cular kind of attention which belongs to them as being the part of our religious code which was produced when the Church was in actual and progressive operation, can hardly fail to be struck with the difference between their tone respecting the Ecclesia, or Church, and that of modern teachers in general. For what are our ideas of a Church? The Romanist, indeed, has for his part a conception which, upon other grounds, we may regard as either wholly or partially unscriptural; but which at least does not fall short in magnitude and importance of that which the Apostles appear to have entertained. But of those who are included in the wide designation of Protestants, one not inconsiderable sectarian portion regards each particular congregation as in the strictest and highest sense a Church; and holds that such a body should acknowledge on earth no authority superior to its own; and should, in its relations with other Churches, behave as a sovereign independent power. There is little room left, under these conditions, for attaching any palpable or substantive meaning to that ancient and venerable designation, so frequently recurring in our public services, "the Catholic Church."

17. But others of us, too, have our besetting sin in this matter: it is of an Erastian colour. These are too apt to view the Church as founded simply upon the law and will of the State, and as deriving its entire authority, and not only its civil rights and temporal jurisdiction, from that source. Many of us forget the undoubted historical fact, that the Church of Christ

had a vital and visible organisation of its own as a body, not only independent of, but long antecedent to, that of any now existing State with which it is in connection. Religion, indeed, as an individual concern, is not regarded by persons of this class as dependent on civil law; but then it is also considered very much as independent of and anterior to the Church. This they view as being in regard to individuals a sort of voluntary combination, not binding upon the conscience, but rather framed at their discretion upon grounds of Christian expediency; in regard to the governing power, an institution erected and proposed to the people for their use upon grounds both of duty and of policy, dispensing to the people certain truths and ordinances of Divine authority, but by a machinery which is of human sanction, and is subject to be varied or removed as human authority may resolve. I do not mention this as a theory formally drawn out, or consistent with itself; but as merely giving the sum of those vague impressions which exist, unexamined and unproved, yet practically influential, in many minds regarding the nature of the Church.

18. There cannot be a more marked illustration of the extreme laxity of our principles in this important respect than the very frequent use of the term Church as synonymous with the clergy, and of the phrase going into the Church, although this be not without the countenance of authority, as equivalent to receiving holy orders; whereas the candidate for holy orders is just as truly in the Church as their possessor. And

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yet it is probable that not only does this verbal fallacy circulate very commonly undetected, but that the simple consideration which suffices to expose it would not always be recognised with ease, as proposing a truth incapable of dispute. There are other uses of the word as inaccurate. We speak of going to church, meaning ordinarily no more than the Sunday service. "Is church over?" would be said for, "Is the service over?" This is not a mere verbal remark. Human language is the most copious and most accurate witness to human inconsistency and error: to it we, as it were, confide our secrets; we make it the depository of our thoughts, and, when subjected to patient and searching scrutiny, it reveals them such as they were given into its custody. The misuse of a term, in this and in ten thousand other instances, indicates a mental perversion. Here, for example, it is too closely connected with our individualism in religion, and indicates a sort of latent assumption that the Church has no permanent and corporate being of an independent kind, but only exists under particular conditions, or for particular seasons or functions, determinable by the will of individuals, and even as if depending on their local assemblages.

19. To show that the distinction taken in the last sentence is not unreal-for men will begin to deny what they have long forgotten or neglected-let us appeal to the nature of a family. That term indicates a bond of union, independent of and superior to the will of the persons composing it, and imposing obli

gations upon them towards one another which they are bound to fulfil. The actual fulfilment may be occasional; but the law of fulfilment, and the institution to which the law is attached, have a permanent existence. So, like the family, the Church entails upon us, who are her children and members, obligations belonging to us as such; which we are not at liberty to disregard-which are not limited as are in many cases the terms of a voluntary combination—which, though they may be brought out into positive and formal actions, only from time to time, yet retain a real and a perpetual existence.

20. Although, however, our prevailing tone on the subject of the Church be so low, that some regard it as little more than a sort of religious club, yet in the institutions of that portion of the communion of saints to which we of this nation claim to belong, we find all the evidences and guarantees of a high, living, and fruitful doctrine. The State may cripple her action as it had indeed heretofore done, and it has almost annihilated her discipline, which it seems now to feel the duty of reviving; but it was surely under her protest, for she every where asserts her own functions as a mother to us all. She provides for us the ordinary services of her Liturgy, intended to be to us as our daily bread,

La cotidiana manna

Senza la qual per quest 'aspro diserto

Di retro va chi più di gir s'affanna;

and she likewise furnishes those which are termed oc

* Purgatorio, xi. 13.

casional, which mark the grand stages and seasons of life, to be thereby claimed for God; and both these classes of religious office she requires to be observed, with unimpaired authority, though it may be with mutilated and insufficient influence and power.

21. Does then the character assigned in Scripture to the Church accord best with the lofty principle, or with the degenerate practice? In answering this question let us observe, in the first place, that throughout the Old Testament, God is pleased to foreshow his elect not as the sum of a certain number of individuals taken here and there out of the mass, for each of whom he designs and contrives individual salvation; but in their corporate character, either under some single and personal image, as the King's daughter of the Psalms, and the Beloved of the Canticles; or under the figure of an object of magnitude, as the mountain ; or of capacity to contain many, as the Lord's House, or the city of Jerusalem. The evident intention of all these kinds of figure is to draw us away from our spirit of self-regard, while the first of them specifically represents to us the intimacy of our union in the Church with the Redeemer; and the two latter our participation of character and privilege with many brethren.

22. If we look to the New Testament, in its very opening we find the coming dispensation always announced in its collective character. Repent ye," said the Baptist, "for the kingdom of heaven is at

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