spoken of as Christians in the funeral service. As to the last, although the liturgy has been improved by the Protestant Episcopal church in America, it still plainly implies, that the person deceased, whether pious or not, was a Christian, and died in the Lord. And there is no way to avoid this conclusion, but by an unnatural explanation, or rather an evasion, of the import of the language. The service is exceedingly solemn and impressive, and is remarkably appropriate to the funeral of a devout Christian. But if used at the burial of a person who was evidently destitute of the Christian character, as it so frequently is; it conveys the false and dangerous sentiment, that a life of ungodliness is not incompatible with a title to heaven; and in this way it directly tends to confirm the irreligious in their irreligious life. And I cannot but notice the manifest inconsistency, not to say absurdity, of attempting to frame a single service, which shall be suited to the burial of the most eminent servants of Christ, and at the same time suited to the burial of the worldly and profane. The service is indeed "not to be used for any unbaptized adults, or any who die excommunicate, or who have laid violent hands upon themselves." These are the only exceptions. It may be used for baptized inebriates, or infidels. There are many persons, who, for some cause, have not been baptized, who yet have exhibited, in life and in death, the character of exemplary Christians. To these, Christian burial is, according to the rubric, to be denied.

An unscriptural standard of Christian character is also held forth in the Order of confirmation." In the first place, the minister says to the sureties for the baptized child: "Ye are to take care that this child be brought to the bishop to be confirmed by him, as soon as he can say the creed, the Lord's prayer, and the ten commandments, and is sufficiently instructed in the other parts of the church catechism set for that purpose." The same qualifications are mentioned at the beginning of the "Order of Confirmation." These are the qualifications required in order to confirmation, and in order to communion with the church in the Lord's Supper. There is in this a manifest deficiency, which

comes continually, with all its deceptive influence, before the minds of those who attend the service of confirmation in the Episcopal church.

It is, with me, a grave objection to the Episcopal church, that it retains so many of the additions which were made to the simple institutions of the gospel by the superstition of the church of Rome. The corruption of Christianity by human inventions began even in the time of the apostles. And these inventions, whether recommended by their novelty, or rendered venerable by their antiquity, the apostles repeatedly condemned. And they foretold, that still greater corruptions would be brought into the church after their decease. The Christian fathers, during the three or four centuries after Christ, laid the foundation of the church of Rome. That church, during the period of its greatest power and corruption, constantly appealed to the fathers; and the appeal was not in vain. If the fathers, during the first four or five centuries, are allowed to possess decisive authority in regard to opinions, rites, and ceremonies; the peculiarities of the Romish church can, for the most part, be vindicated and sustained. Many of the best writers in the church of England, and in the Protestant Episcopal church in America, disclaim the authority of the fathers, and hold to the Scriptures as the sufficient and only rule of faith and practice. And yet Episcopalians at this day retain a great proportion of the rites and ceremonies of popery; not so much, I suppose, because they belonged to popery, as because they have so long been practised in their own church. Some indeed consider it as a conclusive argument in their defence, that they were in use during the first ages of Christianity. A late respectable writer in favor of prelacy says, "that the distinguishing characteristic of the Protestant Episcopal church is, the deference it pays to the primitive church; that it is the principle constantly maintained by that church, that whatever is first is true, and whatever is later is false." On this ground, many Episcopalians contend for those ceremonial observances, which have been added to the simplicity of the gospel.

Now I do not admit that ancient fathers had any more authority

to make additions to the divine institutions, than modern fathers. Why should we pay deference to uninspired men in the third and fourth centuries, more than those in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries; or, to the fathers of the Episcopal church in England, more than to the fathers of the Presbyterian church in Scotland, or to the fathers of the puritan church in New England? The opinions of uninspired men cannot bind us. We are Protestants. And it seems to me, that Episcopalians, professing as they do to be Protestants, act inconsistently with their profession in paying so much regard to antiquity, and especially in retaining so many of the peculiar forms and observances of the Romish church. And I think too, that the Episcopal church is inconsistent with itself, in that it adopts some of the ancient observances, while it rejects others. The holy days kept in honor of the Trinity, of angels, of the birth and circumcision of Christ, of the virgin Mary, of the apostles, of several martyrs and Christian fathers, etc., were all at first innovations; but they became settled usages in the ancient church. The founders of the Protestant Episcopal church, by taking some of these, and omitting others, showed that they had no implicit confidence in antiquity, and that they claimed the right of judging and acting for themselves. When they pleased, they adopted an observance which originated in the bosom of popery in the fourteenth century, and rejected one which was generally observed in the third century. Now are not those, who profess such deference to ecclesiastical antiquity, while after all they are not governed by it, chargeable with some inconsistency? Does their deference really amount to any more than this, that they will follow the ancients or not, as they judge best? If they profess more than this, their practice falls short of their profession. If then modern Episcopalians charge us with the want of a due veneration for antiquity, because we reject most of the ancient ceremonies which they adopt; the same charge, substantially lies against them, because they reject so many of the ancient ceremonies. The ancient fathers in administering baptism, in the fourth century, immersed the person three times, naked, and then made the sign of the cross

on his forehead, and anointed him with holy oil. But Episcopalians reject the trine immersion, and the ceremony of nakedness, and the anointing, and do not commonly use immersion. I do not blame them for this. But where is their deference to the ancient church, when they reject the greater part of the ceremonies which were anciently used in baptism?

The Episcopal church have, if I am rightly informed, about twenty-eight festivals, and about one hundred fasts; that is, one hundred and twenty-eight holy-days, in addition to the Lord's day;-taken either directly from the Romish church,- for instance, the festival in honor of the Trinity, which Hobart says is comparatively of modern date, originating as it did in the fourteenth century, or from what they call the primitive church; and all on the ground of their antiquity. But the Romish church, and what is called the primitive church, had many more festivals and fasts. If then the founders of the Episcopal church were governed by a respect for antiquity, why did they not take the whole list of the holy-days, as well as a part? And if they are at liberty to reject more or fewer of the holy-days of antiquity, as they judge best; we are at liberty to do the same. If ancient usage has authority over us, it has authority throughout. But if we renounce the authority of ancient and primitive usage, we are thrown back, as we should be, upon the authority of what is more ancient and primitive, that is, the word of God.

These multiplied outward observances, every one must see, are a departure from the Christian Scriptures. Neither Christ nor the apostles appointed any particular days to be kept as sacred by the church, except the Lord's day. On the contrary, the Apostle Paul expressly discountenanced such observances. In the way of rebuke, he said to the Galatians: "Ye observe days, and months, and times, and years." And in view of these superstitions, he said to them,-"I am afraid of you, lest I have bestowed upon you labor in vain." And he spoke of them as in bondage to these "beggarly elements." If the same Apostle were here, what would he say to that church, which has made about one third of the days in the year religious festivals and fasts?

These multiplied rites and observances though they fall far short of those in the Romish church, are, in my view, carried to a great excess, and, if fully practised, would prove an intolerable yoke. Think of more than one hundred and twenty festivals and fasts, one third part of the whole year! Think of forty days in Lent. Who has a right to load Christians with such impositions? I was born free, and I will not sell my birth-right. Most cheerfully will I submit to the authority of God. And I will show my respect and veneration for the apostles, not by keeping days in their honor, which I know they never wished, but by believing and obeying their instructions. But what is uninspired man, that we should bow the knee to him, and should eat or not eat, work or pray, at his bidding?

This whole business of observing days and months and times, which began in the Apostle's day, and for which he rebuked the backsliding Galatians, has an obvious tendency to corrupt Christianity, and to substitute external forms and ceremonies in the place of real godliness. When I look at the machinery of the Episcopal church in her Sunday services; her multiplied short prayers, consisting often of a single sentence; the frequent repetition of the Lord's prayer; the continual change of posture among the worshippers, now standing, now sitting, now kneeling; the confused noise of the whole congregation often speaking the same things together; the minister's singular dress, and change of place and attire; when I look at her many scores of fasts and festivals in honor not only of God, and Christ, but of the mother of Christ, and each one of the apostles, in honor of the slaughtered infants of Bethlehem,-in honor of all saints, and in honor of Michael and all angels; at her crosses, and her pictures, and the magnificence of her cathedrals; at her protracted meetings in Lent, and at other times; when, accustomed as I am to the simplicity of Puritan worship, I look at all this solemn machinery; I am sometimes affected with a mixture of respect and doubt and fear; - and sometimes with feelings, which I wish to avoid.

It may be said, that the ceremonials of the church are mat