Untitled - Electric Scotland

420 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TAIT [CH. xv.
into your church otherwise than by your own private authority.
I am quite sure that any of your people who now attach import
ance to the practice will be quite satisfied that you should give it
up if you explain to them that you do so from not wishing to put
yourself into the painful position of disobeying your Diocesan.
. . . Sincerely regretting that these painful
exist. I remain, Rev. and dear Sir, yours faithfully,
difficulties should
"A. C. LONDON."
The beautiful and costly church erected in 1858 by the
munificence of Mr. Beresford Hope and others l to replace
the very unecclesiastical edifice in which Mr. Oakeley and
Mr. Richards had ministered was duly consecrated on
May 28, 1859. Appeals were made to the Bishop that
lie would use the occasion of his sermon on that day to
protest against the Popish mummeries of its ornaments
and services, and there was excitement on both sides as to
what he was likely to say. Taking as his text I Cor.
viii. 9,
"
Take heed lest by any means this liberty of yours
become a stumbling-block to them that are weak," he
described the circumstances of the Corinthian Church and
the practice of St. Paul :-
see," he said,
" "
We that St. Paul had one rule, though his
practice might appear to vary. He had no objection to innocent
liberty and the indulgence of old associations, if they did not
interfere with the purity and simplicity of the Gospel of Jesus
Christ. He had no objection to men following the bent of their
own tastes in matters indifferent, if they did not endeavour to
force those things indifferent as commands of God upon their
brethren. He gladly showed by his own practice that he thought
those points indifferent, as well by complying with them when he
could do so, in furtherance of the Gospel, as by resisting them
when Christian truth required it. Would, my brethren, that we
1 Mr. Beresford Hope s contribution, including the gift of the site, is said
to have amounted to about 70,000. One anonymous donor gave about
^30,000, and another ,4000, towards the cost of the building. See
Guardian , 1869, p. 461.