The state of religion in the Established Church can only be compared to that of a frozen or palsied carcass. _There_ were the time-honored formularies which the wisdom of the Reformers had provided. _There_ were the services and lessons from Scripture, just in the same order as we have them now. But, as to preaching the gospel in the Established Church, there was almost none. The distinguishing doctrines of Christianity--the atonement, the work and office of Christ and the Spirit--were comparatively lost sight of. The vast majority of sermons were miserable moral essays, utterly devoid of any thing calculated to awaken, convert, save, or sanctify souls. The curse of black Bartholomew-day seemed to rest upon our Church. For at least a century after casting out two thousand of the best ministers in England, our Establishment never prospered. There were some learned and conscientious bishops at this era, beyond question. Such men were Secker, and Gibson, and Lowth, and Warburton, and Butler, and Horne. But even the best of them sadly misunderstood the requirements of the day they lived in. They spent their strength in writing apologies for Christianity, and contending against infidels. They could not see that, without the direct preaching of the essential doctrines of Christ's gospel, their labors were all in vain. And, as to the majority of the bishops, they were potent for negative evil, but impotent for positive good; giants at stopping what they thought disorder, but infants at devising any thing to promote real order; mighty to repress over-zealous attempts at evangelization, but weak to put in action any remedy for the evils of the age; eagle-eyed at detecting any unhappy wight who trod on the toes of a rubric or canon, but blind as bats to the flood of indolence and false doctrine with which their dioceses were every where deluged. That there were many well-read, respectable and honorable men among the parochial clergy at this period, it would be wrong to deny. But few, it is to be feared, out of the whole number, preached Christ crucified in simplicity and sincerity. Many whose lives were decent and moral, were notoriously Arians, if not Socinians. Many were totally engrossed in secular pursuits; they neither did good themselves, nor liked any one else to do it for them. They hunted; they shot; they drank; they swore; they fiddled; they farmed; they toasted Church and King, and thought little or nothing about saving souls. And as for the man who dared to preach the doctrine of the Bible, the Articles, and the Homilies, he was sure to be set down as an enthusiast and fanatic.