ORIGINAL CORRESPONDENCE.

New Zealander, Volume 7, Issue 571, 4 October 1851, Page 2

ORIGINAL CORRESPONDENCE.

To the Editor of the New Ztalandui. " 'Tis worse to ■whistle on a Sunday Than cheat your neighbour on a Monday." Dodsley. " Ye blind guides, which stiain at a gnat and swallow a camel.' Chiiist. " Justitia est habitus animi suum cuique tiibuens." Ciceho.

Sin, — It is said that a straw shews the direction of the current, and the controversy about the word "Sect" has led me to the conclusion that a deeper feeling of exclusion and desire for religious distinction exists in Auckland than I at one time believed. Granting that "Sect" conies from ''Seco," "to cut off';" granting that the Greek word "hairesh" is not translated always by the same term ; granting- that the Roman Catholics are Sectarians ; granting that Ogilvie, Webster, et hoc genus omne, give definitions favourable to the same view of the question, What is proved ? That all re igionists in New Zealand are Sectarians saving the memhers of the Church of England 1 Assuredly not. The Church of England ia established by Law in England, and the Church of Scotland in Scotland ; and the members of other communions may in these countries be called Sectarians, seeing that they do not avail themselves of that form of religion provided by the State. According to this view, the Episcopal Church in Scotland will be as much Sectarian as the Presbyterian Church in England. The State fixes the character of each in relation to all others by giving them, respectively, civil establishments. It ought to be borne in mind that this is not an English, but a British or Imperial Colony, and members of the Church of Scotland, even on this ground, have the same standing as members of the Church of England. The same may be claimed by all, for here we have no civil establishment of religion ; (hine Him tachryma) all aie on a footing of perfect equality; and any epithet which may be supposed to imply reproach, every denomination is at liberty to repudiate. Moreover, our friends of the Church of England seem to forget that the Law of Toleiation as fully establishes every denomination of Dissenters as the Episcopal Church, endowments alone excepled. That the word *' Sect" was unhappily chosen may be admitted; that disrespect to any was intended is improbable ; but that some of your coi respondents, in their zeal to wash away any stain that might possibly attach to them, have double-dyed it upon all others is pretty manifest. The Church of Christ is one, and is made up of the members of his m) stical body, to whatever section of the Chuich on earth they may belong ; and the moie enlarged their views of the Scheme of Redemption, the more trifling will become, in their estimation, the petty distinctions which keep them asunder. Sir, I am not •' a Member of the Church of England," and may, by some, be called "a heretic." R. L. Auckland, October 2.

To the Editor of the New-Zi alandfr. Sir,— As both your correspondents are of opinion the the teiin, "sect," is not at all applicable to the Chuich of England at prewnt, I gracefully retract the word. My excuse is to be found in my copy of " Johnson," which tells me that '• a sect is a body of men following some particular master, or united in some settled tenets." I always believed this was the case with the Chuich of England ; perhaps the dissentions in the settled tenets of the Church ia England have extended out here. A Mlmbeb of -hie Cnuitcii of England Slct. Oct. 3, 1851.