piety. It follows then that only the few persons in the Church of England who are doctrinal Calvinists and clearly Protestant, subscribe the Articles in their original and natural sense. All others sign with a qualification or explanation. This is a natural and normal condition. The Articles have their stamp from the controversies of the time in which they were written. They express the ideas of the men of that age. We subscribe them as substantially true, though not in every detail, nor as if incapable of improvement. This is not the same as subscribing them when we believe the opposite, and it is fairer than to read our own interpretation into them and call it the original. That they remain the standard of doctrine 'with some few corrections' was advocated by Bishop Burnet nearly two hundred years ago.2

The subject of evidences has been discussed from various standpoints all through the century. Many arguments in answer to objections from discoveries in science have by necessity been abandoned. And the defence in a new form has continued after the facts which had been thought inimical were admitted. Astronomy, geology, evolution, each in its turn the terror of the theologian, has in the end been found not only harmless but often helpful. Christianity is now viewed more in its substance than its form. The outward manifestation may change and vary with the age, while the inward is something which by its own strength and evidence will survive every revolution of opinion and every change of form.

The two kinds of evidence, external and internal, need not be brought into collision. Neither is a demonstration, yet each has a validity in its own sphere. The external may

1 Since the above was written, the author has read that Edward Spencer, Vicar of Winkfield, Wilts, 'addressed a letter in elegant Latin to his friend, the Rev. Dr Haweis, in which the Calvinism of the 17th Article was fully established by a comparison of the original in passages from the Institutes, in which not only the harmony of the sentiments but the identity of the expressions was made most manifestly to appear.' See Evangelical Magazine for 1819, p. 397-8. The author cannot find out if this letter was ever printed. It may be said that all which Calvin taught in its extreme form is not in the Article, but all which the Article teaches is in Calvin.

2 His own Times' vol. iv, 410.

point to probabilities and it may meet objections. If the matter of a revelation is good, the external evidence may increase its credibility. If on the other hand, it is bad if opposed to reason or morality, no external evidence can be sufficient. Miracles which we have not seen but know only from the testimony of men who lived long ago, cannot be strong evidence to us. On the contrary they are rather a hindrance in the way of belief. When explained as not supernatural, but within the order of nature they really cease to be miracles, except in appearance. If we believe that the order of nature is fixed, we may not conceive of departures from it, except when a great object is to be served. The question is not the possibility but the probability of miracles. Is it likely that the miracles of the New Testament ever happened? The answer will be affirmative, if we are disposed to believe in Christianity, and negative if we are not so disposed. Evidence they cannot be, till we have first come within the region of belief. The same may be said of prophecy. There is no evidence from direct fulfilment of single prophecies, but from the predictive element which runs through the Old Testament centring in the coming of a great One who was to be descended from Abraham and David. The truth of Christianity must be felt. In Coleridge's phrase, there is something in it which finds men-something which has the ring of truth, which they feel to be true, and which will be felt while there is a human heart to feel. Internal evidence has its validity in the fact that the multitudes who believe in Christianity are like the man in the Gospel. They can only say that once they were blind and now they see.

One thing is certain, whatever else might be doubtful. That one thing is the sense of sin and of righteousness. The dogmatic expression of Christianity in many respects may often be defective but the truth which influences the life can never die. The earnest clergy and the converted people of the last century were once the objects of reproach and contempt, but all is changed. The names once despised are now honoured, what was once denounced as enthusiasm is now called the work of the Spirit of God. Methodists and Evangelicals may be in the background when viewed from the stand

in the religious life, the best of all witnesses for that in Christianity which is indestructible.

Those who call themselves Theists usually prefer to have the appellation of Christian prefixed. They do not wish to be on the merely negative side. They incline to the belief that in some way God has revealed and is revealing Himself. One of them has endorsed the words of Bishop Butler concerning Christianity 'that it is not so clear that there is nothing in it,'

The controversy about the three witnesses, is finally closed. The unanimous verdict of all scholars is that the verse is not genuine. It has been omitted in the revised version of the New Testament. The controversy is an instance of how some men will fight for whatever seems to be for their opinion, however strong the evidence to the contrary. It was the same spirit which raised opposition to Bishop Marsh's speculations on the origin of the synoptical gospels. These speculations may not have been any nearer the truth than others on the same subject, but they interfered with the received view which had no special claim to be the true one. Fear of ultimate consequences should never be thought of in the legitimate search for truth. Two tendencies are generally manifest in religious belief. One is to grasp at anything which promises external authority if it be only the proverbial straw of the drowning man. The other tendency is towards conclusions the contrary of what are taught by external authority. The one may end in fetishism, the other in scepticism. The goal of the one may be belief in anything; the goal of the other belief in nothing. In our century these two tendencies have occupied every possible stage.

The Oxford movement was in the direction of authority. That of the Church had long been renounced, and that of the Bible was open to the objection that though the Bible might be infallible, the interpretation of it was not, unless the Church had authority to interpret. The Bible might be true, but our understanding of it which is that which touches us might be false. The natural conclusion is that we must turn to the Church. We have the interpretation of the Church in the Creeds, the Catechism, and the Articles of Religion. But

what Church is it whose interpretation is there given? For the Creeds it is the old Catholic or undivided Church, for the Catechism and Articles it is the Reformed Church of England. These apparently two Churches must be proved to be one.

This was the task of the Tractarian writers. We had the same creeds, the same hierarchy, the same constitution as the old universal Church. But there exists another Church which claims to be the Catholic Church, which though it may have varied in doctrine from the undivided Church of the first ages, yet has an unbroken succession from it, and a communion without a shadow of external interruption. The Church of England was once one with this Church. It is now separated. Can this separation be justified, and the English Church remain identified with the primitive universal Church? To maintain the affirmative of this was the object of the writers just mentioned. The leader of the movement with many of his followers found it could not be maintained, and joined the Church of Rome to make sure of their identity with the old Catholic Church.

Those who remained in the Church of England still maintained the affirmative. But how to get over the Reformation was their great labour. Some justified it as the work of Catholic men who, as constituting a national Hierarchy, had a right to manage their own affairs. The Reformation is thus made the work of the Church, and the Protestant doctrines are so explained as to bear what is called a Catholic sense.

Another party found that the Reformation was not the work of Ecclesiastics, nor were the Ecclesiastics who went with it Catholic men or men that held Catholic doctrines. They were cast in the same mould as the Continental Reformers, in doctrine, Calvinists and Zwinglians, and their baneful influence rested on the English Church until it was expelled by Laud and other Catholic men like him. It was by the good providence of God that Queen Elizabeth preserved Catholic worship when her bishops were deforming it under pretence of reforming the Church. The separation from Rome is supposed to be justified, though not the means by which it was effected.

The question of the Reformation in England and how it

mainly on the consecration of Matthew Parker. Warham was responsible for the submission of the clergy, but the influence of the king was not unfelt. Cranmer carried out the will of Edward or of Edward's advisers, without whose help he could never have effected the changes he made. But hitherto there was no question of the validity of a consecration. Cranmer was consecrated papally, ecclesiastically, civilly. But not so Parker. He was civilly not papally, and it is doubted if ecclesiastically. When Elizabeth came to the throne the bishops with only one exception refused to take the oath of supremacy. The Queen commanded four of them to consecrate Parker. They declined, and were deprived, but only by the authority of Elizabeth, not by any ecclesiastical power. Elizabeth got four Protestant bishops who had been deprived of their sees under Mary, to perform the consecration. The validity of this is upheld on the ground that three bishops can consecrate. The number three is from a Canon of the Council of Nicæa, which says that a bishop must be made by all the bishops of the province, and if they cannot all come together three will suffice, provided they have the written sanction of the others. The object of this canon plainly is that the appointment of a bishop shall be the work of the province, so as to be the work of the whole Catholic Church. The validity does not rest on the number of bishops consecrating, but on their having the sanction of the whole province represented by all the bishops. This the consecrators of Parker had not. The bishops of the province were not ecclesiastically deprived. The consecrating bishops had no sanction but that of the Queen. They were not even bishops in office. They were only elect. So the point is not the number of bishops consecrating but their having the sanction of the whole Church. One bishop who has this sanction is more likely to perform a valid consecration than three who have it not. It is impossible now to escape the conclusion that the English Reformation was essentially Erastian, that Erastianism is so burnt into the bones of the Church of England, that it can never be effaced. Efforts have been made for its obliteration but Naturam expelles furca, tamen usque recurret.' The next line might be added that she will break through the mala fastidia