Untitled - Rore Sanctifica

270 Corporate Re-uidou.
suited to polemics than to charity, to speak of
any body of separated Christians,
as if there
were no tie connecting them with the great
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Mother Church. When we compare, as Dryden
did, the Catholic Church to a milk white Hind,
and the Anglican Church to a Panther, in one
sense of the term we may be adopting a
legitimate style of poetic imagery, but I cannot
admit that we are forsjinff ~ a legitimate ~ theologi-
i> O
cal weapon. But, without entering further into
the propriety of our objector s metaphors, we
will frankly avow, that Re-union, as viewed
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from our side of the boundary, differs from
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what it is as viewed by our separated brethren.
Viewed from our side,
it means conversion,
whether of individuals or bodies of individuals ;
viewed from their side, it is rather the cessation
of an estrangement, than the renunciation of a
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sinful separation ; viewed from either side, it is
surely a consummation, that needs not only the
efforts of zealous men, but the grace and special
assistance of GOD to complete. Why then
should we waste our time in dwelling on differ
ences, which can only cease when men cease to
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dwell on the opposite sides of a dividing chasm
a chasm, which it should be the earnest endea
vour of all good men to bridge over, or rather
to fill up, and efface from their remembrance ?
We cannot conclude in better words than those
which were published near 200 years ago by the