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Rh of the one Sacrament, and throws the other into the shade; leading men to appropriate its benefits, without reference to itself; to ascribe our whole spiritual life simply to the action of faith, not to gifts in His Sacraments, whereof faith is the mere channel only. And now, because this preaching is popular, and has claimed to itself the exclusive title to warmth and sincerity and undefiledness, men are falling into it, or rather are amalgamating it with the old system; not upon conviction, and often with a sort of suppressed surmise that there was much good in that former system, as exhibited in its genuine representatives; but because the tide is set too strongly, and they dare not withstand it.

This is said with all respect for those who are earnestly preaching what they believe to be the whole Gospel of ; and they will, I trust, think that nothing offensive is intended, if their system is blamed as defective, being derived from modern sources, and founded on a scheme which denies the Sacraments to be means of grace. Neither would I have spoken with a confidence unbeseeming an individual, in behalf of his own opinions, but that the views are not mine, but those of the whole Church previous to Zuingli. As the new system has now the ascendant, it is with deep sorrow that one must regard it as unfavourable to deep and continued repentance, or to the higher degrees of sanctification. May avert these and all other evils from His Zion!

It is however of the utmost importance that persons should see the tendency of their opinions; and on this ground, I have quoted (p. 124) the statement of a writer of a very different class, who (however by some happy inconsistency he may rescue his own religious belief) yet attributes the reception of the views, retained by our Church on the Holy Sacraments, to "the prevalence of the belief in magic