Page:Tracts for the Times Vol 1.djvu/194

 But I confess I do not exactly see how in acting thus I have set any particularly good example. No person of common sense could do otherwise."

"As to that," I replied, "perhaps what some witty man said of common honesty, he might too have said of common sense, that it is a very uncommon thing. But be that as it may, it certainly would appear to me to be no mark of sense nor of honesty either, if we Christians who are "put in trust (as St. Paul speaks) with the Gospel," were to draw back from our strong advanced positions, in the vain hope that the Enemy would be content with this success, and encroach no further."

"May I ask, Sir," he said, "what it is you refer to?"

"Why, Richard," I replied, "of course you have heard that a great many people think the Church Prayer Book ought to be altered; and that first and foremost the Athanasian Creed ought to be put out of it."

"Sir," said he, "I have heard more than one person make this observation, but I never took much account of it till about a year or eighteen months ago, when a brother-in-law of mine, who is fond of poring over the newspapers, told me he had been reading extracts from the works of a famous preacher, one Dr. Hoadley, which I am sorry to say he was inclined to admire. For in these extracts there were objections made to other parts of the Church Service, and particularly to the Athanasian Creed, which (the Dr. said) was a great blot in the Prayer Book, and that he wished we were well rid of it, with other such disrespectful expressions. Now, Sir, it seemed to me such a thing, for a Clergyman who had signed the Articles and the Prayer Book, and had his maintenance from the Church, and had taken an oath before and man to teach the truth to his flock, according to the Prayer Book; that a Church Minister should take upon him to omit so remarkable a portion of the Church Service; nay more, should speak so slightingly of what he had solemnly assented to, and was even sworn to; this seemed to me to be astonishing; and, I must confess to you, even shocking. And, Sir, I thought of what my mother had said to me in her last illness, about the danger of trifling with. I thought too, if there should be many such Clergymen as this Dr. Hoadley, what confusion and perplexity they would throw people's