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THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND A HARLOT.

Treating of the Established Church of England, a writer in a London Hebdomadal observes: "The Church is one, or she is not at all; the Church has doctrines, or she has not. If she be not one but many, then she is a pretence; if she have not one homogenous doctrine or set of doctrines mutually dependent on each other, but several incompatible doctrines, then she is an imposture. National health demands that she should be honest and consistent above all things, for she is still perplexed queen of millions of consciences, and her example is fatal to national policy; for, if the spiritual guides err, why may not the flock follow? She is a State establishment, not in unison with the State authority; for, are there not Catholics, Nonconformists, Unitarians, and what not, in the Supreme Legislative Assembly of the realm? It is not fitting that the mixed secular assembly should take thought for the Church. She ought to have a court of her own. Her wide-spread, rankling discords are known, from the meanest hamlet up to the mighty metropolis. Why does she not set herself straight with the nation, or perish in the attempt? Why does she permit the charge to go unanswered, that her strongest bond is property? Perhaps she cannot answer it; perhaps she finds the State connection convenient, inasmuch as it secures the property; if it were not so, would she not sever her connection tomorrow? It is for the Church to show that this reproach is unjustly levelled at her, by asserting her independence; it is for the Church to show she is independent, by obtaining unity at all costs. If she cannot do this, still it remains our duty to urge it upon her; and if she fail to do it, still we are bound to insist upon her endurance of the consequences. And it is because there is a party in the Church anxious to assert her independence, thus making the bond something more than property, and willing to take the consequences, that we have supported that party. And on the same principle we give, and shall give, our support to whatever party may endeavour to infuse honesty into our national life, to promote out-speaking, and to make practice accord with profession."

The Established Church is not one, but "a fascicle of sects," and therefore "many," holding heterogeneous and incompatible doctrines. There are within the pale the Puseyite sect, the High Church sect, the Low Church sect, a Calvinistic creed, a Popish liturgy, and an Arminian clergy. These constitute an incompatible plurality, and therefore an ecclesiastical imposture that could not hold together for a day but for that love which endures all things for the sake of the loaves and fishes. None but the blind, having no share in these, could mistake such a system for the Church of Christ. The origin of the Church of England, the Satanic spirit by which she is energised, and its adulterous association with the State, whose orders are of the Hierarchies of Sin, all show that it is a harlot-daughter of the Roman Church. The Ecclesiastical Constitution of "Christendom" is well expressed in the scriptural phrase, "Babylon the Great, the Mother of Harlots, and of All the Abominations of the Earth." All point to Rome as "the Mother Church." Admitted. But, if she be the Mother, where are her Daughters? History tells the truth, and by its impartial records shows that by birth and character, the English and its sister Protestant churches, and their sectarian offshoots, are the harlot progeny of Rome. These are styles "Women," in Revelation 14: 4; and those who abstain from them, "Virgins undefiled" by them. Members of sectarian churches inhabit houses of ill-fame. They are apocalyptically "defiled with women;" so that, unless they separate themselves, and "wash in the name of the Lord Jesus," they can have no part with the 144,000 "who follow the Lamb whithersoever he goes."

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