THE LATE SECESSION. 177 restored to the favour of God, which by sin we had forfeited. It is enough that it lays open the disease, presents the. re- medy, and offers God's Holy Spirit to render it effectual. In short, it reveals all that as probationary beings we should desire to know, and of all we know it expects us to make a practical use. The present is, especially among the lower ranks, an age of rebuke and blas- phemy ; and what is so likely to augment the popular hostility to Christianity, and neglect of the' established church, which is founded upon it, as when they see some of its ministers reprobating at one time, the church which they warmly defended at another ? - when they .see them actually renouncing it as un- christian, and setting up a new system in opposition to it ? Where, then, is truth to be found, may not even the more sober amongst the people say, if it is not found in that church, in defence of which so many of her divines, so many of her bishops, were led to the 5
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy OTcyMjk=