THE

EVILS OF INNOVATION
A SERMON
PREACHED AT ROMFORD,
AT
THE VISITATION

VENERABLE HUGH CHAMBRES JONES, M.A.,
ARCHDEACON OF ESSEX,
ON MONDAY, MAY 29, 1843,

HENRY SOAMES, M.A.,
RECTOR OF STAPI.BFORD TAWNEV WITH THOYDON MOUNT.

LONDON:
JOHN W. PARKER, WEST STRAND.

M.DCCC.XLIII.

J8t3

ADVERTISEMENT.
The following Sermon has been thought by some who
heard it, likely to be useful. In the hope that it may
prove so, publication has been determined upon. A few
notes have been added for the use of readers who have
not ready access to the ordinary channels of ecclesiastical
information. Stapleford Tawney,
June 6, 1843.

j_..'Ki:,'A:„

THE EVILS OF INNOVATION.

Isaiah xxxiii. 6.

Wisdom and knowledge shall be the stability of thy
times.
These words, you will remember, occur in that
triumphant ode by which the prophet expresses
holy gratitude on Jerusalem's deliverance from
Senacherib. Hezekiah, therefore, is the prince to
whom is given here a promise of stability. Well
did he know the value of such a blessing, for had
" God forgotten to be- gracious,"1 Zion must have
been recently profaned by victorious heathenism.
Jehovah had " sworn," however, " by his holiness
that he would not fail David."2 So long as the
royal race remained steady to an unadulterated
creed, its hold upon the throne was to prove en
during as the sun's upon the firmament of heaven.3
1 Ps. lxxvii. 9. 2 Ps. lxxxix. 34., Com. P. Transl. 3 lb. 35.

EVILS OF

Hezekiah had kept his faith "whole and unde-
filed." 4 He had never halted between Jehovah and
Baal,5 never sought mediators between fallen man,
and the Great Supreme, never bidden an altar
smoke, or incense mount, unless to greet with
humble reverence " the high and lofty One that
inhabiteth eternity."6 He felt sure that prayer
needed only real piety to reach the throne of grace.
Most signally was the soundness of this conviction
shewn. When human aid appeared unequal to the
pious king of Judah's rescue, a destroying angel
made Assyria's overwhelming host, in one awful
night, a ghastly mountain of mortality.7 Where
then were the Gods of heathenism ? Israel's God
had nobly fought for his chosen race. If Hezekiah's
faith could have ever wavered, he must now have
been effectually cured of any leaning towards that
" voluntary humility," 8 which sought Omnipotence
through fancied mediators of inferior kind. He had
found even, that when nothing less than miracle
could save him, a miracle was wrought. God
shewed himself " ever mindful of his covenant." 9
Its conditions had been duly kept on one side, and
could not be forgotten on the other. Men will
always find it so, but they have no reason to reckon
upon miracles. Their heavenly Father works at
ordinary times by ordinary means. He blesses his

4 Athan. Cr. 5 1 Kings xviii. 21. 6 Is. lvii. 15.
1 lb. xxxvii. 36. 8 Col. ii. 18. 9 Ps. cxi. 5.

INNOVATION.

faithful children by blessing their judicious en
deavours. He does not make " a new thing" 10 to
serve them, unless at some extraordinary times when
such an interposition is absolutely needful. Thus,
when he subsequently promised stability to Hezekiah,
(a happiness that had lately seemed all but hopeless,)
he promised it by human means. No hint is given
of angelic interposition. It was to flow from an
especial blessing upon reasonable courses : and why
should any child of God, however favoured, look
for more ?
Although circumstances, a little before the pro
phet wrote, had shewn stability to be among the
greatest boons conferred by Providence upon man
kind, its importance is conspicuous at every time.
Without stability of character no man's talents and
exertions will materially serve him. Without sta
bility in its institutions, no nation will rise in the
social scale, or even make due provision for the
comfort of individuals. This invaluable quality is,
however, no spontaneous produce of human nature.
Elders have often considerable difficulty in moulding
the young to a habit of it. Rulers are constantly
resisting that popular unsteadiness which would
rashly sacrifice the most valuable institutions.
Hence it is desirable to know the foundations of
stability. The text mentions no other than " wisdom
and knowledge." Nor obviously need any others
10 Num. xvi. 30.

EVILS OF

be sought. From good sense, guided by experience
and sufficient information, there can be little or no
danger of missing stability.
Of the two things on which Isaiah founds it,
" wisdom " properly stands first, because it is only
sagacious minds that can make the best use of
opportunities. But no degree of understanding will
avail for many purposes without competent informa
tion. " Knowledge " is therefore the instrument
which must be possessed, before we can hope to
realise the promise of the text. Hence knowledge
may conveniently be considered first, and it is quite
sufficient for the ordinary limits of a sermon. The
text also directs attention to one particular kind of
knowledge. It refers only to such information as
affects " the stability of the times." This is of no
easy acquisition. It calls for careful, extensive, and
impartial research. Private and speculative studies
may allowably be superficial. But such enquiries
as influence established principles and institutions,
must be wide and deep, or they will be worth
less, if not worse. Practice based on partial views
engenders instability. The party-man's one-sided
knowledge no sooner gains importance by acting
on society, than adverse minds array themselves
against it. His convictions are assailed, as crudely
formed on grounds that will not bear examina
tion. Hence, if he really have gained a hold on
the public mind, or public institutions, unsteadi
ness is communicated to the one, insecurity to the

INNOVATION. 7
other. Surely, then, a Christian love of peace may
make us pause, when great practical questions are
urged upon our attention, until these have been
examined long, and in various lights. When, in
deed, such questions have been so examined, ex
amined also " in an honest and good heart," " men
may reckon upon realising Isaiah's promise, —
"Wisdom and knowledge will give stability to the
times." Where is the country that can exemplify these
animating words more completely than our own?
What institution ever known to man was founded
upon grounds, more thoroughly examined in all their
bearings, more deliberately taken, than the Church
of England? When first estranged from Rome,
our nation's religious luminaries thought of little
else than shaking off a foreign usurpation,12 opening
Scripture to the public eye, and weaning a benighted
populace from some debasing superstitions. As
time ran on, and information grew, more light
broke in upon those venerated men to whom we
owe an eternal debt of gratitude. It broke, how
ever, in but slowly, was received with humble,
pious caution, and never brought to bear upon the
country until its purity was thoroughly examined.
Had not conviction really been thus gained, would
it have driven elderly, learned, unenthusiastic men
upon the blazing pyre? We cite Apostles and
11 St. Luke viii. 15. u That of the Pope.

EVILS OF

Evangelists, and fairly ask, How could the Gospel
be a " cunningly-devised fable," 13 sealed as it was
by the Ufe's blood of men, so every way above
exception? Credit would never be maintained at
such a price by a succession of cool-headed im
postors. We may say the same of those whose holy
self-devotion so dearly purchased our own spiritual
privileges. The leaders in our " noble army of
martyrs " u were neither hasty, nor self-seekers, nor
undiscerning. They did not even feel indifference
for fife. On the contrary, imagination, in their
weaker moments, appears to have painted with
frightful truth of colouring, the chain, the stake,
the scorching flame. The most conspicuous of these
generous victims,15 we know to have been tempted
by the sinful flesh's greediness of life, into a dis
simulation that embittered his dying agonies with
remorse. He died, however, steady to his faith, as
others did, with whom he had laboured after truth.
They could not abandon their profession, for it was

13 2 St. Peter i. 16. 14 Te Deum.
15 Thomas Cranmer, archbishop of Canterbury, burnt at Ox
ford, March 21, 1556. The Romish party took extraordinary
pains to wring a recantation from him, and it has been commonly
believed that they succeeded. It seems, however, hardly doubtful
that their success was very imperfect. Cranmer, under the
temptations by which he was plied, seems rather to have dissembled
his belief, than renounced it. He died, however, firm to the
Protestant faith, but bitterly bewailing the wretched weakness
which made him seem, one time, willing to forsake it.

INNOVATION. 9
founded upon knowledge most solidly acquired.
On this account, it has proved " the stabihty " of
succeeding times : being rooted so firmly in the
country as to triumph over opposition of every
kind. Public opinion has been blown, according to its
nature, first by one man's breath, then by another's.
The Marian persecution was no sooner over, than
human restlessness chafed upon cap and surplice.16
Next arose objections to the hierarchy and liturgy,17
with such a partiality for Calvinism as made Arch
bishop Whitgift willing to narrow the terms of
national conformity by imposing the Lambeth ar
ticles.18 As this taste wore out, Arminianism be
came popular among the clergy. Then Bishop

16 Soon after Queen Elizabeth's accession, violent objections
were made by many zealous Protestants, to the square cap, (like
that now worn in English universities,) which the clergy were
required to wear habitually, according to the immemorial usage,
and to the surplice which they were to wear in their ministrations.
Both were considered unlawful, because they had been worn in
times of Popery, which was denounced as an idolatrous religion.
17 About the year 1571. The objectors wished for a Pres
byterian establishment. They were not against all forms of
prayer, but claimed a free licence to pray ex tempore both before
and after sermon, and made many objections to the Prayer-Book
established by law.
18 In 1595. The Lambeth articles are so called because they
were framed at the archbishop's residence there. They are nine
in number, and take high predestinarian ground. The Thirty-nine
Articles were found insufficient for the exclusion of divines who
dissented from the Genevan school. The operation, therefore, of

10 EVILS OF
Andrewes19 taught scholarly divines to read with
longing eyes the records of ecclesiastical antiquity.
Archbishop Laud's arduous and well-meant, but in
judicious and unhappy primacy, gave the seed thus
sown a rank luxuriance, which found a check in
civil war, the sovereign's murder, and a ruined
church establishment. On the restoration, an osten
tatious piety, lately seen in contrast with man's
habitual selfishness, was found to have lowered
the general estimate of religion. Hence upper
life became overspread with infidelity, and clergy
men of talent were too much tasked for mere
philosophy. This gave a moral tone, such an ex
cessive possession of the pulpit, as could be broken
neither by the Romish controversy that ushered
in the Revolution, nor by the non-juring attempts
that followed, in favour of Laudian principles.
Afterwards Bishop Hoadly gave currency to a lati-
tudinarian spirit within the Church, and a growing
indifference to doctrine left a hungry void in the
the Lambeth articles, if they had been ratified by the Government,
would have been to shut out from the Church all clergymen who
did not hold extreme Calvinistic opinions. But Queen Elizabeth
refused to sanction them.
19 Lancelot Andrewes died bishop of Winchester, Sept. 1, 1626.
He was a man of extraordinary learning and great piety. A
charge of superstition was brought against him after his death,
but although his love of antiquity allowed him to disregard no
established precedent, he seems to have cautiously abstained from
pressing any thing that he did not find in actual possession. See
Fuller, Ch. Hist. B. xi. p. 127.

INNOVATION. 11
public mind which Wesley and Whitfield filled.
The eighteenth century closed amid clerical en
deavours to stem the torrent of licentious infidelity
that flowed from revolutionary France, and the
nineteenth opened with controversies on gigantic
efforts to circulate the Bible. These having died
away, a new generation has drawn materials for
mental activity from writers little noticed since non-
juring times.
Many and various as have been these changes, the
stability of our Church has continued unimpaired.
It sank, undoubtedly, one time, as an establish
ment,20 but it soon rose again more vigorous than
ever. Its hold upon public opinion, therefore,
though not incapable of a temporary shock, can
hardly fear a vital injury. Original objections to
it, have, indeed, become positively extinct. Its
old Presbyterian enemy scarcely lives on English
ground, out of history. Recent secessions have
commonly been made under professions of real
affection for it, and complaints of a departure from
the principles of its venerable founders. No ex
amination of such charges is needed here. Their
existence, however, bears powerful testimony to the
inherent stability of that system which Cranmer,
Ridley, and their assistants planted. Clamour has
repeatedly assailed our church-establishment, and
from parties with very different views. Why have

20 In the civil war that overthrew Charles I.

12 EVILS OF
they generally disclaimed an intention to overthrow
it, and professed nothing more than a wish to place
it on ground originally taken ? Surely, it must be,
because the structure was reared by builders of
unquestionable knowledge. Their heroic ends prove
them to have been pious and sincere. Hence their
work must have proceeded amidst earnest and unre
mitting prayers. These prayers, however, came from
men of sound discretion, and sought only, therefore,
a blessing upon reasonable means diligently plied.
The finished work bears evidence to this. Such
stability is unattainable by hasty hands and super
ficial heads. It is true, that every thing presented
by this venerable structure is not coeval with its
original foundation. Some immaterial changes have
gradually found place. But of these, observation
and enquiry will generally shew the necessity or
expediency. They were, therefore, prescribed by
experience : and experience is knowledge. To assail
successfully a system thus established must require
an extent of information that does not come within
ordinary opportunities. Theological erudition, when
pushed beyond articles of faith, embraces, indeed, a
field so wide, that much of it may still remain to be
known even to the learned. Inferior scholars, then,
must necessarily be contented with exploring only a
small part of it, and some favourite theory may
narrow even that, leaving them without light which
really they might have had. Thus, for instance,
opinions upon the Christian ministry have commonly

INNOVATION. 13
been formed with little or no thought of the Syna
gogue, although this institution was probably kept
in sight by the Apostles, when they organized the
Church. A due consideration of its arrangements,
and of the original word used in the New Testament
for ministers of the Gospel, might modify some ideas
of their own privileges and functions that are
naturally popular among clergymen regularly or
dained.21 Favourable views of the papal system have
also been sometimes entertained without a sufficient
acquaintance with its real character. Its theatrical
service has been hastily approved as useful to render
attendance in God's house agreeable to the indevout;
but is the dramatising of religious rites an allowable
expedient for curing indevotion ? So likewise, during
the heats of a controversy upon our Lord's con
nection with humanity, theologians might, perhaps,
excusably, style the Virgin Mary, the Mother of God.
But is there any excuse for continuing such a desig
nation so as to make it pass into the daily speech of
superstitious ignorance ? Have not the populace,
and weak minds above the populace, been thus
betrayed into the sin and folly of finding a new
Diana ? Suppose too, it is admitted, that advantages
must flow from confidential intercourse between
God's ministers and their flocks ; we still may ask,
are there any advantages great enough to justify the

21 See The Synagogue and the Church, by J. L. Bernard. Lon
don, 1842.

14 EVILS OF
prying, delusive, and impure confessional? Is not
any advantage besides bought ruinously dear that
leads human corruption to trust, or connives at its
trust, in sacerdotal absolutions ? Upon these terms,
or any like them, popularity cannot be legitimately
gained. Who then shall envy the portion of it
gained by Rome ? None surely, unwarped by pre
vious prejudice, who have sufficiently studied papal
principles, and know their operation on society.
Sufficient knowledge may likewise arrest a wish
to put a new face on our public ordinances. Every
change is defensible, it may be thought at first,
which can plead some sort of authority from our
present service-book. This volume, however, as
we know, is no work of any single period. Although
chiefly compiled under Edward VI., yet in his brief
reign, two forms of it appeared, importantly differing
from each other.22 From Elizabeth's first year down
to the Savoy conference,23 various other alterations
were accomplished, and our liturgical system is
besides affected by royal injunctions, canons, and
acts of parliament. If these diversified authorities
be carefully considered, a want of coherence between
them in many particulars, will soon be detected.
Provisions made for one state of things will be found
continued under another, so that some of those
modifications, which have grown into use, became
positively unavoidable. Others obviously sprang
22 In 1549 and 1552. 23 In 1661.

INNOVATION. 15
from a reasonable, perhaps rather, from a necessary
deference, to prevailing habits and opinions. Still,
the ritual system, prescribed in our service-book,
has really been but little infringed. Why not leave
its features, then, as the country has immemorially
known them? Why endeavour to disturb a pos
session which nearly all England is anxious to
respect ? Little change may be desired, but people
generally are averse from any. Nor does their
aversion rest upon the mere force of habit. A
diligent search for that knowledge which the case
requires will soon discover authorities and reasons
for most of our existing ritual arrangements.
A disposition to disturb them, it may, perhaps,
be urged without offence, cannot always be safely
trusted, because it is based on conscious rectitude,
and no contemptible information. Views firmly,
honestly, and even long entertained, have notwith
standing, sometimes proved mistaken views. Thus
both Hezekiah and Senacherib claimed a standing
on religious grounds, and besides, what is usually
overlooked, on common religious grounds. The
pious king of Judah cried to the Great Supreme.
The Assyrian derided his appeal. And why ? Be
cause it involved a slight upon the deified subordi
nates of Paganism. The Jewish monarch took, as
we say, Protestant ground, Senacherib took Romish
ground. Thus, accordingly, spake his general,
Rabshakeh. " If thou say to me, We trust in

16 EVILS OF
the Lord, our God : is it not he whose high places
and whose altars Hezekiah hath taken away?"24
Both sovereigns admitted one paramount Divinity.
But Assyria, like all Pagan countries past and
present, like modern Rome besides, gave him a
sort of court : surrounded his everlasting throne,
that is, with deified, or canonised spirits, (use which
word you will,) once tenanting mortal bodies, now
thought privileged intercessors between God and
man. The Gentile world had an immemorial tra
dition for this opinion, which it felt assured could
not be disregarded without positive impiety : an
impiety too which directly affected Jehovah him
self ; who was personally dishonoured through the
neglect of his appointed servants. Their high places
were his high places, their altars, his altars. The
Assyrians took a pride in thinking thus, and
reckoned on their creed as a title to celestial
favour. But now we cannot find believers in it
nearer than the Pagans of Hindostan. A similar
confidence in Gentile principles was also popular
among the Jews themselves. Those of them who
would hear of no alliance between Jehovah and
Baal, were branded with profaneness by their
paganising countrymen. " Stand by thyself," was
the language of these men, encased in spiritual
pride, and really tainted with apostacy, " come
24 Is. xxxvi. 7.

INNOVATION. 17
not near to me: for I am holier than thou."25
No doubt, a neglect of inferior mediation was
currently denounced as impious. No doubt, among
the followers of a Gentile creed were found such
striking instances of penitential self-denial as yet
are known among the devotees of India. No doubt,
Pagan theology could command support even from
considerable erudition. We know, that, when as
sailed by primitive Christianity, it wanted not able
champions. Yet now it is without a single friend
in any well-informed society. From such ex
amples we may reasonably hesitate, when solicited
by theories that threaten stability ; even if their
advocates be confident, self-denying, well-inten
tioned, and scholarly. Their scholarship may prove
nothing more than party-scholarship, which comes
in with one gale, and is blown away by another.
Cautious minds may reasonably, therefore, seek
excuse, when pressed by calls to leave their wonted
course. They may fairly ask besides, when such
a call is made as has been lately heard, What
prospect is there of persuading the great majority
of Englishmen into any new confidence in ritual
formalities and sacramental efficacy? The nation
thinks, and Christ himself is its authority, " Behold
the kingdom of God is within you.26 England
has none of the elements for building up a Romish
reliance upon ordinances. In treating these, our
26 Is. lxv. 5. 26 St. Luke xvii. 21.

18 EVILS OF
Church has steered a middle course, and like such
courses generally, it has proved a wise one. She
has attributed no magical efficacy to externals, but
she has not injudiciously neglected them. To strain
her voice in their favour, is only to render it sus
pected. Time was, when the surplice was a party-
badge, and the liturgy reviled as a pernicious remnant
of the mass-book. Why could firebrands be made
of such objections? Because men had recently
seen, under a Romish church-establishment, an ex
cessive trust in the mere machinery of piety. The
reaction came, as come it always does, and as usual,
it ran into extremes. The old system was con
victed by experience of a tendency to nurture super
stition, and to lull the sinner's uneasy retrospect
under a blind reliance on the priest. Could such
a system coerce corrupt human indolence into
laborious aspirations after that " holiness, without
which no man shall see the Lord ? " 27 Centuries
of failure said Nay : in a voice of thunder ; and
many thought, no departure could be too complete
from that which had so signally miscarried. Our
venerable Reformers, however, did not confound
use with abuse. They merely pared away whatever
had been found inexpedient, indefensible, and in
jurious. Ample justice was eventually done to
their discrimination. All that it spared gained firm
possession of the people's love. Who would shake
27 Heb. xii. 14.

INNOVATION. 19
its hold, by claiming for externals an importance,
which the whole country would quickly hear, is not
legitimately theirs ? An imprudent stress on anti
quated forms might even revive the captious cavils
that agitated England, under Elizabeth and Charles I.
In the former reign, popular prejudice against pre
scribed externals rested on the tendency of Roman
ism, then recently well known, to divert attention
from the real differences between a state of nature
and a state of grace. In the latter, some leading
churchmen could not rest contented with a cure for
a few obvious, but inveterate irregularities.28 They
enlisted popular obstinacy on the side of these

28 The communion-table was ordinarily placed, in parish-
churches, as the rubric allowed, in the body of the church, or
at the entrance of the chancel. In either place it was often
rather in the way, and liable to serve unworthy purposes, while
the chancel generally seemed of no use except for a school or
parish-vestry room. Archbishop Laud, and his party, insisted
upon the removal of the table to the east end of the chancel, the
erection of a rail in front of it, or all round it, and the coming of
communicants up to this rail. A principal objection to these
arrangements appears really to have been the trouble and ex
pense involved in them. But conscience was made the plea
for resisting them, and unfortunately some doctrinal movements
of their friends, besides great indiscretion, gave importance to
the opposition. (Kennett's Complete Hist. Engl. iii. 67.) " 'Tis
certain Archbishop Laud and his brethren meant nothing but
decency and uniformity ; but then indeed they pressed them with
more zeal than the things deserved, while not expressly enjoined ;
and this contending for them with vehemence made people sus
pect a dangerous design in them : soft and slower methods might
have done. We have since seen most of these externals intro-

20 EVILS OF
defects, by innovating, or as they said, renovating,
in other points.29 Even there they could not stop.
All their movements were rendered odious and
suspicious by doctrinal advances towards Rome.
Thus the moderation of our Reformers lost, for
a time, its due weight upon the country, and or
dinances were thrust below their legitimate position
in the Christian economy. Those who value,
therefore, the decent externals of religion, and
revere sacraments as appointed means of grace,
may hence learn the danger of venturing upon
extremes. Besides this danger, we may reasonably fear the
evils of clerical disunion. It might have been re
marked long ago, that, wherever churches bore a
due proportion to the population, dissent was rarely
very flourishing. But such remarks were idly made.
No one scarcely thought of applying a remedy to
the evil. At length, however, a nobler, nay, rather,
a holier spirit has arisen. Those who duly feel
their own religious privileges, and can assist others
to a share of them, have shewn a readiness to do
this their bounden duty. Why damp an ardour so
beneficial both to rich and poor, by striving to force
upon the Church a face neither known to our

duced and quietly established into custom, because they have
been recommended rather than enforced, and men without impo
sition have been allowed to receive them." lb. 86.
29 Heylin's Laud. 417.

INNOVATION. 21
fathers, nor ourselves? When religious men bid
churches rise around they do not contemplate facili
ties for that which would be extensively denounced
as lifeless or superstitious formalism. They wish
for any thing rather than the spread of doctrines
new to the nation's ears. Vainly would proofs be
sifted for obnoxious principles out of the voluminous
and multifarious matter left us by the Fathers.
Vainly would confirmations of them be produced
from some of our own divines, (worthy and learned
as they were,) who wrote in suspicious times. The
Christian public would reject such testimony, and
ask, What says the Bible? Where was this di
vinity, before its yesterday's emergence into light ?
Such questions, it is enough to say, could not
long pour in, without paralysing national liberality,
and blighting well-founded hopes of Christian use
fulness. Why, then, broach opinions and adopt usages,
which, being new to the minds and eyes of ordinary
men, unsettle the public mind, shock popular preju
dice, and engender party-spirit? Are we sure of
any sufficient ground for braving these undeniable
evils ? They really are evils which threaten " the
stability of the times." Hence they cannot be
prudently disregarded without a clear prospect of
greater countervailing good. Any such prospect is,
however, thought very questionable, by many whose
judgement is not unworthy of respect. As a means
of rendering it inviting, its advocates talk much of

22 EVILS OF
" the old paths " 30 originally trodden by our fathers.
Even if the steps of by-gone days did walk this
way, these paths have been long forgotten, and
nothing is less desired by the great majority in
every rank, than to tread them now. But in reality,
the venerable character claimed for this forgotten
track is open to dispute. The knowledge required
for judging of its antiquity is only beginning to act
upon the country. It is, however, far easier to
acquire the means of defending actual possession,
than of substantiating the call for change. A brief
enquiry will suffice to shew, that ritual arrange
ments, as immemorially known to England, and
dear to Englishmen, have little or nothing to fear
from a few insulated rubrics. People, whose habits
and partialities are unexpectedly assailed by these
antiquated sanctions, will naturally ask, What
were the circumstances under which they first ap
peared ? Is not the degree of desuetude, which has
overtaken them, justified, or even necessitated, by
obvious convenience, by changes in legislation or
public opinion, or national habits, or perhaps, by
changes in the service-book itself? It would be
found, probably, that a strict return to the system
that gave these rubrics birth, even if it could be
exactly ascertained, was quite impossible. The
nation might resist, the legislature interpose. But
suppose both quiescent, and the clergy unanimous
30 Jer. vi. 16.

INNOVATION. 23
in approving all such alterations in public worship
as possibly might find a legal standing, would not
principles follow in the rear of practices ? Would
men who had struggled for the change rest contented
with re-casting and increasing mere formalities?
They really could not stop at such a point without
incurring the discredit of a childish partiality for
trifles. Hence their success must impel them on
wards to inculcate such principles as Protestants
generally disapprove.
But would all the Church now acquiesce, or even
refrain from earnest endeavours to expose the
weakness of these opinions ? Would not also noncon
formity be strengthened enormously, while church
men were gradually surrendering Protestant ground,
and hampering themselves with Romish arguments ?
Would our nation generally shut its old books, and
believe the Bible unsafe reading, unless through
glasses borrowed from tradition ? There is no man
who pauses to think, that would not answer nega
tively every one of these questions. There is no
man who has looked into both sides of existing
controversies, that considers the knowledge requi
site for judging soundly of them, an every-day
acquisition. Such an enquirer may, therefore, ex
cusably say within himself, It must be safe and not
unwise to stay where we at present are. The
system in which we, and all whom we remember,
or have heard of, lived and died, was founded in
unquestionable knowledge. The few modifications

24 EVILS OF INNOVATION.
of it which have been adopted, were probably, or
plainly, exacted by experience. Their foundation,
then, is knowledge also, and the whole system has
proved long " the stability of the times."

THE END.

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