Christian doctrine of the Resurrection. This asserts the 'resurrection of the flesh,' of 'this flesh,' as the Creed of Aquileia said. This humanity, this flesh of mine, which I received from my father and my mother, shall be raised. Being refined, and spiritualized, purified from all taint of sin and glorified, this body of flesh shall become and be forever the Glorified body, the Celestial and Spiritual body, wherewith the soul shall dwell forever, in the state of eternal happiness in Heaven, after the Judgment day. 'In my flesh I shall see God.'

6

"The Word moreover was made flesh and dwelt among us, and we saw His glory, the glory as of the Only-begotten, full of grace and truth." (John 1 and 14.) The reader can easily see by this last text, what a weighty doctrinal connection there is between the 'resurrection of the flesh' in the Creed, and "the Word made flesh," God manifest in the flesh,' in the New Testament; the doctrine of the Incarnation of our most blessed Lord, and that of the resurrection of man,- Deus caro factus,' and 'Carnis Resurrectio.' "Every spirit," says the meekest and loveliest in mind of all the Apostles, "that confesses that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh, is of God, and every spirit that confesses not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh, is not of God. This is that spirit of Anti-Christ which ye have heard that it should come." (1 John, iv. 2, 3.)

We have now done with our revision of the Prayer Book Versions of the Catholic Creeds of the East and West. And as we think that no scholar acquainted with the originals and with Church doctrine, but must say that the variations are noted with the utmost care and exactness, so we think that no Churchman in the United States will doubt the right we have, upon the grounds of ecclesiastical law and our national position, to correct from the originals, in our own Book of Common Prayer, the unwarrantable and wholly unauthorized changes which the Western Churches, Roman and English, have made in the most venerable apd authoritative Creeds of the Holy Catholic Church. The expediency of immediate action, and the various proprieties of procedure, as regards time and place, and circumstances, are capable of discussion; the right itself, is undoubted.

Furthermore, we can recommend to our laity these corrected Versions, both as exactly representing the original Creeds, and also as more definite and distinct in meaning, more intelligible, and less confused. So that, in them is clearly placed before the Christian intellect, that manifold and wide-extended system and plan of doctrine, wholly free from metaphysical speculation, and from all argumentation which, as a system perfectly corresponding to the written Revelation of Old and New Testament, the Catholic Church, uncorrupt, presented to her members at the time of Baptism.

For, the Creeds of the Catholic Church are the crown of her Liturgic system, the perfection and completion of it. In them, in the highest degree, Reason and Authority, Scripture and Tradition combine. In them, as living formulas, full of meaning, in the Primitive Church, all these were reconciled. But in the Latin Obedience, the Church became hostile to Reason, and an enemy to Scripture, after the peculiarly Papal Era began. And the State got to hate the Church, and dislike Authority. And therefore we have the European complications of doctrines and religious and political conflicts.

But in the Church, in this broad new land, given up as in early days to the study of Scripture, and yet employing as its rule and measure the Primitive Creeds ;-maintaining Authority and Law, moral and spiritual, with its utmost strength, and yet, as in the earliest time, never fearing to uphold both by Reason, in the Church having the Scriptures, the Creeds, and the Services used by all, in a language understood of all, men, women and children,-in Her alone, thus combining all these elements, do we see the hope that we may escape the convulsions of Europe for the past eight hundred years. To Her, therefore, in this land, do we present these Versions of the Catholic Creeds, as they were in primitive times in the Catholic Church, uncorrupted by the alterations and improvements of Rome or England.

ART. V.-REFORMATION IN THE CHURCH OF ITALY.

(1.) The Debates and Proceedings of the General Triennial Convention of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States. Held in Philadelphia, Pa., from Oct. 4th to 24th, 1865. pp. 385.

(2.) Eleventh Year's Report of the Anglo-Continental Society, for the year 1865. London: Rivingtons, Waterloo Place. 1865.

(3.) Circular of the Italian Church Reformation Fund. London, 1865.

(4.) The Contemporary Review for May, 1866. Alex. Strahan. London and New York. 1866.

(5.) L'Esaminatore foglio, periodico, inteso a promuovere la concordia fra la Religione e lo Stalo. Frienze.

(6.) L'Emancipatore Cattolico. Napoli.

It is recorded, on page 154 of the Report first above cited, that upon the tenth day of the General Convention, the Lower House received from the House of Bishops a message informing it of the passage of the following Resolution:

Resolved: The House of Clerical and Lay Deputies concurring, that this Convention learns with great satisfaction, by information from various sources, that there is much encouragement to hope for a return of the Italian Churches to the primitive purity of doctrine, discipline and worship, together with their revival in Christian liberty and zeal; and that it heartily sympathizes with the earnest members of those Churches, both of the clergy and laity, who are laboring to that effect; and that it humbly prays the Great Head of the Church to crown the efforts now making in that direction with His blessing.

Upon the next, or eleventh day of the Session, (see page 169,) this Resolution, together with the whole subject to which it referred and the papers which had brought it to the attention of the Convention, was referred to a Committee of Nine, of which the Rev. Dr. Higbee was Chairman.

On the sixteenth day, as recorded in full upon pages 303 to 317, the Rev. Dr. Mahan, on behalf of this Committee, presented a most favorable Report; and after a very animated discussion, the above Resolution, as transmitted from the Upper House, together with the following, was passed nem.

con.

Resolved: The House of Bishops concurring, that a Joint Committee of three from each House be appointed to sit during the recess of the Convention, with power to collect and diffuse information relative to the movement in Italy, looking towards a reformation of the Church therein, and to report to the next General Convention.

This latter Resolution having subsequently passed the Upper House, the Committee thus authorized was duly constituted by the appointment of the Rt. Rev. Bishops Whittingham, Bedell and Stevens, the Rev. Drs. Mahan and Montgomery, and the Rev. W. C. Langdon; and these have since associated with themselves, as representatives of the laity, the Hon. Washington Hunt and Mr. James S. Mackie.

This action on the part of the General Convention has not, so far as we are aware, attracted the attention of the Church to any considerable extent. And yet, if in the providence of God the religious movement now going on in the Church of Italy should eventuate in a pure, primitive and Catholic Reformation, such Resolutions as these will be invested with no common interest to the student of ecclesiastical and religious history. For if the hope of Italian reform be indeed well founded, and not a fond imagination, as some insist upon declaring it, it is an epoch in its gradually developing history when, first, a Church, assembled in its great National Council, formally placed on record their recognition of the fact, and expressed their sympathy with the aims of this movement; and also appointed a Joint Committee of the two Houses to give practical effect to that recognition, to watch the movement itself, and to inform the Church concerning its progress.

During the six months of their labors, this Committee have already collected information of the greatest interest; some of which, it is probable, is of such a nature that it cannot be made public; but much of which will doubtless be communicated to the Church at the earliest practicable day.

But, in the meantime, it may not be inappropriate for us— availing ourselves of the above papers and periodicals, as well as of information derived, in part, from the correspondence of the Committee to lay before our readers a few facts relative to and illustrating the present condition of this Reform movement, and the influences favorable and unfavorable to which it is at this time subjected.

Our readers will find some account of the earlier history of this movement in the Nos. of this Review for July and Oct. 1863, and July 1864. In these Articles, we distinguished between the several classes of would be Italian Reformers-the "Evangelicals" or Separatists; the Primitivists or internal religious reformers; and the Passagliani, or political reformers.

Upon the first of these it is not within our present scope to dwell. We will only state that being as much divided among themselves as are the various foreign agencies and instrumentalities which sustain them, they make progress chiefly among the lower and least influential classes; and, though very many of them, especially the Waldenses, are worthy of all respect for their fervent piety and earnest sincerity, they show thus far no grounds for our belief that they will exercise any important organic influence upon the solution of the great practical religious questions of the land and day.

Concerning the movement of Passaglia and his adherents, we may say, in the words of the well advised and sagacious Italian correspondent of the Guardian, that it has "at once failed and done harm by its failure to the cause it sought to promote." The causes of this failure are thus-most thoroughly as it seems to us-summed up by this writer :

"First, the movement was too purely clerical, and neither embodied nor therefore carried along with it sufficiently the lay element and the nation. Next, it was too restricted in its views, and while proclaiming the abolition of the temporal power of the Pope, and the reform of the discipline of the Church, it held up the prerogatives of the spiritual power to the extremest verge of the present Papal pretensions. Certainly no such limitations as that would satisfy the liberal and intelligent Catholic party of Italy at the present hour."

The Passaglian theory of Reform is then already a thing of the past; and it has only served as a stepping stone, by which