Protestant church, if the various branches of the examined, will manifest this. the way in which a sinner can be saved, and live to the glory of God in this life, and attain to the glory of heaven hereafter, is fundamentally and substantially the same. On these essential points, however they differ in matters merely circumstantial, they are agreed. "There is, therefore, more unity in their different communions than there is in the church of Rome in her one communion: for on these fundamental points, the canons of councils and the decrees of popes are so discordant, that the poor do not know whether they are to be saved wholly by Christ, or partly by themselves, and by the merits of saints: and whether Christ has satisfied divine justice for them, or whether they must not satisfy for themselves, either in this world or in purgatory. Now she teaches one thing and then another: and after all, it turns out that she teaches nothing that can be depended upon: for every man is bound to receive all doctrine from the lips of his priest, though he should know him to be a man neither wiser nor better than himself."* It is in vain, then, for the Roman Catholic to urge, that there is greater certainty of faith in his church than in any other. He must receive her decisions, and must believe as she believes. It is not permitted him to imitate the Bereans, "to search the Scriptures whether these things be so." The im "The Protestant." plicit faith demanded of him requires the renunciation of reason-it is in direct opposition to the apostolic rule, " prove all things,-hold fast that which is good." The alleged apostolicity of the Romish church is pleaded as another evidence of her being, in an exclusive sense, the only true Catholic church. It is said, her priesthood have derived their ministerial authority in a direct line of succession from the apostles. If any one church more than another has reason to doubt this, it is the church of Rome. There were many great schisms in that church of long continuance, during which rival popes excommunicated each other, and at the same time each created cardinals and performed all the functions competent to the head of the church. "One at least of these heads (for there were three at one time) must necessarily have been false: all the spiritual functions derived from the false head must have been false likewise: the priests who derived their powers from such a source were no priests: the bishops consecrated in virtue of such authority were, no bishops; and all their ordinations were null and void; and no bishop or priest of the present day can prove that he is come of the right line: therefore all that they build upon the notion of their apostolical succession falls to the ground." If the apostolic succession be an essential mark of a true church, that of the British church stands on surer ground than that of Rome. Christianity, as will be hereafter shown, was planted in the British isles in the apostles' days. Her first bishops were ordained by the apostles, and an order of priesthood, deriving their spiritual authority from this source, has been kept up to the present day.* Against this unwarrantable assumption of the church of Rome, to be exclusively the true church of Christ, the church of England protests in her nineteenth Article, given at the head of this chapter. "The visible church of Christ," she declares, "is a congregation of faithful men, in which the pure word of God is preached, and the sacraments duly administered according to Christ's ordinance, in all those things that of necessity are requisite to the same." To this scriptural definition of the true church of Christ, the church of England adds her protest against the infallibility of the Romish church :-"As the church of Jerusalem, Alexandria, and Antioch have erred, so also the church of Rome hath erred, not only in their living and manner of ceremonies, but also in matters of faith." The church of England, unlike the church of Rome, recognizes all churches, wherever found, holding the truth in its purity, as so many members of that one visible and universal church, of which Christ is the supreme head. Thus, in the Apostles' Creed, she declares, "I believe in the holy catholic * See some remarks on this point in "Reasons for Attachment and Conformity to the Church of England," by the Author, p. 55. church." Thus also she prays "for the whole state of Christ's militant church here on earth;" that it would please God, "to inspire continually the universal church with the spirit of truth, unity, and concord, and to grant that all they that do confess his holy name may agree in the truth of his holy word, and live in unity, and godly love." Whereever she discovers a true branch of the church of Christ, she says in the true apostolic spirit, "Grace be with all them that love our Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity and in truth, both theirs and ours." The truth of these remarks will appear more fully from a few extracts from her homilies, and the writings of some of her most distinguished divines. The homily for Whitsunday declares" The true church is an universal congregation or fellowship of God's faithful and elect people, built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the head corner-stone." (Eph. ii.) "And it hath always three notes, or marks, whereby it is known pure and sound doctrine, the sacraments administered according to Christ's holy institution, and the right use of ecclesiastical discipline. This description of the church is agreeable both to the Scriptures of God, and also to the doctrine of the ancient Fathers, so that none may justly find fault therewith. Now, if you will compare this with the church of Rome, not as it was in the beginning, but as it is at present, and hath been for the space of nine hundred years and odd; you shall well perceive the state thereof to be so far wide from the nature of the true church, that nothing can be more. For neither are they built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, retaining the sound and pure doctrine of Christ Jesus; neither yet do they order the sacraments, or else the ecclesiastical keys, in such sort as he did first institute and ordain them; but have so intermingled their own traditions and inventions, by chopping and changing, by adding and plucking away, that now they may seem to be converted into a new guise; which thing being true, as all they which have any light of God's word must needs confess, we may well conclude, according to the rule of Augustine, that the bishops of Rome and their adherents are not the true church of Christ, much less then to be taken as chief heads and rulers of the same."* The Apology of Bishop Jewel, which received the sanction of convocation, and which was published by authority, as the declaration of the church of England, says: "We believe that there is one church of God, and that the same is not shut up (as in times past among the Jews) into some one corner or kingdom, but that it is catholic and universal, and dispersed throughout the whole world. So that there is now no nation which may truly complain that they be shut forth, and may not be one of the church and people of God: and that * Hom. xxviii. 2. |