the synods of Lyons and Florence, the Greeks twice departed from that union. Answer. (1.) It is denied that the Greek church was subject to the Roman jurisdiction at any time. (2.) The separation was as much the fault of the Roman as of the Greek church. (3.) The separation of the Greeks, after the synod of Lyons, was caused, as Père le Quien says (Oriens Christ. tom. i. p. 157.), by the unreasonable conduct of the Roman pontiff, in requiring conditions which the synod of Lyons had not required. (4.) The Eastern churches judged the terms of reconciliation, conceded by some of their bishops, who attended the synod of Florence, to be unreasonable and improper; and they were not bound by the decrees of that synod in any respect, as it was not truly œcumenical. OTHER OBJECTIONS. X. The Eastern churches practise the invocation of saints, but this is contrary to Scripture; therefore they cannot form part of Christ's church. Answer. Though we found long ago, by experience, that this custom leads to the grossest superstition among the unlearned; yet the practice of invoking the saints to pray for us to God, is rather superfluous, and tending to idolatry, than actually idolatrous (strictly speaking); and therefore cannot exclude the Eastern churches from the catholic community. It is not directly and formally prohibited by Scripture, and the practice is of such antiquity in their churches, that we cannot absolutely condemn the Eastern catholics for supposing that it is allowable. Besides this, our theologians, Hooker, Bramhall, Andrews, &c. allow the Roman to be a true church, though they well knew that this invocation is practised there. XI. They pay a relative honour or worship to pictures, which is idolatrous. Answer. I grant that it approaches towards idolatry, and in some instances doubtless must become actually idolatrous, because the ignorant cannot distinguish between the latria due only to the divine nature, and the inferior degree of honour, which the second synod of Nice attributes to images, and which is supposed to pass to the original. But still as they maintain that divine worship is only due to God, and an inferior honour to the cross and to images, they cannot be charged with formal idolatry, in principle or universally; and, therefore, while, with the whole Western church, from the time of Charlemagne, and with the synod of Frankfort, we reject all worship of images whatsoever, there is no reason why we should not also, as they did, admit the Eastern church to be a part of the catholic community. We must also consider, that the Orientals imagine, through a mistake in the question of fact, that the universal church enjoined the veneration of pictures in the second synod of Nice, which I shall prove hereafter not to have been truly oecumenical, nor of any binding authority. But their mistake is founded on arguments of no inconsiderable weight. XII. They maintain the doctrine of transubstantiation in the eucharist, and therefore cannot be a part of the Christian church. Answer. (1.) Admitting that they use the term transubstantiation, and that many of them receive the doctrine in the Romish sense, it is not certain that all do. Archbishop Plato says: "Ecclesia Catholica Orientalis, et Græco-Russica, admittit quidem vocem Transubstan tiatio, Græce μerovoiwoię; non physicam illam transubstantiationem et carnalem, sed sacramentalem et mysticam; eodemque sensu hanc vocem Transubstantiatio accipit, quam quo antiquissimi Ecclesiæ Græcæ patres hos voces μεταλλαγὴ, μετάθεσις, μεταστοιχείωσις accipiebant." It would seem as if the term transubstantiation was employed by him merely to signify a real change, and a real presence, not to define its mode. Methodius, archbishop of Twer, uses language, with reference to the eucharist, inconsistent with the Roman doctrine of transubstantiation, which denies the eucharist to be bread. He says the disciples "comederant panem et biberant vinum, Christo utrumque consecrante et præbente; idque ea lege, ut primum, hunc cibum et potum sumentes, se sumere corpus et sanguinem Domini crederent, deinde ut hoc in commemorationem sive gratam memoriam Domini, facerent "." (2.) The Romish doctrine of transubstantiation is an error, but it is not an error of such a sort as, in the judgment of our theologians, ought to prevent communion. Bishop Burnet says: "We think that neither consubstantiation nor transubstantiation, however ill-grounded soever we take them to be, ought to dissolve the union or communion of churches "." Archbishop Bramhall places the doctrine of transubstantiation among "the opinions of the schools, not among the articles of our m Methodii Liber Histor. p. 207. "Burnet on the xxviiith article, near the end. The Lutherans' doctrine of Consubstantiation, and the ubiquity of Christ's body, is quite as much an error as the Romish doctrine of Transubstantiation, yet they are not usually accounted heretics. faith "." And besides this, our theologians generally, as Hooker, Andrewes, Bramhall, &c. acknowledge the Roman to be a part of the true church, though it is manifest that the doctrine of transubstantiation is held there. • Bramhall Answer to Militiere, p. 1. CHAPTER X. ON THE BRITISH CHURCHES. THE catholic and apostolical churches of England, Scotland, and Ireland, are the parent stock from whence many flourishing churches of Christ have been derived in the United States, the Islands, and other parts of North America; in Hindostan, Ceylon, Australia, and other parts of the East; and even in Africa, congregations and pastors are to be found, who have derived their Christianity and their authority from our churches. I propose to show in this chapter, that the British churches form a portion of the catholic church of Christ; and that every individual within their district is bound to unite himself to them, as being exclusively and solely the way of salvation established by divine authority amongst us. This will be chiefly proved by applying all the notes of the true church to our part of it, and showing that in every particular they entirely accord with it. I. The churches of Britain and Ireland have been visible societies from the most remote antiquity.—We read of the existence of Christian churches in Britain, in the writings of Tertullian, Origen, Eusebius, Atha |