gating the decision of the Church, strong but not unwarrantable words had been used, "It seemed good to the Holy Ghost and to us" (Acts xv. 28). "The Spirit and the Bride" had spoken in unison (Rev. xxii. 17). In her, therefore, the Reformers beheld powers they could not venture to claim for themselves. She was "the pillar and ground of the Truth" (1 Tim. iii. 15), and where Scripture was open to conflicting interpretations, they adopted that which Christ's Church had received.1

It was not this or that National Church which could lay exclusive claim to such promises. Many such Churches had erred, not a few had perished. The promises, therefore, were the heritage of the Catholic or Universal Church of Christ. The Church of Ephesus could leave her first love; the Church of Pergamos could be tainted with the doctrine of the Nicolaitanes ; the rest of the Seven Churches could be condemned on various accounts, but the promise of Christ's presence was not contingent on their merits. It could not fail, because He is faithful that promised. So St. John "saw seven golden candlesticks (the Seven Churches), and in the midst of the seven candlesticks One like unto the Son of Man" (Rev. i. 12, 13).

It was therefore to this undivided Catholic Church, such as we behold it during the first three centuries after Christ, that the Reformers appealed.

To this source may be traced the substitution of the observance of the Lord's day for the Sabbath, the first day of the week for the seventh, the doctrine of

1 "To understand the Holy Scriptures aright is to understand them as the primitive Church did" (Bishop Wilson).

Infant Baptism, and of the mystery of the Holy Trinity; all of which, though not expressly laid down in Holy Scripture, are agreeable to it.

And this brings us to the third characteristic.

(3) The Church of England is Catholic.1

That is, truly Catholic in the faith she professes, as well as historically and organically a branch of the Holy Catholic Church.

Never for one moment has she forfeited her claim to that title, never has she withdrawn it. She puts it into the mouth of all her children. "I believe in one Catholic and Apostolic Church."

As a living branch of that Church she claims participation in the promises made to it. As a living branch of that Church she escapes the condemnation of those who live in schism from it.o As a living

'Catholic signifies "throughout the whole world,” i.e., universal.

2 We can never insist too strongly or too often on the fact that the Church of England is guiltless of schism as regards the Church of Rome. Her attitude was one of calm protest against error, and not of secession.

Archbishop Cranmer appealed from the Pope of Rome to a General Council, not, that is, to one merely so in name, but to one that in very truth should be representative of the whole Church of Christ throughout the world (Luther, Erasmus, and Melancthon made the same appeal). The Convocation of Canterbury in 1538, Bishop Jewel in 1562, and Richard Hooker in 1594, advocated the same course. To such a Council (whenever it may please God to suffer it) the Church of England would be willing to submit the questions in dispute, just as the question of circumcision was submitted to the assembled Church at Jerusalem (Acts xv.).

The actual schism between the two Churches came from Rome. "On April 27, 1570, the shameful mandate went forth,

F

branch of that Church she is not liable to the constant fluctuations of doctrine which we see continually taking place in the sects as each new leader arises. She has built her house on a rock.

It is true that there is action and reaction in the Church of England, but with this essential difference— the substance of her faith never changes as the faith of the sects is ever changing. It is but the regulated ebb and flow of the tide. Motion in one direction and then in the other is but a condition of life. Like the swing of the pendulum, that motion has always a centre of gravity, which is Holy Scripture as interpreted by the primitive Church. This in the Church of England is faithfully represented by the Prayer-book.

And let us seriously lay to heart the great danger we are in from the unhappy divisions of Protestants in this land. Mere sects can never keep back the advance of Rome. Detached boulders only lash a stream to fury; it gathers strength from such futile resistance, and comes on in its power. But one great rock in its path turns it into a narrower channel, and curbs its will. Turn to the Babel of sects in this land, and then look on Rome with her serried ranks and unity of purpose. These must be met by ranks as unbroken and a front as united. We need more than a so-called Evangelical Alliance of a multitude of denominations differing from one another. We need a true branch

bidding all who would obey Pope Pius V. to break with their own English Church, to secede and form conventicles, to abandon and dethrone their sovereign, and to subject their country, if they could, to a foreign invader" (Curteis's "Bampton Lectures on Dissent," p. 196).

of the Catholic Church, not less Catholic than Rome in the continuity of its history, far more Catholic in the purity of its faith.

It has been asserted, and there seems ground for the assertion, that recent perverts to Romanism have been drawn largely from the ranks of ultra-Protestantism. If it be so, it is not hard to discover a reason. Not merely that men recoil from all this wearisome. division, and are fascinated by the unity of Rome, but it is a law of natural retribution. Truths kept out of sight assert themselves at last with all the force of a violent reaction. A man "big with truth new found" is thrown off his balance. The tension has been too great, and he starts aside like a broken bow. For example, a man has been brought up to consider that, provided he holds Protestant doctrine, he is free to join this or that sect. It is, he has heard it asserted, mere bigotry to condemn religious divisions. But that man, when he awakens at last to the plain and repeated injunctions of Scripture on unity, is, as it were, swept away by the rush of a conviction as unanswerable as it is new. At such a juncture there is the Church of Rome before him with a seemingly placid front, offering him at least a visible unity. Unless the Church of England is outspoken on this matter by the mouth of her ministers, this misgiving can never be allayed but in the fold of Rome.

To the great majority of thoughtful Christians, who desire to avoid the glaring errors of Rome on the one hand, and the useless bickerings and subdivisions of the Protestant sects on the other, a Church such as the Church of England, Protestant as well as Catholic, is

a necessity.

Let us thank God that He has called her

to fulfil this high mission.

What better words can be found to express the attitude of the true sons of the Church than those found in the will of the saintly Bishop Ken, the author of the well-known Morning and Evening Hymns ?

"As for my religion, I die in the Holy Catholic and Apostolic Faith, professed by the whole Church before the division of East and West; more particularly I die in the communion of the Church of England, as it stands distinguished from all Papal and Puritan innovations, and as it adheres to the doctrine of the Cross!"

ii. It is Established.

One main difficulty with not a few earnest Christians is that the Church should have the support of the State, or, as the phrase is, should be "established." To them it seems to be leaning on an arm of flesh, whereas the weapons of Christ's Church are not carnal; His kingdom, they urge, is not of this world.

It is evident that this, the religious scruple, deserves an attentive examination.

But first of all, let us define the question at issue. Surely one-half of the misconceptions of the world arise from vagueness of language. And is not this one of them? Under the general terms of “an arm of flesh" and "carnal weapons" there lurks an impression of the religious compulsion of past ages. It is true we fear no renewal of the horrors of the Inquisition, the fires of Oxford and of Smithfield, or the massacre of St. Bartholomew. All this is past. In