l friends together, yet
parties were formed round each separately, which disagreed with each
other, and made the Apostles themselves seem in disagreement. Is not
this, at least in great measure, the state of the Churches of England
and Rome? Are they not one in faith, so far forth as they are viewed in
their essential apostolical character? are they not in discord, so far
as their respective children and disciples have overlaid them with
errors of their own individual minds? It was a great fault, doubtless,
that the followers of St. Paul should have divided from the followers of
St. Peter, but would it have mended matters, had any individuals among
them gone over to St. Peter? Was that the fitting remedy for the evil?
Was not the remedy that of their putting aside partisanship altogether,
and regarding St. Paul "not after the flesh," but simply as "the
minister by whom they believed," the visible representative of the
undivided Christ, the one Catholic Church? And, in like manner, surely
if party feelings and interests have separated us from the members of
the Roman communion, this does not prove that our Church itself is
divided from theirs, any more than that St. Paul was divided from St.
Peter, nor is it our duty to leave our place and join them;--nothing
would be gained by so unnecessary a step;--but our duty is, remaining
where we are, to recognize in our own Church, not an establishment, not
a party, not a mere Protestant denomination, but the Holy Church
Catholic which the traditions of men have partially obscured,--to rid it
of these traditions, to try to soften bitterness and animosity of
feeling, and to repress party spirit and promote peace as much as in us
lies. Moreover, let it be observed, that St. Paul was evidently superior
in gifts to Apollos, yet this did not justify Christians attaching
themselves to the former rather than the latter; for, as the Apostle
says, they both were but ministers of one and the same Lord, and nothing
more. Comparison, then, is not allowed us between teacher and teacher,
where each has on the whole the notes of a divine mission; so that even
could the Church of Rome be proved superior to our own (which we put
merely as an hypothesis, and for argument's sake), this would as little
warrant our attaching ourselves to it instead of our own Church, as
there was warrant for one of the converts of Apollos to call himself by
the name of Paul. Further, let it be observed, that the apostl