from memory, and should be made ferent you have done your utmost to truly happy if you would quote it to do right, and whether you err, or do others from memory also. not err, in your mode of interpreting the Christian religion, you show at least that you have caught its heavenly spirit, that you have put on, as the elect of God, kindness, humbleness of mind, meekness, long-suffering, forbearing one another, and forgiving one another.

"As Abraham was sitting in the door of his tent, there came unto him a wayfaring man; and Abraham gave him water for his feet, and set bread before him. And Abraham said unto him, 'Let us now worship the Lord our God before we eat of this bread.' And the wayfaring man said unto Abraham, I will not worship the Lord thy God, for thy God is not my God; but I will worship my God, even the God of my fathers.' But Abraham was exceeding wroth; and he rose up to put the wayfaring man forth from the door of his tent. And the voice of the Lord was heard in the tent,Abraham! Abraham! have I borne with this man for threescore and ten years, and canst not thou bear with him for one hour?"*

I have thus endeavoured to lay before you the uses and abuses of this day; and, having stated the great mercy of God's interference, and the blessings this country has secured to itself in resisting the errors and follies, and superstitions of the Catholic Church, I have endeavoured that this just sense of our own superiority should not militate against the sacred principles of Christian charity. That charity which I ask of others, I ask also for myself. I am sure I am preaching before those who will think (whether This beautiful Apologue is introduced they agree with me or not) that I by Bishop Taylor in the second edition of have spoken conscientiously, and from his Liberty of Prophesying. (See Bishop Heber's Life of Bishop Taylor, vol. viii. p. good motives, and from honest feel232.) ings, on a very difficult subject,-not sought for by me, but devolving upon me in the course of duty;-in which I should have been heartily ashamed of myself (as you would have been ashamed of me), if I had thought only how to flatter and please, or thought of anything but what I hope I always do think of in the pulpit,- that I am placed here by God to tell truth, and to do good.

I shall conclude my sermon (extended, I am afraid, already to an unreasonable length), by reciting to you a very short and beautiful ароlogue, taken from the Rabbinical writers. It is, I believe, quoted by

Bishop Taylor says, "I end with a story which I find in the Jew's Books." [The from the Persian poet, Saadi, in his poem of story is almost word for word a translation the Büstan; translated into Latin by George Gentius, a Jew, and published by him at of the Liberty of Prophesying was previous Amsterdam in 1651. Taylor's first edition to that date; his second edition was soon after it.]

the story) Abraham fetched him back Bishop Taylor adds, "Upon this (saith again, and gave him hospital entertainment and wise instruction." "Go thou," says Bishop Taylor, “and do likewise, and thy charity will be rewarded by the God of Abraham!" The original of Saadi ends with the reprimand of the Almighty. Gentius has added the subsequent sentence.

The Persian poet, Saadi, was born at Shiraz, A. H. 571 (A. D. 1193). He died at Shiraz, A. H. 691 (A.D. 1313), aged 120 years.

are occasionally exposed, in which you are utterly helpless, and must give way to their claims: and if you do it then, you will do it badly; you may call it an arrangement, but arrangements made at such times are much like the bargains between a highwayman and a traveller, a pistol on one side, and a purse on the other: the rapid scramble of armed violence, and the unqualified surrender of helpless timidity. If you think the thing must be done at some time or another, do it when you are calm and powerful, and when you need not do it.

Spanish or Italian, but with Irish Ca- | till you are caught in one of those tholics: it is not true that the Irish political attitudes to which all countries Catholics refuse to circulate the Bible in English; on the contrary, they have in Ireland circulated several editions of the Scriptures in English. In the last year, the Catholic prelates prepared and put forth a stereotype edition of the Bible, of a small print and low price, to insure its general circulation. They circulate the Bible with their own notes, and how, as Catholics, can they act otherwise? Are not our prelates and Bartlett's Buildings acting in the same manner? And must not all Churches, if they are consistent, act in the same manner? The Bibles Catholies quarrel with, are Protestant Bibles There are a set of high-spirited men without notes, or Protestant Bibles with who are very much afraid of being Protestant notes, and how can they do afraid; who cannot brook the idea of otherwise without giving up their doing anything from fear, and whose religion? They deny, upon oath, that conversation is full of fire and sword, the infallibility of the Pope is any when any apprehension of resistance is necessary part of the Catholic faith. alluded to. I have a perfect confidence They, upon oath, declare that Catholic in the high and unyielding spirit, and people are forbidden to worship images, in the military courage of the English; and saints, and relics. They, upon and I have no doubt, but that many of oath, abjure the temporal power of the the country gentlemen who now call Pope, or his right to absolve any Ca-out No Popery, would fearlessly put tholic from his oath. They renounce, upon oath, all right to forfeited lands, and covenant, upon oath, not to destroy or plot against the Irish Protestant Church. What more can any man want, whom anything will con

tent?

Some people talk as if they were quite teased and worried by the eternal clamours of the Catholics; but if you are eternally unjust, can you expect anything more than to be eternally vexed by the victims of your injustice? You want all the luxury of oppression, without any of its inconvenience. I should think the Catholics very much to blame, if they ever ceased to importune the legislature for justice, so long as they could find one single member of parliament who would advocate their cause.

The putting the matter to rest by an effort of the county of York, or by any decision of parliament against them, is utterly hopeless. Every year increases the Catholic population, and the Catholic wealth, and the Catholic claims,

themselves at the head of their embattled yeomanry, to control the Irish Catholics. My objection to such courage is, that it would certainly be exercised unjustly, and probably exercised in vain. I should deprecate any rising of the Catholics as the most grievous misfortune which could happen to the empire and to themselves. They had far better endure all they do endure, and a great deal worse, than try the experiment. But if they do try it, you may depend upon it, they will do it at their own time, and not at yours. They will not select a fortnight in the summer, during a profound peace, when corn and money abound, and when the Catholics of Europe are unconcerned spectators. If you make a resolution to be unjust, you must make another resolution to be always strong, always vigilant, and always rich; you must commit no blunders, exhibit no deficiencies, and meet with no misfortunes; you must present a squar phalanx of impenetrable strength, fo keen-eyed revenge is riding round