one, and no time short of the Apostles' could be assigned, with any show of argument, for the rise of their existing doctrine. This doctrine in which they agreed was accordingly called Catholic truth, and there was plainly no room at all for asking, "Why should my own Church be more true than another's ?"-But at this day, it need not be said, such an evidence is lost, except as regards the articles of the Creeds. It is a very great mercy that the Church Catholic over the world, as descended from the Apostles, does at this day speak one and the same doctrine about the Trinity and Incarnation, as it has always spoken it, excepting in one single point, which rather probat regulam than interferes with it, viz. as to the procession of the Holy Ghost from the Son. With this solitary exception, we have the certainty of possessing the entire truth as regards the high theological doctrines, by an argument which supersedes the necessity of arguing from Scripture against those who oppose them. It is quite impossible that all countries should have agreed to that which was not Apostolic. They are a number of concordant witnesses to certain definite truths, and while their testimony is one and the same from the very first moment they publicly utter it, so on the other hand, if there be bodies which speak otherwise, we can show historically that they rose later than the Apostles. This majestic evidence, however, does not extend to any but to the articles of the Creed, especially those relating to the Trinity and Incarnation. The primitive Church was never called upon, whether in Council or by its divines, to pronounce upon other points of faith, and the later Church has differed about them; especially about those on which the contest turns between Romanism and ourselves. Here neither Rome nor England can in the same sense appeal to Catholic testimony; and, this being the case, a member of the one or the other Church might fairly have the antecedent scruple rise in his mind, why his own communion should have the whole truth, why on the contrary the rival communion should not have a share of it, and the truth itself lie midway between them. This is the question of a philosophical mind, and the Church of Rome meets it with a theory, perfectly satisfactory, provided only it be established as a fact, The Church Catholic has lost the Sacramentum Unitatis. 29 viz. the theory of infallibility. The actual promise made, as they contend, to St. Peter's chair as the centre of unity, would undoubtedly account for truth being wholly in the Roman Communion, not in the English, and solve the antecedent perplexity in question. But the English Church, taking no such high ground as this, certainly is open to the force, such as it is, of the objection, or (as it was just now expressed) on the primá facie view of the case is unlikely to have embraced the whole counsel of GOD, because she does not assume infallibility; and consequently no surprise or distress should be felt by her dutiful sons, should that turn out to be the fact, which her own principles, rightly understood, would lead them to anticipate. At the same time it must carefully be remembered, that this admission involves no doubt or scepticism as regards the more sacred subjects of theology, of which the Creed is the summary; these having been witnessed from the first by the whole Church,-being witnessed too at this moment, in spite of later corruptions, both by the Latin and Greek Communions. A consideration has been suggested in the last paragraph on which much might be said on a fitting occasion; it is (what may be called) a great Canon of the Gospel, that Purity of faith depends on the Sacramentum Unitatis. Unity is the whole body of the Church, as it is the divinely blessed symbol and pledge of the true faith, so also it is the obvious means (even humanly speaking) of securing it. The Sacramentum was first infringed during the quarrels of the Greeks and Latins; it was shattered in that great schism of the sixteenth century which issued in some parts of Europe in the Reformation, in others in the Tridentine Decrees, our own Church keeping the nearest of any to the complete truth. Since that era at least, Truth has not dwelt simply and securely in any visible Tabernacle. This view of the subject will illustrate for us the last words of Bishop Ken as contained in his will:- "As for my religion, I die in the Holy Catholic and Apostolic faith, professed by the whole Church before the disunion 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." 3. Another antecedent ground for anticipating wants and imperfections in the English Church lies in the circumstances under which the reformation of its doctrine and worship was effected. It is now universally admitted as an axiom in ecclesiastical and political matters that sudden and violent changes must be injurious; and though our own revolution of opinion and practice was happily slower and more carefully considered than those of our neighbours, yet it was too much influenced by secular interests, sudden external events, and the will of individuals, to carry with it any vouchers for the perfection and entireness of the religious system thence emerging. The proceedings for instance of 1536, remind us at once of the dangers to which the Church was exposed, and of its providential deliverance from the worst part of them: the articles then framed being, according to Burnet, "in several places corrected and tempered by the king's" (Henry's) "own hand." Again, the precise structure of our present liturgy, so primitive and edifying in its matter, is confessedly owing to the successive and counteracting influences exerted on it, among others, by Bucer and Queen Elizabeth. The Church did not make the circumstances under which it found itself, and therefore is free from the responsibility of imperfections to which these gave rise. These imperfections followed in two ways. First, the hurry and confusion of the times led, as has been said, to a settlement of religion incomplete and defective: secondly, the people, not duly apprehending even what was soundly propounded as being new to them, and unable to digest healthy food after long desuetude, gave a false meaning to it, went into opposite extremes, and fashioned into unseemly habits and practices those principles which in themselves conveyed a wholesome and edifying doctrine. These considerations cannot fairly be taken in disparagement of the celebrated men who were the instruments of Providence in the work, and who doubtless felt far more keenly than is here expressed the perplexities of their situation; but they will serve perhaps to reconcile our minds to our circumstances in these latter ages of the Church, and will cherish in us a sobriety of mind, salutary in itself, and calculated more than any thing else to arm us against the arguments of Rome, and to turn us in affection and sympathy towards the afflicted Church, which has been the " Mother of our new-birth." They will but lead us to confess that she is in a measure in that position which we fully ascribe to her Latin sister', in captivity; and they will make us understand and duly use the prayers of our wisest doctors and rulers, such as Bishop Andrews, that God would please to "look down upon His holy Catholic and Apostolic Church, in her captivity; to visit her once more with His salvation, and to bring her out to serve Him in the beauty of holiness 2." 4. A further antecedent reason for anticipating practical imperfections in the Anglican system, (and to those mainly allusion is here made), arises from the circumstance that our Articles, so far as distinct from the ancient creeds, are scarcely more than protests against specific existing errors of the 16th century, and neither are nor profess to be a system of doctrine. It is not unnatural however that they should have practically superseded that previous Catholic teaching altogether, which they were but modifying in parts, and, though but corrections, should be mistaken for the system corrected. These reasonings prepare us to acquiesce in much of plausible objection being admissible against our Church, even in the judgment of those who love and defend it. When, however, we proceed to examine what its defects really are, we shall find them to differ from those of Rome in this all-important respect, which indeed has already been in part hinted, that they are but omissions. Rome maintains positive errors, and that under the 1 At Rome she wears it, as of old Upon the accursed hill, By Monarchs clad in gems and gold Speak gently of our sister's fall, May win her, at our patient call, The surer way to prove.-Christian Year. 2 Devotions. Liturgy of Jerusalem. sanction of an anathema; but nothing can be pointed out in the English Church which is not true, as far as it goes, and even when it opposes Rome, with a truly Apostolical toleration, it utters no ban or condemnation against its adherents. On the other hand the omissions, such as they are, or rather obscurities of Anglican doctrine, may be supplied for the most part by each of us for himself, and thus do not interfere with the perfect development of the Christian temper in the hearts of individuals, which is the charge fairly adducible against Romanism. Such for instance is the phraseology used in speaking of the Holy Eucharist, which though on the whole protected safe through a dangerous time by the cautious Ridley, yet in one or two places was clouded by the interpolations of Bucer, through an anxiety in some quarters to unite all the reformed Churches under episcopal government against Rome. And such is the omission of any direct safeguard in the Articles, against disbelief of the doctrine of the Apostolical Succession. And again, for specimens of the perverse reception by the nation, as above alluded to, of what was piously intended, I would refer to the popular sense put upon the eleventh article, which, though clearly and soundly explained in the Homily on Justification or Salvation, has been taken to countenance the wildest Antinomian doctrine, and is now so associated in the minds of many with this wrong interpretation, as to render almost hopeless the recovery of the true meaning. And such again is the mischievous error, in which the Church in her formal documents certainly has no share, that we are but one among many Protestant bodies, and that the differences between Protestants are of little consequence; whereas the English Church, as such, is not Protestant, only politically, that is, externally, or so far as it has been made an establishment, and subjected to national and foreign influences. It claims to be merely Reformed, not Protestant, and it repudiates any fellowship with the mixed multitude which crowd together, whether at home or abroad, under a mere political banner. That this is no novel doctrine, is plain from the emphatic omission of the word Protestant in all our Services, even in that for |