And this perhaps will give us an opportunity of expressing
our general meaning in a more definite and intelligible form.
It cannot be denied, then, that a very plausible ground of attack may be
taken up against the Church of England, from the circumstance that she
is separated from the rest of Christendom; and just such a ground as it
would be allowable for private judgment to rest and act upon, supposing
its office to be what we have described it to be. "As to the particular
doctrines of Anglicanism, (it may be urged,) Scripture may, if so be,
supply private judgment with little grounds for quarrelling with them;
but what can be said to explain away the note of forfeiture, which
attaches to us in consequence of our isolated state? We are, in fact,
(it may be objected,) cut off from the whole of the Christian world;
nay, far from denying that excommunication, in a certain sense we glory
in it, and that under a notion, that we are so very pure that it must
soil our fingers to touch any other Church whatever upon the earth, in
north, east, or south. How is this reconcilable with St.
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