public opinion, let us not relax in our assiduity, nor despair of the final triumph of our cause ; μεγάλου ἐστὶν ἀθλητοῦ τὸ δέρεσθαι kai vɩāv1. In the worst period of our Church, when its faithful defenders were exposed to dangers such as we have, as yet, no ground to apprehend, they were not weary nor faint in their minds;" they looked forward with confidence to the re-establishment of the Church, when the rage of persecution should have subsided; and they exulted, at the stake and amid the flames, in the prospect of its restoration; "semen est sanguis Christianorum 2.'

But, if the will of God be otherwise; "nos hæc pati Deus patitur;" if it be ordained that the temporal establishment of our Church must fall to rise no more, there remains abundant consolation in the glorious certainty that this is the utmost evil which the malice of the enemy

1

Ignatius Epist. ad Polycarp. 2 Tert. Apol.

3 Id. ibid.

can inflict. Not all the powers of earth and hell can shake that spiritual edifice which our Lord has founded on "the rock" of His Holy Word; nor are they able to pluck from his hand the souls which his Father hath given him; nor to rob the "faithful and wise steward" of his rich eternal reward.

SERMON II.

A DEFENCE OF THE ESTABLISHED CHURCH OF ENGLAND.

MARK Xii. 9.

What shall the Lord of the vineyard do? He will come and destroy the husbandmen, and will give the vineyard to others.

I AM not aware that there has ever existed any difference of opinion respecting the interpretation of that parable of our blessed Lord of which these words form the remarkable conclusion. The same symbol of the vineyard is explained by the prophet Isaiah1 to represent the temporal establishment of the Church and

1 Isaiah v. 7.

State under the old covenant; and the exclamation of the Jewish hierarchy on hearing this denunciation from Jesus Christ, appears clearly to imply that they understood Him as adopting it with a similar signification: "When they heard it they said, God forbid !" for "they perceived that He spake of them." If, therefore, it be admitted that the vineyard of the Lord of Hosts is the national Church of Jerusalem, it will follow undeniably that our Saviour has not only sanctioned, but promised, (and may we not say thereby directed?) the establishment of similar institutions under the new covenant. He speaks not of throwing open the vineyard, of obliterating its limits, breaking down its fences, or dashing in pieces its tower and its wine-press : it is still to remain marked out, protected, and entrusted to husbandmen, as before,

1 Luke xx. 16.

for careful cultivation, and for rendering to the landlord his dues; but it was to be given to others, or, in the plain terms in which He interprets it himself, "The kingdom of God shall be taken from you, and given to a nation bringing forth the fruits thereof."

That other race, to whom the vineyard of the Lord was to be committed, is undoubtedly the Gentile world. The Church of God was taken from the descendants of Abraham after the flesh, and given to the heirs of his faith, to the Christians: but it was still to preserve its emblematic resemblance to the vineyard, and to be established in the same manner as formerly by the protection of laws, by the appointment of a regular ministry, and by a due temporal rank and endowment; and the fruits required of it were to be the Christian graces, "judgment and righteousness," instead of the "wild grapes," the "oppression