Is not
this, at least in great measure, the state of the Churches of England
and Rome? Are they not one in faith, so far forth as they are viewed in
their essential apostolical character? are they not in discord, so far
as their respective children and disciples have overlaid them with
errors of their own individual minds? It was a great fault, doubtless,
that the followers of St. Paul should have divided from the followers of
St. Peter, but would it have mended matters, had any individuals among
them gone over to St. Peter? Was that the fitting remedy for the evil?
Was not the remedy that of their putting aside partisanship altogether,
and regarding St. Paul "not after the flesh," but simply as "the
minister by whom they believed," the visible representative of the
undivided Christ, the one Catholic Church? And, in like manner, surely
if party feelings and interests have separated us from the members of
the Roman communion, this does not prove that our Church itself is
divided from theirs, any more than that St. Paul was divided from St.
Peter, nor is it our duty to leave our place and join them;--nothing
would be gained by so unnecessary a step;--but our duty is, remaining
where we are, to recognize in our own Church, not an establishment, not
a party, not a mere Protestant denomination, but the Holy Church
Catholic which the traditions of men have partially obscured,--to rid it
of these traditions, to try to soften bitterness and animosity of
feeling, and to repress party spirit and promote peace as much as in us
lies.
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