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ed, any such rank or authority in the church at large. But when the empire became Christian, and emperors began to bow down before the prelates of the church, then it soon came to pass that the bishop of the imperial city assumed a more extended power. And this assumption falling in with popular fancies and prejudices, the Roman bishop, when the imperial throne itself was removed from that city, became the leading person in that great metropolis. Then were the pretensions of that See daily enlarged, and as a basis for its vast assumptions, the fiction of St. Peter's primacy was invented, a fiction of which the Christian world, for three centuries after Christ's ascension, had never heard a syllable. Such are the simple facts of the case. And if the question is again put, whether Christ did not himself constitute and establish a visible church, we must of necessity reply, that if he did so, it must have been the church of Jerusalem, for, unquestionably, of the church of Rome he never uttered a single word.

Rom. I do not think you have grappled with the main feature of the case. The locality, the seat of authority and of unity may never have been denoted or fixed by Christ; but can you deny that he left behind him, as his representative on earth, a CHURCH, a body of men having authority both to teach and to decide doubtful points, and around which body it was the duty of all his faithful followers to collect themselves?

Prot. Again let us rather refer to the facts of the case, than to a theory constructed by our Own imaginations. It is unquestionably true, that when Christ left this earth, he did bequeath a certain authority, to a body of men whom he had himself selected and sent forth to preach his gospel, and whom he had also endowed with supernatural gifts and powers.

At this crisis, too, of the Church, the existence of such a living and speaking authority, evidently clothed with divine power and commission, was indispensably necessary, for this obvious reason-that the books of the New Testament were not then written. Not possessing, therefore, that Rule of Faith, by which the church is now safely guided and governed,-the Christians of those incipient days would have been, without some living and applicable source of authority, evidently open to every temptation of false doctrine that could be brought to bear upon them. We see, therefore, at once, why the existence of a body of men divinely commissioned, and bearing the visible tokens of this divine commission, was absolutely essential to the Church's establishment.

But the lapse of thirty or forty years worked a vast alteration. These divinely-inspired and immediately-commissioned servants of Christ were taught by the Spirit to commit to writing the wisdom which they had received from above. It was as much a part of their mission to form a fixed code and rule of faith for future ages, as it was to govern the churches which they themselves had gathered and constituted. They wrote, therefore, the New Testament, and then departed to their rest, leaving, as is by universal consent admitted, no successors invested with equal powers or equal authority.

It follows, then, that if we would hear the Apostles actually speaking, not through the clouded medium or in the doubtful and diluted language of tradition, or of erring human interpreters, but in their own written works; we must take up the New Testament itself, and rule our faith and conduct by its decisions. And may I not ask which of the two classes are really paying the most genuine respect to the mission and the appointment of Christ; we, who, acknowledging

his authority, speaking through his own selected servants, accept their writings as our rule; or they who prefer to lay aside or overrule these inspired records, in favour of certain fallible human beings, bishops and cardinals, and the like, merely because these men claim to be lineally in succession to the apostles, although wholly destitute of all these qualifications which commanded our reverence in Christ's own selected messengers.

Try this by illustration. The writings of the apostles are called "The New Testament of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ." Now ask yourself what in common usage is the power of a Will or Testament, and what the power of the executors of that will?

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not every one know that the Rule in every such case must be the Will itself, not the notions of the executors. And if any question arises, that question can only concern this one point, What says the will, what is its intent and meaning? Nor is such question left to the executors themselves, but is always referred to a third party. The office of the executor is merely ministerial; he is not to add to, or take from, the original Testament, even in the least point or fraction. The Will itself is the Rule, which governs and decides every thing. Just so is it in the present case. The ministers of the New Testament have no power to alter or amend that document; they are to take it as it stands, without cavil or exception.

Rom. But you admit that when any passage or direction appears doubtful, the appointed court must be resorted to for an authoritative interpretation. Now that is all that we claim in the case of the Sacred Scriptures. We say that the Church is such court; and that it was founded and empowered to act in that capacity by Christ himself.

Prot. Nay, you must allow me

to correct you in this statement. Your church does claim more than a mere power to interpret: she claims a further and much greater power-namely, to add to the document itself. This is a power never yet granted to any executor, and it is a power which, if conceded, necessarily makes the Testament itself just what the executor chooses.

But the assumption of a right to interpret authoritatively is in itself objectionable. And the objection lies here—that the same party claims to be both executor and judge. The Church of Rome assumes that the Testament of Christ gives her very great powers and privileges. This, to many eyes, is not apparent on the face of the document. Aye, but, says this same Church of Rome, I am appointed by that same Testament, the authoritative interpreter of the Testament, and I pronounce that such is the meaning of the passages in question.

What should we say of a judge in equity, who first claimed a certain property under a will, which will to other peoples' eyes, made no such bequest; and then sat in his court to decide this very question, and to give judgment in his own favour!

Inq. Well, but where do you yourself lodge this power of interpretation; supposing questions of difficulty to arise in the perusal of the document?

Prot. I can only reply to this by drawing your attention to the distinction between the two cases, and to the impossibility of reaching, by any human illustration, the case of divine things.

Human beings, men and women, make wills and testaments. They are all of them poor fallible creatures, often unfit for the duty, and not unseldom attempting it when disabled by disease. It follows of necessity that such documents are frequently found to be full of errors

and faults; and thus a court of appeal becomes necessary; in order to instruct and authorize executors how to proceed.

But the New Testament is the work of an Omniscient Mind. And it was designed, as we are plainly told, for the instruction of all mankind. It approaches to blasphemy, therefore, to compare it with human and fallible productions, or to speak of it as not intelligible to those for whose use it is written. A ministerial duty, it is true, there is-but that duty consists in the large and liberal publication of its contents, and the explanation of its meaning by the studied comparison of one part with another ;-never by fastening upon it meanings of an arbitrary and foreign character, imported into it, and not belonging to it. Never must it be forgotten, that perfection is its attribute, and that all addition to it is expressly, and under the highest penalties, forbidden.

Rom. But are we not wandering from the question? My demand of you was, whether Christ did not establish a visible church, to which perpetuity was to belong; and whether that church was to be found any where, but in our communion?

Prot. I may, perhaps, have seemed to digress, but my argument was to this purport: that Christ did indeed give to his apostles certain extraordinary powers; a special commission; and supernatural gifts, as a sign of that commission: That during their lifetime these men wrote and spoke with Divine authority, manifestly appearing in their works; and by virtue of that authority they founded many churches, and wrote certain books, which collectively form the New Testament.

My argument then went to this point-that as it is admitted on all hands that their miraculous powers ceased with them; and as

no successors, manifesting a similar commission by similar gifts, have ever appeared, it follows that the unerring guidance which they were enabled to give, during their lives, by their personal instructions, must now be sought in their inspired writings;-writings, in fact, which we know to have been intended for this very purpose. "I will endeavour," says St. Peter, "that ye may be able after my decease to have these things always in remembrance." (2 Peter i. 15.) Thus we have, in these writings, an infallible guide, especially provided for our use; while in the mere fallible human beings, who, whether at Rome or elsewhere, stand where the apostles have stood before them, we have, as we well know, nothing but weak and erring men, often misled and misleading; sometimes even wicked and hating God and his church.

Rom. But still you do not come to the point-Did Christ constitute a church or not?

Prot. I will very shortly answer you, and I hope distinctly. He ordained and sent forth his apostles to preach the gospel in all lands, and to form churches in various kingdoms; which are so spoken of in the epistles, as "the church at Corinth ;"- -"the churches of Galatia;" "the church of the Thessalonians," and sundry others. These are all visible churches, known by territorial designations, and including within themselves all sorts of characters, genuine and counterfeit. There is, however, a general or universal church spoken of in various places in the New Testament, as the " body" of Christ, (Ephes. i. 22.) as that for which Christ" gave himself," (Ephes. v. 25.) and as a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle, or any such thing," (Ephes. v. 27.) a description which certainly has never belonged to any visible church that the world has yet

seen.

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Rom. Why not to ours?

Prot. Nay, for that I refer you to Cardinal Baronius, who of one period, A. D. 912, says, ، What was then the face of the holy Roman church? How exceedingly foul was it, when most powerful, and sordid, and abandoned women ruled at Rome,' &c. I repeat, therefore, that those expressions in Scripture which refer to a general or universal church, the spouse Christ, speak of an invisible church, consisting of all those who sincerely believe in him, and cling to him, whether in Tartary, in London, in Taheite, or in any other part of the world.

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Rom. And you mean thus to get rid of the idea of one, united, Catholic Church! But what do you say to the xvth of Acts, in which there is most clearly a central body, an admitted and acknowledged authority, knitting together in union and oneness of feeling and principle, all the various scattered provincial churches of the apostolic days.

Prot. That chapter is perfectly consistent with the view I have already given. The college of apostles being then at Jerusalem, (not at Rome,) and there being no New Testament to guide the infant churches, they naturally and necessarily sent up to Jerusalem, to the apostles, whenever any doubt arose. But the apostles died, and left no successors in their apostolic authority; but they left the New Testament in their room. Consequently the churches ceased to send to Jerusalem for decisions; as for sending to Rome, that was never thought of for a century at least after this.

Ing. What conclusion, then, do we come to, this morning. You deny that Christ founded one, sole, visible church.

Prot. I see it nowhere in the New Testament; and I find it no where in Ecclesiastical history. In the apostolical writings, we merely

meet with a great number of churches in various lands and kingdoms, and we find also that to the decrees and orders of the apostles, all these churches were subject. But we hear nothing of their subjection even to the church of Jerusalem, much less to that of Rome, which was not even founded until many years after. And in Ecclesiastical history, we find indeed, that about the year 193, Victor, then bishop of Rome, assumed to himself the power of fixing the period of Easter, but instead of any such authority being conceded to him, he was sharply reprehended by the brightest light of that time, Iræneus, and his decrees set at nought, through the greater part of Christendom. Not in either Scripture, then, nor in what is called

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Antiquity,' in its purest and best days, do we find any trace of this one, universal, and visible church.

Rom. But consider, I beg of you, in what a helpless predicament does this hypothesis of yours leave the church at large. How unlikely that Christ should have deliberately left his disciples, in all after-ages, destitute of authoritative guidance and direction, when it was so easy, as in our Church has been shown, to establish a centre of unity and authority in that apostolic college, of which we find such clear traces in the Acts of the Apostles.

Prot. I have before observed, that it is useless, and therefore idle and almost criminal, to indulge in speculations of this kind, when we have both God's own word, and the records of antiquity to boot, to instruct us as to what He was actually pleased to decide upon doing in this matter. Let us again glance at these two sources of truth, not so much for what we shall there find, as for the fullest evidence of the want of all support for your hypothesis. You must certainly admit, that if one visible church, ruled over by one

central authority, had been established by Christ, there must have been some distinct and visible traces of it, both in the writings of the apostles, and the records of their Acts; and also in the history of the church during the first two centuries. And it is on the utter silence of both these sources of information that I rely, as establishing my arguments, that this visible church, and this central authority, are nothing but an human invention, constructed in some later period.

Inq. I thought you referred, just now, to a college of apostles at Jerusalem.

Prot. I did so; and had we a college of apostles, or any other body of men who could raise the dead to life, sitting on earth at the present moment, I would not for an instant hesitate to admit their authority. But between a college of inspired men, selected and sent forth by Christ himself, and evidencing their divine commission by their miraculous power, and a college of Cardinals, named by

court intrigues, characterized by every shade of folly and of crime, and possessing neither infallibility in their decisions, nor power in their actions, there is a difference as wide as between heaven and earth.

But I must protest against being supposed to admit the Church of Christ to be left in a desolate and helpless condition. I am not arguing against the authority of the apostles of Christ, but for it. All that they were inspired to teach men, they have left us in the New Testament, and in the study of that unerring guide, we have also the promise of the Holy Spirit's teaching. What I protest against, is the desertion of this, the only really apostolic authority, for human decisions and opinions, whether of Fathers, or Councils, or Popes, or Bishops. I cling to that apostolic code, touching the character of which there is no doubt, and refuse to admit the jarring and controverted claims of men, to be placed in competition with it.

REMINISCENCES.

WELL may I guess and feel
Why Autumn should be glad,
But vernal airs should sorrow heal;
Spring should be gay and glad.

No. I.

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our native parish in the West Riding.

I accompanied him to Hastings -he did not wish to go, for he felt a firm persuasion that change of climate would bring no change to him, but the removal from earth to heaven, to which he so ardently looked forward; and on leaving the scene of his childhood and ministerial exertions, he felt that he had looked his last, and that the eye of those that saw and sorrowed over the departure of their friend and their pastor, would see him no more, until the awful

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