but to fasten upon it some charge which indubitably un-churches it. We wish this last point to have its full force. There is no middle course between a faithful adhesion to the English Church and a declaration that it is a mere voluntary association of Christians. We are not at liberty to choose between rival Churches. It is not enough to prove that the Anglican communion is feeble and Stateridden, and hurrying rapidly to dissolution, and that the Roman Church is vigorous and firm and reviving in its influence. It may be true that Rome affords more helps to holiness than England, that it encourages more self-denial in its children, and has means of grace which we have not, ay, that it saves more souls than our own Church; yet all this, if it could be substantiated beyond a doubt, would still be far from justifying a man in forsaking the less efficient for the more sanctifying communion. The officers and crew of the rotten and crippled frigate have no right to abandon her for the majestic liner which walks the same waters in perfect security. While the shattered bark holds together, while it is a ship at all, it has a claim upon the fidelity of those who took service in it. Nothing less then is demanded from those who desert the Anglican communion than to affirm and to make good the affirmation that the English is no Church, her priests no priests, her sacraments a mere mockery of holy realities. It will not do to say that her existence and position are irregular, she must be proved not to be." But if this be so, how nice is the question which arises: What amount of error un-churches a Church? What precise amount of false doctrine is compatible with the being of a Church? What amount is incompatible? Some degree of error we know does not destroy a Church, or the Church would have ceased long ago. Grievous charges were made by CHRIST Himself against divers of the Asiatic Churches, but they were only threatened with extinction if they did not repent; it was not alleged that ipso facto they had already ceased to be. Now for many reasons we should be disposed to argue that a very great amount of error might consist with the existence of a Church. Take the analogy of the human body, to which by an inspired writer the Church has been compared. Large quantities of matter are added to and subtracted from it, as in the efflorescence of health and the emaciation of sickness, without affecting its identity or destroying its vitality. Entire limbs may be amputated, the active frame be reduced to a helpless trunk unable to minister to its own slightest necessities, yet equally in its helplessness as in its vigour it is a human body. So again to what an extent may disease spread without destroying life! We hear of cases in which every organ is discovered to have been at fault, and yet life has been protracted for a long period. And in analogy with this we should be prepared to expect that a vast deal of moral disease might prevail in a National Church, that it might lose many of the noblest charac

teristics of a Church, ay, that no part of its organization might be healthy, and yet that it might still be the Church of the Living GOD. Are we then qualified to pronounce the precise point of corruption which is fatal to the life of a Church? Yet if not, no general feeling of dissatisfaction can justify secession, for the Church in which God's providence has placed us has a claim upon our obedience until the last breath of its ecclesiastical existence. It is not enough to be sensible that the portion of the divine fabric in which we find ourselves is encrusted with pollutions, that every part is hastening to decay, we must see the roof fall above us and not one stone left upon another before we venture to go forth in scarch of another and sounder department of the edifice.

It is not however to be denied that many who have gone from us have not hesitated to declare their conviction that the Anglican Church is a nullity, a mere imposture and a sham. And we wish now to make a few remarks upon the arguments chiefly relied on by those who have brought themselves to this persuasion. We have before us several publications professing to assign valid reasons for denying the very existence of the English Church, and from these we shall endeavour to select "ab hoste" the principal charges which are said to warrant so sweeping a statement. We shall then offer a few observations upon each, tending to shake, as we hope, the case made out against us.

I. The first pamphlet we take up is a small publication by the Rev. John Gordon, entitled "Reasons of my Conversion." It has reached the fifth edition, and we have heard it spoken of by Romanists as unanswerable. Let us see what are the leading points urged as reasons for the step which the author has taken.

"Reflection and examination (he says,) convinced me with a force I have never been able in any adequate degree to express or communicate, that Anglicanism, both as a theory and in its peculiar doctrines, is NOT in any sense the distinctive and authoritative teaching of the Church of England; and further, that the Anglican theory, as such, is utterly untenable on its own or any Catholic principles."

We have here two distinct propositions, the soundness of which we shall examine hereafter. They They are the staple of Mr. Gordon's book, and are confessedly the points upon which he relies.

II. Another argument which has been used with much effect, by no less a person than Cardinal Wiseman, is based upon the isolation of the British Churches from the rest of Christendom. Speaking of the recent Gorham case, he says:

"It is to the Universal Church that the only final appeal can come. Then let this Church, let this powerful Church, as no doubt in many cases she is, raise her voice and call upon the Catholic Church throughout the world, to come and bear part with her and sustain her in

this her intended struggle. Or let her ask all others to join their suffrages to the truth of the doctrine which it is said has been now, for the first time impugned. Why does she not do so? Or if she does, will they respond?"

Surely (he says in another place) this ought to make some impression on those who believe, or affect to believe, that the English Church is a living member of the great and holy Body of CHRIST'S Church."

III. In enumerating the flaws supposed to be discoverable in the claims of the English Communion to be a branch of the Catholic Body, we may not omit what has been of late so much and frequently insisted on,-its subjection to and dependence on the State. It is urged, that instead of a Papal, the English Church accepted a royal supremacy, thereby transferring to the "Regale" the functions of the Pontificate, giving to Cæsar the things which are God's; that the modern Church is a creation of the State, that the authority of Parker, and consequently of his successors, was derivable solely from the Crown, that it has been left to the Crown to dictate what shall be reputed orthodox and what heretical, and this by the free concession of the Clergy and people; so that the act is their act, and amounts to a voluntary unchurching themselves.

IV. We now come to a somewhat different class of objections. Those hitherto noticed have touched rather upon the ecclesiastical constitution of the Anglican Communion. There are others which relate to her internal economy and ministrations. We will mention, first, the disuse of the daily sacrifice of the Mass. Mr. Wilberforce in his Letter to his parishioners, argues that, "whilst the sacrifices of the Jewish law were to cease, another and better sacrifice was to follow." He quotes from the prophet Malachi : "From the rising of the sun even unto the going down of the same, My name shall be great among the Gentiles; and in every place incense shall be offered unto My name, and a pure offering." And then he proceeds:

"If there were nothing else to show that the Catholic Church is the true Church, and that the Protestant religion has been altered from the religion of Holy Scripture, this would be enough. For all over the world, in every nation of the Gentiles, the Catholic priests are every day offering to GOD, according to the prophecy, a pure offering of the Body and Blood of CHRIST; continually they are burning incense at the sacrifice and all this time Protestants content themselves with saying, against the plain words of Scripture, that all sacrifices ceased when our Blessed LORD died upon the Cross."

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Mr. Wilberforce alludes also to the disuse of "Unction," and its retention in the Roman Communion; to the recognition of Counsels of Perfection in the one body, and the oblivion of such counsels in the other; to the depreciation of Holy Virginity, and to the

disappearance of Monastic Orders from the English Church, giving evidence of the absence of the ascetic principle. All these things, he says, are quite common within the Roman pale, but are never heard of within the Anglican, and their presence and absence attest respectively the truth and falsehood of the claim to be a portion of the Church of CHRIST, put forth by the two rival Communions.

Let us say a few words upon these various topics in the order in which we have arranged them.

Anglicanism, says Mr. Gordon, is not the doctrine of the Church of England; it is only a small school within the Church. The testimony of one Roman Catholic is as good as that of another. Let us hear Mr. Pugin.

"There is no question that in the abstract the Book of Common Prayer is exceedingly Catholic, and that the rites of the Church of England when solemnly administered are close approximations to the ancient service. It is lamentable to consider the amount of ignorance that prevails respecting the real system of the Church of England, not only among the English Catholic (i.e. Roman Catholic) body, but among persons who profess to be members of its communion. It is a sad and afflicting spectacle to see good and conscientious men when really acting up to what they are bound to perform exposed to all the persecution of the state and the brutality of insolent and wealthy laymen. If we can bring ourselves to regard the Church of England, abstractedly from all the acts of the state in connexion with her, we shall find much to reverence and admire. It is indeed remarkable that in no official act is the Church of England committed to the term Protestant; it does not occur in the Liturgy or any authoritative office, nor in the articles or canons, and in the bidding prayer she prays for the whole state of CHRIST'S Catholic Church, and especially for that part of it established in this dominion. Language which can admit only of one interpre

tation."

Such are the opinions of Mr. Pugin; he is certainly at direct issue with Mr. Gordon. Anglicanism is the real doctrine of the English Church according to the former; and we might add to the arguments adduced in the above quotation, the well-known fact that the progress of the English Church since the first shock of the Reformation has been invariably in a Catholic direction. We allude to the alterations made in the Prayer Book from time to time, especially in the Communion office, and to the gradual withdrawal from intercourse with foreign Protestant bodies, and it is surely a strong point which the events of the last six months enable us to bring forward; for what will the future ecclesiastical historian have to record, but that in the year 1850 a judgment was given in a Court of Appeal conniving at heresy upon the Sacrament of Baptism, and that in the following year, the Bishop and Clergy of the diocese immediately concerned, met in solemn synod in their

cathedral, repudiated the judgment and re-affirmed the Catholic doctrine?

But further, according to Mr. Gordon, the Anglican theory is itself untenable. The great flaw in this theory, as far as we can pursue his argument, is that it substitutes the dead for the living Church. "This," he says, "is their great fundamental fallacy. To appeal to Scripture, to tradition, to the early Church, to the consent of the Fathers, to the Church before the division of East and West, against the living Church, is to appeal from the judge to the laws." Now we would ask, where is the voice of the living Church upon the Roman hypothesis? Rome has not spoken in the highest and only true sense, since the Council of Trent. The actions or decrees of the reigning Pontiff are not the final authority. There is something beyond. The Council of Constance in its fourth session. decreed that the authority of an ecumenical council must be obeyed by all, even the Pope himself in all matters relating to the faith." On the Romish theory therefore you must have a general council in perpetual session before you can have a living guide ever ready to pronounce upon each case as it occurs. But, "any theory," continues Mr. Gordon, "which appeals to no present authority denies the existence of the Church." Not at all. Does a man only possess the power of speech whilst he is exerting it? Anglicanism is quite ready to recognize in the living Church the same inherent power to speak with authority, as resided in the Church of other days. It only submits to the fact that the living Church does not speak, and this is fact with Rome also. Her highest voice is to be heard in a council according to her own decree, and council there is none. Of course anything short of an ultimate determination is no determination at all.

But we proceed to another topic. The isolation of the English Church according to Cardinal Wiseman is a proof that it is not a living member of CHRIST's Body. We might ask, "Is not Rome isolated?" Surely from all but herself-and no more can be predicated of England. The Greek Church would no more respond to her cry of distress than Rome answers to ours. Of course we are aware that Rome pretends to comprehend the Catholic body within her pale, so that nothing without is the Church at all. If this be so, cadit quæstio; but it must be proved on independent grounds; at present it is bare assertion; the argument from the isolation of the British Churches cannot be pressed boldly by itself; the whole Roman system, viz. that the existence of a Church is bound up with the See of S. Peter must be established before it is available, otherwise Rome is equally isolated.

But what is to be said of the submission of the English Communion to the Royal Supremacy? Has it not on this so far denied itself, its own powers, its own character as the depositary of the faith, that it can no longer be reckoned a portion of the great spiritual