on as one of
humiliation and prayer. Yet all these are of the Establishment. Dr.
Parr gladly associated with Unitarians, and went to Unitarian chapels to
hear Unitarian ministers preach. Would Dean Close do so? Yet Dr. Parr,
as much as Dean Close, was of the Church as regards solemn profession,
and deliberate assent and consent. Mr. Melville believes Dissent to be
schism, and one of the deadly sins, while the Deans of Westminster and
Canterbury hold out to Dissenters friendly hands. If we take the
Articles, the Church Establishment is as orthodox as the firmest
Christian or the narrowest-minded bigot can desire; if we turn to its
ministers, we find them as divided as it is possible for people
professing to take their teaching from the Bible can be. If there be any
grace in creeds and articles, any virtue in signing them, if their
imposition be not a solemn farce, it is impossible that heresy should
exist within the Established Church. It is in the wide and varied fields
of Dissent that we are to look for heresy.

Yet the Church of England is tolerant, to a certain extent, of heresy.
The judicious Hooker writes, "We must acknowledge even heretics
themselves to be a maimed part, yet a part, of the visible Church. If an
infidel should pursue to death an heretic professing Christianity only
for Christian profession's sake, could we deny unto him the honour of
martyrdom? Yet this honour all men know to be proper unto the Church.
Heretics, therefore, are not utterly cast out from the visible Church of
Christ. If the Fathers do, therefore, anywhere, as often they do, make
the true visible Church of Christ and heretical companies opposite, they
are to be construed as separating heretics not altogether from the
company of believers, but from the fellowship of sound believers. For
where professed unbelief is, there can be no visible Church of Christ;
there may be where sound belief wanteth. Infidels being clean without
the Church, deny directly and utterly reject the very principles of
Christianity which heretics embrace, and err only by misconstruction,
whereupon their opinions, although repugnant indeed to the principles of
Christian faith, are notwithstanding by them held otherwise and
maintained as most consistent therewith." The Privy Council by its
Judgment of "Essays and Reviews" has decided that a Churchman may hold
heretical opinions.

In popular language, the Congregationalists, the Baptists, the
Presbyt