HERESY IN THE CHURCH.
THE Rtwerend A ItTlIttlt WHAL LEY was suspended last week fir three years, by the Consistory Court of Ilereflell. The charges against him were those of heresy and irregular attendance to his sacred functions ; but the Chancellor said that he what'll pass over the charge of heresy, and punish the delinquent for the other offence only. We commend the prudence of the Reverend Chancellor of the Derefoirl ditet.e.:e. Ile may be an exceedingly acute theologian, and yet shrink front the task of defining what is heresy and what is Mt. " Orthodoxy," raid W A RBURTON, " is my doxy, and heterodoxy is another moan's doxy ;" as good an explanation of both terms, we believe, as over yet was given. The utter ineffi- ciency of' creed, articles, and confessions of faith, to preserve a uni formity of opinion even among the members of the same comum- Mon, would seem to be one of those facts which ecclesiastical records, and the personal experience of every man who mixes in the world, have placed beyond doubt or cavil : yet an argument most frequently urged in defence of a national establishment of religion is, that it preserves the true faith in its purity.. But the true faith is one thing at Winchester and Lichfield, and another at Canterbury and York. What may have been poor Mr. WHALLEY'S " peculiar superstition," we know not ; he may have leaned towards Calvinism, with Bishop Rvnsa, or towards the Arminian heresy, with Dr. Bsoomsissn; but the point worthy of remark is, that notwithstanding one use of articles is to enable the rulers of the Church to discriminate between the black and white sheep, this judge deemed it prudent to give the subject the slip, and stands uncompromised in the eye of his present or future patrons and diocesans, who might perhaps consider Mr. WHALLEY the more orthodox divine of the two.
Previous page
