Untitled - Rore Sanctifica

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Corporate Re-union. 267
member that when he had tasted their unsavoury
flavour, he then began to think of the plentiful
and nutritious food he had left behind in his
father s house, and the tears flowed when he
remembered the happy days of old, and lie said,
"
I will return to my father s house." So will
it be, so it actual!} is, with the metaphorical
Prodigal. Protestantism went forth in quest of
new truths or under the vain pretext
of recover
ing old ones by a process of private search in
defiance of established authority, and what
lias been the result? innumerable discordances
of till
opinion,
at last universal doubt and down
right atheism stare us in the
indeed the husks of swine !
face. These are
But no sane man
can long rest in the arms of unbelief. Man
needs religion. He cannot get on without it.
It is a necessity of the individual man, no less
than of the commonwealth. Xo man s property,
no man s life, is safe without a religious re-
O
straint or a religious sanction : and the com
munity cannot hold together without a religious
bond. Our objector talks of Erastianism, and
lie tells me that Erastianism must cease, ere
England and England
s Church return to
the profession of Catholicism. Shall I shock
him if I reply, no such thing ? What does he
mean by Erastianism ? I do not ask the
etymology of the word, but of his idea ? Xow,
I vehemently suspect that what he would