TRACTS FOR THE TIMES.
them: add protests against the erastianism and latitudinarianism which have incrusted them. I would append to the Catechism a section on the power of the Church.
L. You have not mentioned any corruptions at present in worship; do you consider that there are such, as well as errors of faith and discipline?
C. Our Liturgy keeps us right in the main, yet there are what may be considered such, though for the most part occasional. To board over the altar of a Church, place an orchestra there of playhouse singers, and take money at the doors, seems to me as great an outrage as to sprinkle the forehead with holy water and to carry lighted tapers in a procession.
L. Do not speak so harshly of what has often been done piously. George the Third was a patron of concerts in one of our Cathedrals.
C. Far be it from my mind to dare to arraign the actions of that religious king! The same deed is of a different nature at different times and under different circumstances. Music in a Church may as reverentially subserve the feelings of devotion as pictures or architecture; but it may not.
L. You could not prevent such a desecration by adding a fortieth article to the thirty-nine.
C. Not directly: yet though there is no article directly condemning religious processions, they have nevertheless been discontinued. In like manner, were an article framed (to speak by way of illustration) declaratory of the sanctity of places set apart to the worship of God and the reception of the saints that sleep, doubtless Churchmen would be saved from many profane feelings and practices of the day, which they give into unawares, such as the holding vestries in Churches, the flocking to preachers rather than to sacraments, (as if the servant were above the Master, who is Lord over His own house,) the luxurious and fashionable fitting up of town Churches; the proposal to allow schismatics to hold their meetings in them; the off-hand project of pulling them down for the convenience of streets and roads; and the wanton preference (for it frequently is wanton) of unconsecrated places, whether for preaching to the poor, or for administering sacred rites to the rich.
