of this statement can of course be advanced. There is no visible element in this sacrament, but consists of the acts of the penitent, that is, "contrition, confession, and satisfaction." The form of words is the priestly absolution pronounced on confession, which claims its authority from our Lord's words to St. Peter, Matt. xvi. 19.

Extreme Unction. "The matter is oil consecrated by the Bishop." "The form is the word and that solemn prayer used by the priest at each anointing." "It having been shown that extreme unction is truly and properly to be numbered among the sacraments (by the assertion and decree of the Church alone), it also follows that it derives its institution from Christ our Lord." As the Church of Rome has decreed this to be a sacrament, our Saviour must have ordained it as such, though when or how cannot be found in Scripture. The fallacy of such reasoning needs no comment.

Holy Orders. "Comprising as the ministry does, many gradations and various functions, and disposed as all these gradations and functions are, with regularity, it is appropriately and suitably called the Sacrament of Order." "The Bishop, handing to him who is being ordained priest, a cup containing wine and water, and a paten with bread, says: Receive the power of offering sacrifice, &c., by which words the Church hath always taught, that whilst the matter is presented, the power of consecrating the Eucharist is conferred." This is

the only definition of the "Sacrament of Order," contained in the Tridentine decrees.

Matrimony. The Council of Trent merely asserts that marriage "received the dignity of a sacrament from Christ," and interprets "mystery" as "sacrament," in Eph. v. 32. It explains nothing further as to its institution, matter, or form. In Dens' Theologia it is stated, "So far as matrimony is a sacrament, it was instituted by Christ our Lord, as the Council of Trent hath laid down, but when this was, does not appear certain." The question is discussed, what is the matter and form of this sacrament? To this there are two answers, depending on the further question, Who is the priest of this sacrament? If as some say the officiating priest— which is the general opinion, the matter is said to be "the surrender of bodily rights to one another," the form the declaration of the priest, "I join you in matrimony in the name of the Trinity." Some however hold that the officiating priests are the contracting parties. In this case, the matter is "the signs of consent," with which the mutual surrender is made, the form the words spoken by them. The former is however, the most commonly received interpretation.

It is obvious that the Catechism entirely fails to prove that any of the above five so-called sacraments were instituted by our Lord, and therefore to authorise and uphold them she is forced to fall back on her usual arbitrary decrees.

Our Homily on Common Prayer says of these, that "No man ought to take them for sacraments, in such signification and meaning as the sacraments of Baptism and the Lord's Supper are."

This Article gives the reason, "for that they have not any visible sign or ceremony ordained of God." Thus in the plainest manner rejecting the Tridentine statements quoted above.

The last paragraph evidently refers to the second sacrament, in allusion to the custom of the Medieval Church of reservation and elevation of the Host, a practice by the Reformers strictly condemned, and of which more hereafter. The sacraments are to be taken as meant by Christ, receiving them in reverent faith, for only thus can we "duly use them," that they may have a "wholesome effect or operation." "For as the benefit is great if with a true penitent heart and lively faith we receive that Holy Sacrament, . . . so is the danger great if we receive the same unworthily; for then we are guilty of the Body and Blood of Christ our Saviour; we eat and drink our own damnation, not considering the Lord's Body." This exhortation and our Article refer to the warning addressed by St. Paul to the Corinthian Church. The word here rendered "damnation” is in the original, "judgment," and does not allude to eternal condemnation, but that judgment and chastisement we incur if we lightly and without due preparation, approach those holy mysteries; or thoughtlessly receive the sacred symbols

of Christ's passion and death without accepting the conditions on which alone may we be partakers of the benefits purchased then for us.

Let us so often as we draw near the Holy Table, do so in faith, receiving that Holy Sacrament to our comfort, seeing in it the true memorials of Christ's dying love, in obedience to His command, "Do this in remembrance of Me."

The Twenty-sixth Article of 1552 on this subject was as follows: "Our Lord Jesus Christ hath knit together a company of new people with sacraments, most few in number, most easy to be kept, most excellent in signification, as is Baptism and the Lord's Supper. The sacraments were not ordained of Christ to be gazed upon, or to be carried about, but that we should duly use them.

"And in such only as worthily receive the same, they have a wholesome effect and operation, and yet not that of the work wrought, as some men speak, which word as it is strange and unknown to Holy Scripture, so it engendereth no godly, but a very superstitious sense. But they that receive the sacraments unworthily purchase to themselves damnation, as St. Paul saith." Then followed what is the first paragraph of the present Article.

ARTICLE XXVI.-" Of the Unworthiness of the Ministers, which hinders not the effect of the Sacrament.”

This contains a protest against the doctrine of the Church of Rome, which teaches that in celebrating the "sacrifice of the Mass," the priest must perform it "with intention," or the transubstantiation does not take place, but the elements remain in their natural substance. This "intention" being absolutely necessary to the consecration, and no man being able to see the intents of the heart of another, no communicant of the Church of Rome can be sure whether he have really been a partaker at the altar, or by lack of intention on the part of the priest, the elements have remained unchanged, and therefore in worshipping them the would-be communicant is but an idolater. The Church herself confesses this to be one of the "defects in the Mass."

Now our Church, proceeding on the principle that in this, as all other means of grace, Christ deals directly with the individual soul without any human intervention, denounces this doctrine practically in the present Article, though not alluding to it by name. She confesses that in the visible Church as a mixed community of wheat and tares, "as with the people so with the priests," there will ever be those who are not members of Christ's invisible kingdom, and perhaps they may be among