Protestantism should be paralyzed at its very heart by
jealousies, based on little else than mere difference between high and
low breeding. For the essential differences in the religious opinions of
the two parties are sufficiently marked in two men whom we may take as
the highest representatives of each--George Herbert and John Milton; and
I do not think there would have been much difficulty in atoning those
two, if one could have got them together. But the real difficulty,
nowadays, lies in the sin and folly of both parties; in the
superciliousness of the one, and the rudeness of the other. Evidently,
however, the sin lies most at the High Church door, for the Evangelicals
are much more ready to act with Churchmen than they with the
Evangelicals; and I believe that this state of things cannot continue
much longer; and that if the Church of England does not forthwith unite
with herself the entire Evangelical body, both of England and Scotland,
and take her stand with them against the Papacy, her hour has struck.
She cannot any longer serve two masters; nor make courtesies alternately
to Christ and Antichrist. That she _has_ done this is visible enough by
the state of Europe at this instant. Three centuries since Luther--three
hundred years of Protestant knowledge--and the Papacy not yet
overthrown! Christ's truth still restrained, in narrow dawn, to the
white cliffs of England and white crests of the Alps;--the morning star
paused in its course in heaven;--the sun and moon stayed, with Satan
for their Joshua.

221. But how to unite the two great sects of paralyzed Protestants? By
keeping simply to Scripture. The members of the Scottish Church have not
a shadow of excuse for refusing Episcopacy; it has indeed been abused
among them, grievously abused; but it is in the Bible; and that is all
they have a right to ask.

They have also no shadow of excuse for refusing to employ a written form
of prayer. It may not be to their taste--it may not be the way in which
they like to pray; but it is no question, at present, of likes or
dislikes, but of duties; and the acceptance of such a form on their part
would go half-way to reconcile them with their brethren. Let them allege
such objections as they can reasonably advance against the English form,
and let these be carefully and humbly weighed by the pastors of both
churches: some of them ought to be at once forestalled. For the English
Church, on the other hand, _must_ cut the