524 THE CONSTRUCTION OF SHEEPFOLDS

idle, he is welcome to cast aside; but which, in very truth, I cannot help saying at this time.

2. The passages in the essay which required notes, described the repression of the political power of the Venetian Clergy by the Venetian Senate; and it became necessary for me-in supporting an assertion made in the course of the inquiry, that the idea of separation of Church and State was both vain and impious-to limit the sense in which it seemed to me that the word “Church” should be understood, and to note one or two consequences which would result from the acceptance of such limitation. This I may as well do in a separate paper, readable by any person interested in the subject; for it is high time that some definition of the word should be agreed upon. I do not mean a definition involving the doctrine of this or that division of Christians, but limiting, in a manner understood by all of them, the sense in which the word should thenceforward be used. There is grievous inconvenience in the present state of things. For instance, in a sermon lately published at Oxford, by an anti-Tractarian divine, I find this sentence,-“It is clearly within the province of the State to establish a national church, or external institution of certain forms of worship.” Now suppose one were to take this interpretation of the word “Church,” given by an Oxford divine, and substitute it for the simple word in some Bible texts, as, for instance, “Unto the angel of the external institution of certain forms of worship of Ephesus, write,” etc. Or, “Salute the brethren which are in Laodicea, and Nymphas, and the external institution of certain forms of worship which is in his house,”¹-what awkward results we should have, here and there! Now I do not say it is possible for men to agree with each other in their religious opinions, but it is certainly possible for them to agree with each other upon their religious expressions; and when a word occurs in the Bible a hundred and fourteen times, it is surely not asking too much of contending divines to let it

¹[Revelation ii. 1; Colossians iv. 15.]

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