Letters of Spiritual Counsel and Guidance, Ed. by R.F. Wilson (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1870. Excerpt: ... LETTER XXXVIII. To A Young Layman, On Notes Of The Church: Advice As To Books And Conversation. My Dear Sir, Your letter, which I received this afternoon, needs no apology.... Not to keep you in suspense, I will at once reply to your four questions as I may at the moment, intending to write again, if anything more satisfactory occurs to me, and requesting you very sincerely to write to me without scruple, as much and as often as it may seem good for your relief, on these serious and painful subjects. You may depend on my not betraying your confidence. Now for your first point.... I have been used to think that, not the Church of England exclusively, but the Catholic Church throughout the world, had the promises of the Gospel confined to its pale, yet without prejudice to the notion that God's mercies might overflow, towards those especially, who, trying to do their best in their position, are kept from believing merely by invincible ignorance. And this I believe to be the doctrine of all parts of the Church, and of the Church of Rome quite as decidedly as of any other. Of course we are inadequate judges both of the degree in which people try to do their best, and of what is invincible ignorance; and from the unhappy divisions of the Church, now for many centuries, we are also but poor judges who are, or are not, within her pale. My own impression is, that the three great divisions of Rome, Greece, and England are (at least I hope so) within the pale. Others, holding the Creed but not having the fellowship of the Apostles, would seem to be in schism. Deniers of the Creed, in whole or in part, in heresy. Socinianism seems a very aggravated form of this, no more entitled to call itself Christian, than the teaching of Mahomet, who owned one God, and our Lord ...