1 CHRISTIAN OBSERVER. No. 263.] NOVEMBER, 1823. [No. 11. Vol. XXIII. RELIGIOUS COMMUNICATIONS. THE following letter was politely conveyed to us by a gentleman of high official station, with a testimony that the writer, who is known to us by name, is "a most respectable American episcopalian clergyman and distinguished preacher." Though wearied with matters of controversy on our own side of the Atlantic, and unwilling to make our pages a vehicle for the controversies of our neighbours, we think it right to admit the letter, which will both interest and inform our readers respecting the present circumstances of the Anglo-American Church. The temperate and conciliating line of allusion which we have felt it our duty and our wish to endeavour to adopt in reference to the discussions which, we are aware, agitate this our sister, or rather daughter, church, and our desire not to intrude our remarks uncalled-for in the affairs of a distant and independent community, have been attended, we are assured by various respectable American correspondents, with very useful and healing effects among those transatlantic Episcopalians who honour our reprinted pages with their perusal. We are not willing unnecessarily to forfeit our character as promoters of harmony; but, as lovers of truth, we think it incumbent on us to admit the explanatory, or even contradictory, disclosures now before us, omitting only here and there a personal allusion not necessary to the discussion. We could not elide all the complimentary passages, without too great a mutilation of our correspondent's letter. CHRIST. OBSERV. No. 263. LETTER FROM AN AMERICAN CLERGYMAN, ON THE EPISCOPAL CHURCH IN THE UNITED STATES TotheEditorofthe Christian Observer. It is with the hope that, amidst the very numerous and worthy calls upon your attention by the valuable correspondents around you, a little time may perhaps be found for the humble approach of an unknown Presbyter of a distant land, who feels acquainted and connected with· you, by a long habit of receiving your instructions, that I take the liberty of addressing you in the following paper. As we presume it is gratifying to the patrons of the Christian Observer, and as we know it must be encouraging to the friends of the pure and undefiled religion which it inculcates, that your work is circulated so extensively and valued so highly, not only among the Episcopalians of America, but the pious and intelligent of other denominations, so we confess it is a subject of increasing pleasure to the people of this country, that, among the friends of literature and religion in England, American publications are attracting an attention of growing respectfulness; so that the pages of many of your literary and theological journals are not unfrequently devoted to the notice of works from the American press which have engaged the interest of our scientific or religious readers. Your late review of the character and sermons of our lamented Dehon-while it did not hesitate to mark the subjects, in regard to which, we cannot help 4 T agreeing with you, that heavenly- In the remarks which, from time to time, appear in your Numbers, we sometimes notice (what we have no great reason to wonder at) that 1 Letter from an American Clergyman. 1823.] copalians here, as it can be to their brethren in England; and with respect to the application which the author makes of this disputed term to the whole progress of religion in the heart and life, to the end of our earthly pilgrimage, I undertake to say, of a very large part of our clerical community, that they consider it an unwarranted attack upon an old and venerable term, which they cannot submit to without carrying confusion into the meaning of the Scriptures, and perplexing the theology of our venerated fathers. They would still denominate that great and essential moral change which takes place in the heart, when the sinner is first turned from darkness to light, and from sin to God, by the term regeneration; and would keep, for expressing the progress of holiness and the gradual destruction of the crucified, but not departed, corruptions of the converted heart, that well-known term sanctification, which the most respectable authorities have so long sanctioned. I never yet have seen a clergyman who agreed substantially with the main idea which the sermon of Dr. Jarvis was intended to establish; and I much question whether there are any among us, of respectable note for theological attainment, who are willing to say more in its recommendation than you have done, that "the arguments of our author are highly deserving of attention." The sermon is satisfactory to neither of those parties which, we regret to acknowledge, do here, as in England, divide our church in reference to the all-important subject of spiritual regeneration. It does not obtain the hearty suffrage of the advocates for baptismal regeneration, because it opposes the most favourite of their biblical interpretations, and refuses to consider the grace of the Holy Spirit as necessarily and invariably accompanying the outward administration of baptism. It is also unsatisfactory to the majority of the opponents of this creed, because, according to their 671 views of the style in which the great 8 You consider us as "unconnected with the parties which unhappily divide the English Church;" and you look on us as umpires rather than disputants in the controversies of those parties. It is most heartily to be wished that these compliments were merited. Unity of sentiment, and an agreement in favour of the vital doctrines of our religion, as taught in our Articles, Liturgy, and Homilies, and permit me to add, as explained and enforced in your own pages, are the subject of frequent and earnest prayer in the closet of many a minister of Christ in the American Church. But that such unanimity does as yet prevail, or that any thing like it prevails, we cannot maintain, and we feel constrained to deny, lest error should be honoured with a name so respectable as to lift its head above the reach 4T2 of the improvement that is undoubt edly advancing. So far from being justly considered as umpires in the controversies, and unconnected with the parties, which at present agitate the English Church, we have to confess that there is not a party among the ranks of your clergy, in relation to points of theological discussion, which has not its counterpart, in every important particular, among the clergy of America; and that the din and clash of those controversies which excite the most feeling in England are echoed back by combatants here, who are as eager and as obstinate as any in Christendom. We do not appear so often in the field; we do not thunder our volleys from the press and the pulpit so frequently as do some others; but our parties are plainly and regularly arrayed, and high authority and influence are here, as in England, enlisted in the struggle. Our church, indeed, with the exception of a few particulars, unconnected with theological doctrine, is an exact miniature of yours. I have already alluded to the controversy on the subject of baptismal regeneration. I know not that its condition here differs in the least from its state in England. There are some strenuous asserters of the broad doctrine of invariable necessary connexion between the administration of the ordinance of baptism, and the inward and moral influences of the Holy Ghost. I believe the characteristics of these persons, by which their style of preaching, and course of action, and ministerial usefulness may be distinguished, are the same here as they are easily perceived to be every where else. For it is a strange anomaly of mind that can unite this meagre, lifeless notion of the great work of regeneration, with fervent zeal and faithful endeavours in the promotion of "faith that worketh by love." The opinions upon this subject in the American Church seem very much to have followed the course of the controversy in England; and to the papers in the Christian Observer, and a few useful volumes upon this subject, among which we particularly distinguish the writings of Scott, must be attributed a very salutary influence in arresting the progress of the sentiments to which I allude. It is our happiness to state, that we have among us a large and very respectable number of clerical brethren, distinguished for their devotion to the great mission on which Christ has sent them to a guilty world, and eminent for their zeal for the souls of men, whose views of the total depravity of human nature; of the greatness of the change that must take place in "every one born into this world" before he can be holy and have the spirit of Christ; of the general character of the baptized, so soon as they can express the nature of their dispositions; and of the whole plan and scope of the Scriptures; cannot allow them to believe in opposition to all the evidence of the senses, that all the baptized have necessarily partaken of "a death unto sin and a new birth unto righteousness." I might proceed to many observations upon the controversy in relation to Bible Societies, by which the clergy of our church are in some respects divided; but as a description of this would be nothing but a transcript of what you have constantly to witness, and of that in which you have so faithfully contended, it is only necessary to say, that there is among us a party, we hope only a small one, struggling for the impropriety of ever distributing the Bible in separation from the prayerbook; calling the latter, by a strange accommodation of language," the church;" and maintaining that when they are not distributed in company the church is separated from the word of God. With the adherents of this party, it is a favourite argument to accuse those Episcopalians who take part in Bible Societies, of indifference and unfaithfulness to the distinctive principles of the church. We are told that these institutions for the more extensive diffusion of the truths of revelation in a sinful world, are hostile to Episcopacy and the Liturgy; and when our short-sighted brethren who patronize them are unable to perceive the tendency of the word of God to injure a church which they believe is indebted to that word for all the stability and value it ever had, they are regarded as suspicious persons, who only want an opportunity, and a powerful temptation, to separate into a new denomination of Methodists, and whose love for the church, all their unwearied zeal and extensive success in collecting congregations, enforcing the doctrines of the church, crowding the communion with devout disciples, and training up the young in the nurture of the Lord, are unable to prove. But still we have the pleasure of perceiving that our bishops, with but two exceptions at the most, and a very large proportion of our presbyters and deacons, are zealously engaged in delightful harmony with other denominations of Christians, in the great and holy work of sending to all people that precious word, which, through faith that is in Christ Jesus, "is able to make them wise unto salvation." Among the zealous and able champions in the great cause of Bible Societies, we must particularize the name of William Jay, Esq. of New York, son of the venerable president of the American Bible Society. In a late letter to Bishop Hobart, occasioned by some rémarks of the bishop in opposition to the distribution of the Scriptures without the prayer-book, he has excited the gratitude of all the lovers of this blessed cause, and done much for the advancement of its interests among the members of the American Episcopal Church. mention of any but itself: I mean that distinction which has not unfrequently fallen under your notice, in relation to the polemics of England, by which, to a certain portion of the clergy, the name of Evangelical is particularly appropriated. As to those who come not under this truly honourable, though not always kindly intended, appellation, I know not what is the name by which they may be distinguished. Their claim is to the credit of peculiar fondness for the church; but if, by fondness for the church, they mean attachment to the great and most important parts of our Zion; her walls, her gates, her palaces, her towers, her foundations; attachment to those vital doctrines of salvation which Christ and his apostles published, and our venerable reformers, by means of our Articles, Liturgy, and Homilies, have handed down to us; attachment that proves its strength and valuable character by an unremitted devotion to the great purposes for which the church was constituted, by a lively zeal in gathering worshippers to her altars, from the streets, highways, and hedges, and by the most devotional attention to all the customs and ordinances of the church, in public and in private; what are called the Evangelical Clergy cannot consent to the propriety of their peculiar claim. But if the merits of the claim be founded upon that kind of blind and idolatrous attachment to what may be called the beautiful stones and regular architecture of our Zion, which contents itself with viewing the structure, without adoring the Sovereign of our Jerusalem; and spends its praise upon the gold of the holy place, and the fine linen, and the solemn show of its ceremonies, without recurring principally to the incense of the altar, and the ark, and mercy-seat, and glory of the holy of holies; or, in other words, if to merit the credit of peculiar attachment to the church, we must ever speak and act in such a way as to lead our people to be |