At no period could such an exhortation be more requisite. I have said—and I believe it will be conceded by all of you—that this is an eventful epoch of the English Church. The religious spirit of the age seems to be singularly marked by extremely opposite characters—_Enthusiasm_ and _Rationalism_; the former betraying its votaries into wild excesses of fanatical extravagance; and the latter so unduly exalting human wisdom, as to undervalue the doctrine of Holy Scripture. There is abroad also a spirit of _Latitudinarianism_—a species of counterfeit liberality, which, in the vain desire of conciliation, increases division, and multiplies heresy, by palliating the guilt of schism, or by diminishing the number and undervaluing the importance of the fundamental doctrines of Christianity. Of the alarming magnitude of the peril arising from this source, we ought to be made duly sensible, when we remark some of those, whose sincere faith in the Holy Gospel would seem to be above suspicion, who are, nevertheless, betrayed into lending their aid and countenance in furtherance of this unfortunate scheme. Captivated by the amiable desire, but fallacious hope, of uniting in bonds of brotherhood, faith and scepticism, truth and heresy, they are insensibly beguiled by this deluding phantom into the net of infidelity, and are themselves entangled in its meshes ere they are alive to the consequences of so dangerous and unholy an alliance. The leading prejudice, the very key-stone of this falsely called liberality, is the notion that sincerity is all in all; that, provided we are secure of our “integrity before God,” and conscientiously embrace religion under the form that best accords with our own views, it matters not whether we be of _this_ or _that_ communion; or whether we be of any communion at all. But however charitable this may be in _theory_, it has proved itself most erroneous in _practice_. Conceding truth to error, on the ground of expediency—or when, for the sake of obtaining the _semblance_ of peace, and the reputation of liberality, we would veil that marked boundary which separates between those who _are_ and who are _not_, of what we know and believe to be the true Church of Christ,—never yet has been, and yet never will be, the means of securing unity in the Christian Church: in plain words, it will fail, as it has failed, in making Churchmen of Dissenters.