examination, whether by
reading or thinking, whether by studying Scripture or other books, has
no broad sanction in Scripture, is neither impressed upon us by its
general tone, nor enjoined in any of its commands. The great question
which it puts before us for the exercise of private judgment is,--Who
is God's prophet, and where? Who is to be considered the voice of the
Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church?

4.

Having carried our train of thought as far as this, it is time for us to
proceed to the thesis in which it will be found to issue, viz., that, on
the principles that have been laid down, Dissenters ought to abandon
their own communion, but that members of the English Church ought not to
abandon theirs. Such a position has often been treated as a paradox and
inconsistency; yet we hope to be able to recommend it favorably to the
reader.

Now that seceders, sectarians, independent thinkers, and the like, by
whatever name they call themselves, whether "Wesleyans," "Dissenters,"
"professors of the national religion," "well-wishers of the Church," or
even "Churchmen," are in grievous error, in their mode of exercising
their private judgment, is plain as soon as stated, viz., because they
do not use it in looking out for a teacher at all. They who think they
have, in consequence of their inquiries, found the teacher of truth, may
be wrong in the result they have arrived at; but those who despise the
notion of a teacher altogether, are already wrong before they begin
them. They do not start with their private judgment in that one special
direction which Scripture allows or requires. Scripture speaks of a
certain pillar or ground of truth, as set up to the world, and describes
it by certain characteristics; dissenting teachers and bodies, so far
from professing to be themselves this authority, or to contain among
them this authority, assert there is no such authority to be found
anywhere. When, then, we deny that they are the Church in our meaning of
the word, they ought to take no offence at it, for we are not denying
them any thing to which they lay claim; we are but denying them what
they already put away from themselves as much as we can. They must not
act like the dog in the fable (if it be not too light a comparison), who
would neither use the manger himself, nor relinquish it to others; let
them not grudge to others a manifest Scriptural privilege which they
disown themselves. Is an ordinance of Scripture to b