Untitled - Electric Scotland

1863-67] DISLIKK OK INDEFINITENESS 479
cannot distinctly ascertain. You seemed to think, in what you
said to me, that his teaching confounds man s justification with
his sanctification. If there he any tendency towards this in the
teaching of the sermons, I believe its evil effect is quite guarded
against by the strong statements Mr. A. has made respecting the
absolute freedom of the pardon won by Christ s Cross. There
seems to me to be nothing in his teaching to imply our being
only so far forth justified as we are by the power of the Cross
sanctified. I do not therefore apprehend that in his practical
application of the doctrine of free pardon through the blood of
Christ, there would be any difference between him and others
who more distinctly set forth what I believe to be implied in the
doctrine of Christ s sacrifice being a ransom and a propitiation.
" On the whole, if I had resolved on other grounds to appoint
Mr. A. to a post such as you have mentioned, from con
ceiving him to be, as he certainly is, a self-denying, laborious,
conscientious, able clergyman, of deeply religious mind, I should
not be deterred from fulfilling my intention by these sermons,
though I should myself have stated many things of which they
treat very differently. Believe me to be, my dear -, yours
very truly,
A. C. LONDON."
It was, however, in his Visitation Charges
that he ex
pressed himself most effectively upon such subjects.
Both as Bishop and Archbishop he used his recurring
Visitations as opportunities for speaking his mind upon
the larger questions of the day. It was necessary, he
said, for the Bishop of London to do so,
"
for the Metropolis stands in the forefront of the Church s
battle, and we have to grapple personally with difficulties the
very rumour of which alarms our brethren in l
quieter places."
And again :-
"
London, above all other dioceses, must be indissolubly
Connected with the whole national Church. We do not ignore
those powerful elements of the softening influences of country
life, not found amongst ourselves ; nor the effect of the position,
so different from ours, in which the country clergy stand to their
1
Charge of 1862, p. 2.