For are we not brothers after all?  Has not God made us of one blood, English men, with English hearts?  Has not Christ redeemed us with one and the same sacrifice?  Has not the Holy Spirit given us one and the same desire of doing good?  And shall we not use that spirit hand in hand?  Look, look at the opportunities of doing good which are around you; look at God’s field of good works, white already to the harvest; and the labourers are few.  Shall these few, instead of going manfully to work, stand idly quarrelling about the shape of their instruments, and their favourite modes of using them?  God forbid!  True, there are errors against which we are bound to protest to the uttermost; but how few?  The one real enemy we have all to fight is sin—­evil-doing.  If any man or doctrine makes men worse—­makes men do worse deeds, protest then, if you will, and spare not, and shrink not:  for sin must be of the Devil, whatever else is not.  And therefore we are bound to protest against any doctrine which parts man from God, and, under whatsoever pretence of reverence or purity, draws again the veil between him and his Heavenly Father, and denies him free access to the Throne of Grace, and the feet of Jesus, that he may carry thither his own sins, his own doubts, his own sorrows, and speak (wondrous condescension of redeeming grace!) speak with God face to face, and yet live.  For this we must protest; for this we must die, if needs be; for if we lose this, we lose all which our reforming forefathers won for us at the stake, ay, we lose our own souls; for we lose righteousness and strength, and the power to do the will of God.

For to shut a man out from free access to God and Christ is to make him certainly false, dishonest, cowardly, degraded, slavish, and sinful; as modern Popery has made, and always will make, those over whom it really gains power.  This is the root of our hereditary protest against Popery; not merely because we do not agree with certain of its doctrines, but because we know from experience, that as now taught by the Jesuits, with whom it has identified itself, its general tendency is to make men bad men, ignorant, dishonest, rebellious; unworthy citizens of a free and loyal state.

And there are practices against which congregations have a right to protest, not only as Christians, but as free Englishmen.  Congregations have a right to protest against any minister who introduces obsolete ceremonies which empty his church and drive away his people.  Those ceremonies may be quite harmless in themselves, as I really believe most of them are; many of them may be beautiful, and, if properly understood, useful, as I think they are; but a thing may be good in itself, and yet become bad by being used at a wrong time, and in a way which produces harm.  And it is shocking, to say the least, to see churches emptied and parishes thrown into war for the sake of such matters.  The lightest word which can be used