Page:Tracts for the Times Vol 1.djvu/300

 Dr.—You would have been right, if had not chosen a Minister for you. In that case perhaps you might have used your Christian Liberty, as you call it, and joined any congregation and worship you pleased. But His having given a clear command alters the case, and makes that which would otherwise have been a matter of indifference, an act of disobedience and sin.

J.—But if I may be so bold as to ask, Sir, when did give this command, and where is it to be found? I am not so ready with the Bible as learned people, yet I know it in my own way. That was the very thing I heard Mr. Tims, who preaches at the meeting, ask last Sunday. He said, "where is the Church of England spoken of in the Bible? name chapter and verse where we are bid belong to it." And then he went on to say, that the new heart is every thing; and that we shall not be asked at the last day, whether we were Churchmen or Dissenters, but what the state of our heart is.

Dr.—We shall be asked at the last day, whether we have obeyed commandments; now, one of those commandments is, that we should belong to the Church, as I will soon show you. But first you shall tell me what has been your reason, till lately, for going to Church.

J.—I was born of Church-going parents, and that made me a regular Church-goer in my youth. And when I grew up, I always, at least till the other day, thought that I had the best of reasons for keeping regular to Church. In the first place, the Church was the Law Church; and that of itself would be a reason, even if there were no other, for good subjects keeping to it; and then, I knew it had been in the country many, many years, whereas all the meetings about are (so to say) of yesterday, and in one sense upstarts. And then I had heard from you, Sir, that in former times it had Saints and Martyrs, such as were when our was on earth. And I thought it therefore far more likely to be right, and had a stronger claim on me than any other religion; and especially since I was a pretty regular reader of my Bible, and never found the teaching which I heard at Church different from that which I thus picked up at home.

Dr.—All good reasons as far as they went; but I see that I was right in supposing the chief claim the Church has on all Christians, is unknown to you. Our Church is sprung from that