of the OF ENGLAND Mm, i This book was digitized by Microsoft Corporation in cooperation with Yale University Library, 2008. You may not reproduce this digitized copy of the book for any purpose other than for scholarship, research, educational, or, in limited quantity, personal use. You may not distribute or provide access to this digitized copy (or modified or partial versions of it) for commercial purposes. THE APPEAL OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND THE APPEAL OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND: AN EXAMINATION OF OUR PRINCIPLES AND POSITIONS IN THE LIGHT OF HISTORY. BY J» Arthur Walton. WITH A PREFACE BY HENRY WACE, D.D., Dean of Canterbury. Jton&on : DOVER STREET BOOK STORE, 8, Dover Street, Piccadilly, W. 1905. Felix, qui potuit mum cognoscere causas. Suave etiam belli certamina magna tueri Per campos instructa, tua sine parte pericli ; Sed nil dulcius est bene quam munita tenere Edita doctrina sapientum templa serena. (preface. I CANNOT but offer a few words of preface to these interesting pages, if only in acknowledgment of the generosity towards myself with which Mr. Galton has endeavoured to elucidate that Appeal of the Reformed Church of England to the Early Church, to which I recently called attention. As he shows, an Appeal to the First Six Centuries, against the perversions of the Roman Church, was character istic of our Divines in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, from Jewel, perhaps the most Protestant of them all, to Cosin, perhaps the most Catholic in his sympathies. The Preface to the Prayer Book is a sufficient witness to the broad fact that, subject to the Scriptures, the Church of England appeals to the example of the primitive Church ; and there is a continuous witness from her chief Divines, during the century of the Reformation settlement, that the times they regarded for these purposes as v. +9 (preface. primitive were those of the First Six Centuries ; or that, as the Lower House of the Convocation of Canterbury said last February, "the appeal to anti quity may rightly be interpreted as an appeal to the general practice of the Catholic Church in the First Six Centuries." Mr. Galton, in the following pages, has done us the service of examining and illustrating the mean ing and the limits of this Appeal. He has shown that it does not mean, and never could have meant, that every practice that found any countenance in those centuries ought to be regarded as admissible within the Church of England. That admissibility must depend not only on the conformity of such practices to Scripture, in the more exact apprehen sion of it which we now possess, but also on their suitability to the needs and habits of a society more than a thousand years later than those centuries, on the manner in which later history and practice may have coloured primitive customs and conse quently altered their character, and on the practical consideration of those " diversities of countries, . vi. (preface. &» times, arid men's manners," of which our Church expressly claims the right to take account. The very customs themselves require to be considered, not merely in their external aspect, but in their spirit, and in their relation to the times in which they prevailed, as well as in respect to the degree of countenance they received from the ecclesiastical authorities of the day. There are, in fact, certain broad aspects of the Appeal, such as those specified by Jewel, which at once exclude the characteristic principles and prac tices of the later Roman Church, together with those approximations to them, which have of late become too prevalent among ourselves. But the application of the principle to less obvious points is a matter for much learning and good judgment ; and the positive side of the Appeal simply admits primitive practices for consideration, subject to the authority of Scripture, the general principles of our Church, and the practical needs of our generation. What our leading Divines evidently felt, as is clearly illustrated in Cosin's important tract on vii. «•§ (preface. "The Catholic Religion of the Realm of Eng land," was that the example of those six cen turies afforded adequate scope for the various tendencies, Catholic as well as Protestant, which must always have their place in a National and established Church, and that the appeal could not be safely extended to a later date. Mr. Galton shows in how remarkable a manner this judgment of our Divines is supported by all that has since. been learned of the course of history after primi tive times. On the basis thus laid down, they sus tained successfully a prolonged conflict with the ablest Roman Catholic controversialists ; and the best proof of the justice of their position is that Rome, in order to maintain her own position, has been obliged to assert a claim to enforce doctrines not known or not recognized in primitive times, and to establish methods of government, and practices of ritual, equally unknown to them. The sum of the matter is that members of the English Church have a right to claim the applica tion of the principles on which our great Divines viii. (preface. s» based the Reformation settlement ; and an Appeal to the First Six Centuries, subject to the safe guards just mentioned, is one of those principles. Some among us, perhaps, would prefer a wider appeal, while others would prefer a narrower ; but if we are to be true to our history, and fair to one another, we cannot escape from the appeal which was actually made ; and that Appeal is the one which is here elucidated by Mr. Galton, with so much learning and with such experienced judgment. Henry Wace. The Deanery, Canterbury, September, 1905. t$t ilppeae of t%t Cfat$ of <£ns ZU Jtppeaf of $e chiefly a want of depth and thoroughness in our knowledge of history, a laxity and confusion in our theology, and a misapprehension of our first principles, which have caused the surprise and alarm with which the Dean's proposals have been received. It may be advisable, then, before we commit our selves to his policy, to examine, first of all, the nature and origin of the Appeal itself. As I have pointed out, the Dean's policy is not original. The Appeal to the First Six Centuries was made origin ally in a definite form by Bishop Jewel in a sermon preached at Paul's Cross during November, 1559, and repeated in the Lent of 1560. Jewel's words are as follows, and as they have been more talked about than quoted, it will be a good thing to have them before us in detail : "If any learned man in all our adversaries," he said, " or if all the learned men that be alive be able to bring any one sufficient sentence out of any old Catholic doctor or father, or out of any old general council, or out of the holy scriptures of God, or any one example of the primitive church, whereby it may be clearly and plainly proved that there was any private mass in the whole world at that time, for the space of six hundred years after Christ ; or that there was then any communion ministered unto the people under one kind; or that the people had their common fcflurcfl of (gngftmo. $©. prayers then in a strange tongue, that they under stood not ; or that the bishop of Rome was then called an universal bishop, or the head of the uni versal church ; or that the people were then taught to believe that Christ's body is really, substantially, corporally, carnally, or naturally in the sacrament ; or that his body is or may be in a thousand places or mo, at one time ; or that the priest did then hold up the sacrament over his head ; or that the people did then fall down and worship it with godly honour ; of that the sacrament was then, or now ought to be, hanged up under a canopy ; or that in the sacrament, after the words of consecration, there remaineth only the accidents and shows, with out the substance of bread and wine ; or that the priest then divided the sacrament in three parts, and afterward received himself all alone ; or that who soever had said the sacrament is a figure, a pledge, a token, or a remembrance of Christ's body, had therefore been judged for an heretic ; or that it was lawful then to have thirty, twenty, fifteen, ten, or five masses said in one church, in one day ; or that images were then set up in the churches, to the intent that people might worship them ; or that the lay people was then forbidden to read the word of God in their own tongue : If any man alive were able to prove any of these articles, by any one clear cr +s ZU cHypeaf of ffle plain clause or sentence, either of the scriptures, or of the old doctors, or of any old general council, or by any example of the primitive church ; I promised them that I would give over and subscribe unto him." Jewel's challenge, then, may be reduced briefly to four main points. First, he challenges the papal authority and jurisdiction. Secondly, he challenges material notions of the eucharist, with some of their logical consequences. Thirdly, he challenges the restriction of scripture and public worship to a tongue not understood by the majority of people. Fourthly, he challenges the devotional use of images. None of these things, he says, can be proved or justified, either by the warrant of scripture, or by the patristic writings, or by the authority of early councils, or by the customs of the primitive church. The witness of the First Six Centuries is against the existence of all these beliefs and practices. With regard to the first of Jewel's main points, viz., the papal authority, two definite assertions are made. Before the period mentioned by Jewel, the bishop of Rome was not called an universal bishop, and did not claim to be head of the universal church. The truth of these two assertions can be proved by the evidence of the Pope himself. Gregory I., who was bishop of Rome from 590 to Cflurcfl of gngggno. &. 604, denounced the title of universal bishop, which had been claimed by the patriarch of Constantinople, and he renounced it in the most emphatic words for himself and his successors. Nothing is clearer from early church history than that the various patriarchs, of whom the Roman was one, had co ordinate powers, and that each of them was indepen dent of all the others within his own jurisdiction. There was no episcopal head or chief of the univer sal church. It is surely most significant that when the civilized world, both east and west, had one supreme and central government, and was prac tically one realm or state, and when the Roman patriarch, as bishop of the imperial metropolis, might naturally have asserted his primacy or even his spiritual jurisdiction over all the churches, we hear nothing of the papal prerogatives and claims. If the papacy had been known to the early church as a divine institution, the natural time for inaugur ating, formulating, and organizing its full powers would have been that period which came between the so-called conversion of Constantine and the establishment of his new capital, i.e., while the whole Empire and all the churches were practically united, before new political and ecclesiastical arrangements had emphasised the radical and in evitable differences between the Hellenistic and the <•* Z%t QlppeaE of tU Latinised provinces of the Roman world. So far from using that natural opportunity to inaugurate the papacy on a constitutional basis, while political and ecclesiastical conditions were so eminently favourable for that purpose, the rulers and church men of those days enlarged and reconstructed the patriarchal system. Not a word about the papacy, directly or indirectly, is to be found in the writings of that period. The explanation of so decisive a fact, of so significant a silence, of so suggestive a procedure, rests with the advocates and apologists of the mediaeval and modern papacy. In the fourth century, so far as the church had any supreme administrative authority or head, the Emperor occu pied that place. We must remember, also, that the term " universal " is inaccurate and misleading when applied to the church of the fourth century. For deliberative and administrative purposes, the so- called catholic church of that age was limited by the frontiers of the Roman Empire. The term catholic, in its Greek sense of " universal," is still more inaccurate when it is applied to the western medi aeval churches of the seventh century, and onwards ; that is, to the local or missionary churches of the few small and barbarous inhabitants, not yet nations, who were scattered through some parts of what is now modern Europe. Moreover, the age of the four 6 Cgurcfl of (gna-fanb. $» great councils was a time when the Royal Supre macy, if we anticipate a later phrase, or the Supre macy of the State, was more influential in adminis trative, and even in theological affairs, than during any other period of church history. Furthermore, it hardly requires proving that the papacy itself differed, both practically and theoretically, after Gregory VII., from the Roman bishopric and patri archate before Gregory I. So far, then, as the papacy is concerned, those facts upon which Jewel's challenge rests must be accepted by all controver sialists, whether they be papal or anti-papal ; and, with regard to the other points, as we intend to show in due course, the papal authority is the key to the whole position. If the lawfulness of papal autho rity could be established, Jewel's appeal to the First Six Centuries would not be necessarily the end of controversy ; for we should then have to reckon with a power exterior and even superior to scripture and all other records. If that authority cannot be estab lished, then Jewel's appeal to scripture and antiquity is decisive in all fundamental questions which can be imposed as necessary articles of belief, or as lawful matters of discipline and practice. To test this principle, let us take the second point covered by Jewel's challenge, viz., material notions of the eucharist, with some of the logical, theo- «•? ZU (gypeag of logical, and devotional consequences which have resulted from holding them. Jewel, in his challenge, enumerates five matters of belief and practice, which, he says, cannot be established by an examination of the First Six Centuries. They are, first, private masses, or public masses in which the celebrant com municates alone ; secondly, communion of the laity in one kind ; thirdly, the multiplication of masses " in one church, in one day " ; fourthly, a corporal and carnal presence of Christ in the eucharistic elements, involving " only the accidents and shows, without the substance of bread and wine " ; fifthly, the elevation and adoration of the eucharistic ele ments, their reservation, " under a canopy," for pur poses of worship, involving a belief that the body of Christ is " in a thousand places, or mo, at one time." All these beliefs and practices, together with the later customs of processions, exposition and benediction, are consequences, quite logical as I think, from those material notions of the eucharist which may be described shortly, and summed up, as trans-substantiation. Now, trans-substantiation was only defined in the thirteenth century, viz., by Innocent III., in the year 1 21 5-16, at the fourth council of the Lateran. It was only after that date, which is comparatively modern in the long record of Christianity, that those 8 Cflttrcfl of t*t of Innocent III. (1198-1216), Boniface VIII. (1294- 1303), the council of Trent (1545-64). Beyond that limit we need not go for our present purposes ; though we must remember that the papacy pro ceeded on its logical development to the Vatican decrees of 1870, and is proceeding still. By the term papal, then, I mean those developments in doctrine, practice, and jurisdiction which prevailed in the Latin churches between the death of Gregory I. and the creed of Pius IV. The terms primitive and papal do not, and cannot over-lap. They are as exclusive of one another in time, as they are contrary to one another in spirit, practice, belief, and organization. The term mediaeval is far more difficult to fix, both at its beginning and its end. When do the middle ages really begin ? From some points of view, and with regard to the most important of human concerns, that old civilization, the product of Greek and Hellenistic thought, which was ex tended into the east by Alexander, and established in the west by Roman law and organization, must be held to have culminated with Marcus Aurelius Antoninus. At any rate, its decline is clearly discernible after his death, and onwards. From another point of view, and to suit our present pur pose, it may be more convenient to take a later period and a more striking event, and to say that the medi- 18 fcffwrcfl of (Bngfgnb. s» seval world began with the sack of Rome in the fifth century, and with the practical destruction of the western Empire, as a Roman institution. This event, with its deplorable consequences to learning and civilization, caused that decadence in theology which we describe as mediaeval, or as mediaevalism ; and these two causes, uniting in their political and theo logical effects, produced the papacy. The terms papal and mediaeval are thus practically synonymous, for theological purposes, from the seventh century to the sixteenth. It is no less difficult to say when the middle ages end. Some writers would exclude the eleventh century from them ; others, the twelfth and thirteenth : accepting them all as periods of recon struction. No hard and fast line, however can be drawn either in time or in mental progress ; for that revival of knowledge and of civic life, which dissi pated what we mean distinctively by mediaevalism and feudalism, was producing its fruit in Italy long before the more barbarous northerners were able to appreciate its effects. For the sake of convenience, we may assume that the middle ages ended when the revival of learning, the discovery of the new world, the circulation of printed books, and the reformation, had changed the intellectual, political, or ecclesiastical state of certain European countries. In ecclesiastical affairs the council of Trent separates 19 +$ ZU ffippeg? cf tU the papal church as clearly from the Latin churches of the middle ages as the reformation in Germany or Switzerland separated the churches in those countries. It is true, no doubt, that the council of Trent adopted and systematised the mediaeval errors in theology, choosing to follow in the steps of Inno cent III., while the protestant reformers repudiated mediaevalism, and aimed at a return to primitive Christianity. Nevertheless, the atmosphere and aims of the Roman Court after the council of Trent are palpably different from those of the papacy during the middle ages and the renaissance. Perhaps the informing spirit of the new papacy was derived too much from Loyola and Machiavelli, and too little from the authorities and models of the early church. Having examined the papal church in the middle ages, having challenged some of its theological innovations and their consequences, let us examine in turn the early church itself, and try to demon strate, so far as we can, its fundamental constitu tions and beliefs. If we go back for two or three hundred years within our Six Centuries, i.e., to a period from the middle of the third century to the middle of the fourth, we find, at all events in the towns, Christian communities administered by bishops. Those bishops were more properly local 20 fcflurcfl of (gncrftmo. s+ than territorial, because the city or the municipality was invariably the basis of Graeco-Roman communi ties. Every church, i.e., every aggregate or congre gation of Christian families, probably had its bishop ; and every bishop was associated in counsel and administration with his presbyters or elders, of whom he was the president, differing from them rather in rank and function than in nature. Bishops were elected by their congregations. As the church became extended and organized, and still more after its recognition by the State, the episcopal system was developed. The bishops' jurisdiction became gradually territorial or diocesan, and parishes were formed round, and even within, the cities. Dioceses were grouped together under archbishops and metro politans, who were arranged still further under the great patriarchs. Each of these patriarchs was independent of all the others, and was supreme ecclesiastically within his own limits. There was no question of a papacy, which is excluded by the patriarchal theory and organization of the church. Every bishop, too, so far as episcopal rights and functions went, was supreme in his own diocese. The church was a confederation of dioceses, rest ing on a democratic basis ; but, as an organization, the church and all its members were subject to the Imperial supremacy. When the origins of episco- -*? ZU ffippeaf of pacy are discussed, it must not be forgotten that the ecclesiastical organization of the Roman Em perors followed the organization of the civil govern ment. The civitas or city was the germ of episcopal administration and jurisdiction. In the beginning, only the larger towns, the c'vuitates, had a bishop and a church. The municipia, or smaller towns, and the surrounding districts, were slower to accept the new religion, and their people depended for religious ministrations upon their more important and progressive neighbours. The primacy of cities and large towns was the origin of the later and territorial dioceses, as well as of hierarchical pre cedence. Those important cities, which had a flamen or an arch-priest of Rome and Augustus, became the seats of archbishops under the new settlement of religion. The lesser cities had their bishops. The ecclesiastical province, or aggregation of dioceses, corresponded to the Roman civil province ; and groups of provinces were subordinated again to metropolitans and patriarchs. In many countries, as in France up to 1789, the ecclesiastical boundaries corresponded very nearly to the civil and adminis trative boundaries of Roman times ; and thus the church was in a real way the continuation of the Empire. In England, " the drums and tramplings " of many conquests and re-settlements disarranged Cfltircfl of (gnq-fatto. s» the old scheme of civil and ecclesiastical adminis tration. The functions of the Christian ministry, and the influence upon it of the Graeco-Roman collegia, of the burial and social clubs, of the Jewish synagogues and their organization, take us into other lines of antiquarian interest and enquiry, which we need not follow out. The beliefs of the church, at any rate in the fourth century, are formulated in the Nicene creed. The dependence of the church on scripture, the recognition of scripture as the rule of faith and practice, as the ultimate arbiter of controversy and the only valid source of theology, is shown decisively by the official declarations of the Nicene council, and by all that we know of its proceedings. They are precisely the relations which are expressed in the sixth, the twentieth, and the twenty-first of our own Articles. To that state of things, so far as fundamental beliefs, practice, and organization are concerned, our reformers, including Henry VIII. and high-churchmen like Norfolk and Gardiner, wished the Church of England to return. They made a due allowance, however, as all statesmen must, for changed conditions, times, and points of view. We can see this, amongst other evidence, in the preface to the commination service. In the fundamentals, then, of belief and practice, in the 23 «•? ZU (^ppegf of relations between church and State, in the relations between scripture and the church, the English reformers deliberately rejected mediaeval and papal standards, while they as deliberately chose primitive standards of belief and organization, according to the several meanings which are attached to those terms in this inquiry. Although the attitude of the Fathers and of the primitive church towards holy scripture is undeni able, both from their own writings and from official declarations, yet the relative positions of the church and scripture are so often confused, or even sophisti cated, that it may be well to expose three errors or fallacies which are utilised too commonly by some theologians, and accepted too easily by their audi tors and followers. For a proper relation between scripture and the church is vital to Christianity, and it is the corner-stone of our Anglican position. The errors or fallacies which I mean are concerned with the precedence, the authorship, and the accept ance of the books in the canon of the New Testa ment. The first error is about their precedence, or their relative position to the church. It is argued, frequently, that the church preceded the New Testa ment in time ; and that, in consequence, scripture must always be secondary and subordinate to the church. This assertion is partly true, but neverthe- 24 Eflurcfl of (Bngfrmo. £» less the conclusion is wholly fallacious. The fal lacy consists in a palpable misuse or straining of the term church ; and the whole statement ignores one factor in the problem, which makes an essential difference to the conclusion. It is true that the first witnesses and messengers of the gospel went into the Graeco-Roman world without any written mes sage or credentials, beyond the Septuagint. Natur ally, they did not write Letters until they had some one to write to, and something to write about. Memoirs of the Master were not composed until time and distance had made such writing necessary. The foundation of the churches could not be re corded until some of them were founded. Nothing, however, except writings accepted as original, could take the place and authority of the original wit nesses. Teachers of the second generation, and later, could not possibly be as authoritative as " eye witnesses from the beginning." Writings by those eye-witnesses, or coming down through them, must be superior to any authority of a later time, even to the whole church officially and collectively. This is true of all historical evidence, and of all institutions. It is not less true of the church and of its primary documents. As long as the church militant contained the living writers of the New Testament, we may argue that it did not depend, 25 +9 ZU (gppeaf of tU as every later age has done, upon their writings. The appeal would» then be to the authors, rather than to their books. But when those authors, and the other eye-witnesses, and the first generation of disciples had all passed away, another state of things began, and it has continued ever since. The church which contained the living authors of the New Testament is a very different thing from the church which no longer contains them ; and it is a logical fallacy to use the term church without realizing this vital difference. The truest repre sentatives and successors of the apostles are their writings. This truth was felt and acknowledged by the Fathers and the primitive church. The depar ture of original and living witnesses both altered and settled finally the relative position of scripture and the church. That position was obscured and outraged in the middle ages, especially by Boniface VIII. It was recovered and re-stated by our reformers, and it is both the foundation and the justification of our ecclesiastical and theological system. It is true, then, that the " fellowship of the apostles " and the earliest Christian societies pre ceded the New Testament in time ; but the apostolic writings, rather than any ecclesiastical or ministerial succession, now occupy the place and authority of the writers ; and this fact vitiates the common 26 fcflurcfl of dSttg-ftmb. j» deduction of Romanists and sacerdotalists that the authority and message of the church must always take precedence of the message and authority of scripture. The second error is concerned with the authorship of the New Testament. It is often stated, by Roman and sacerdotal controversialists, that the church wrote the books of the New Testament. Here, again, the fallacy is in a wrong or dubious usage of the term church. It is undeniably true that the books of the New Testament were written by members of the church ; and that those writers were influenced by their environment, by the times and circumstances in which they lived. So far, we can say that the books of the New Testament were pro duced by the church during the century after Christ's death ; just as we might say that the works of Plato, Sophocles, Thucydides were produced by the conditions and environment of Periclean Athens, or the works of our great dramatists by Elizabethan England : but, as it would be wholly untrue to say that Queen Elizabeth's government wrote the Shakes pearean plays, or that any official body of Athenians wrote the history and poetry and philosophy of the authors whom I named, so it is wholly untrue to say that the church, in any corporate and official capacity, wrote the New Testament. 27 -«? ZU (Appeal of tU The third error is concerned with the acceptance of the New Testament books. It is perpetually stated, by Roman and sacerdotal controversialists, that the church has given us the canon or list of books, and that therefore her authority must be superior and exterior to the books themselves. This is a positive and naked error, which does not rise to the dubious honour of a fallacy. If we go back to the earliest canons or lists of books, we find that they are attributed to influential and competent scholars, such as Origen. The next stages in the fixing of a canon were the drawing up of lists by local churches, for their own use, and then by ecclesi astical assemblies for diocesan and provincial use. The so-called council of Carthage, which is quoted so often as having settled the canon for the church, was in reality nothing more than a diocesan or pro vincial synod, and it had no authority to speak for the universal church. No council, in fact, which is admitted to be ecumenical, has ever defined the canon authoritatively ; just as no ecclesiastical authority has ever ventured to impose any definite scheme or theory of inspiration. The early canons, it must be remembered, whether of individual scholars, or of local churches, or of ecclesiastical assemblies, differed from one another. The fixing of the canon was gradual and tentative. The pro- 28 Eflurcfl of sents to us the religion of the times so clearly and with such detail, that of no other age, in its spiritual aspect, may we be said to know so much." These words are from the Dublin Review for April, 1905 ; and the writer of them, in an article upon " The First Six Centuries and the Church of England," under takes to prove that there is very little in common between our church as it exists now and the church during those First Six Centuries. The main point of his contention is that the rjdos and practice of English, or at any rate of Anglican, Christianity in this twentieth century is different in many respects from the practice and rjdos of Christians in the primitive church. I am disposed to agree with him entirely, so far as various matters in his argument are concerned. Other matters, I think he mis-states ; and others, again, he very significantly overlooks. With regard to the first kind of beliefs and prac tices, viz., those in which I accept the arguments of the Dublin Reviewer, I should go on to say, first, that I not only allow the differences which he points out, but that I am glad they exist so clearly as to be unmistakable. Secondly, I would say that such differences are inevitable, for various reasons which I will explain presently. These differences, in themselves, may be classified under several heads. The Dublin Reviewer points especially to the sign 31 -©? ZU (%ppegf of tU of the cross, to the invocation of Saints, the venera tion of relics, the position of the Virgin Mary. With regard to the cross, he quotes the well-known sentences of Tertullian, describing the frequency and familiarity of its use among the Christians of his time. Other quotations and stories mention its uses in battle, its healing powers, and other similar curiosities, which are not matters of experience now, even to Roman Catholics ; and St. Basil is quoted as saying that its use comes " down from the Apostles." Now with regard to all these habits and opinions, we must admit the quotations made by the Reviewer. The attitude of popular Christianity in the third and fourth centuries, and later, both towards the sign of the cross and the veneration of relics, was what he describes. But, as we must remem ber, that attitude and those usages must be ascribed not to apostolical authority and practice, of which there is no evidence, but to the mental atmosphere and the general beliefs of those ages. Religion is not a thing merely in the air. Nor is it, like a philo sophical theory, an affair of books and speculation. It is a practical matter which, if it is to have any influence, must live and work in human beings: and those human beings are subject, inevitably, to their environment ; to the intellectual, social, politi cal circumstances in which they live. Just as we 32 Eflurcg of (gngggnb. s» cannot understand or explain mediaeval theology and church life without allowing for all the bar barism, conquest, re-settlement, and lamentable ignorance of antiquity, through which the peoples of the middle ages had to pass, so, in like manner, we must understand the intellectual, social, and political conditions of the decadent Roman Empire, between the third century and the sixth, before we can make any true or discriminating estimate of popular Christianity as we find it recorded in those times. The intellectual decadence of the Roman Empire and its inhabitants from the end of the second century and onwards is indisputable. Litera ture and all the other arts were merely imitative. In those important spheres of activity men were living on the past, and had ceased to be creative. History, philosophy, poetry, were corrupted and emasculated by rhetoric. The pursuit of the natural sciences was vitiated by mysticism, superstition, and credulity. A belief in magic had invaded all classes, and adulterated all religions. Popular Christianity, as distinguished from official Christi anity, was by no means free from this taint. Criti cism, i.e., the critical and scientific spirit as applied to literature, history, institutions, and the laws of nature, did not exist. Jurisprudence alone was flourishing and progressive amid the decay of all 33 c ¦•s ZU (Kppegf of tU other liberal pursuits. It was under such conditions as these that Christianity was allied with the State, arid became more and more a popular religion. To anyone who knows the social and intellectual con ditions of that period, between the end of the second century and the end of the sixth, the use of the cross, the attitude towards saints and martyrs, the veneration of relics, and other similar beliefs and habits, recorded in the literature of the time, and commended by the Dublin Reviewer, are precisely what might be expected. The Fathers themselves, even the best of them, are not free from the influ ence and the defects of the time in which they lived, nor are the great writers who were exterior to the church. What we can say is that the essential beliefs and practices of Christianity came through those decadent and evil times unscathed ; and that we do not find the defects and superstition of those times either adopted then, or laid upon us, by any official authority. They are not in the creeds or the canons of the church. When the Dublin Re viewer, then, points to certain practices and opinions as belonging to the First Six Centuries, but as not existing among Anglicans to-day, we are pleased to agree with him. We must point out, however, first that these things are not essential to Christi anity, since they are not scriptural ; and secondly 34 Cflurcfl of (Bttgftmo. $» that they are due, all of them, much less to Christi anity than to the environment in which Christianity found itself in those ages. And certainly we shall go on to say that so far as such practices and modes of thought survive now in certain forms and organi zations of Christianity, those organizations them selves are survivals of an intellectual and social con dition which is no longer ours. To a large degree, also, such survivals are quite unnatural and artificial. In the atmosphere of convents, or of schools under conventual management, a superstitious and timor ous attitude towards relics, holy water, the sign of the cross, and other such things can be and is main tained. It is maintained also among the Russian peasantry. But this attitude cannot be imputed to educated and enlightened Roman Catholics, al though the shadowy form of the old beliefs may still be used. How many educated men among the Roman clergy, it might be asked, really accept, if they ponder and take words seriously, that view of the spiritual and material world which is implied in the exorcism of salt, the blessing of holy water, and in many other forms contained in the Rituale Romanum, that strange survival from ages which believed in demonology and magic. I said, secondly, that the Dublin Reviewer had mis-stated certain things in our Anglican belief. Like nearly all 35 <*§¦ ZU (%ppegE of tU Roman controversialists, it suits him to confuse the real presence with trans-substantiation, which is only a mode, and an innovating, a fumbling mode, of trying to explain the eucharist. The Reviewer says our ministers and " laity put down belief in the real presence." Nothing can be clearer than that both our formularies and our authori tative writers assert and safeguard a belief in the real presence. Cranmer was burned for deny ing trans-substantiation ; but he believed, neverthe less, in the real presence. " I do as plainly speak as I can," he wrote once, " that Christ's body and blood be given to us indeed, yet not corporally and carnally, but spiritually and effectually." If the Dublin Reviewer will read our authorities and formularies without bias, he may ascertain their belief in the real presence, and their agreement with the primitive church. He will also find that modern Romanism with its eucharistic beliefs and practices, and its theory of trans-substantiation, is not in agreement with the primitive church. In this matter, the whole onus of explaining the difference between the primitive church and the existing papal church is thrown upon the Roman advocates ; and, in this case, the difference affects an essential or funda mental belief. Canon Bigg has written lately, in a charming and an admirable essay, " Many writers, 36 Cflwrcfl of (gngfgnb. s» including the late Lord Acton, have spoken in language of the strongest reprehension of the super stition of the early Church. It begins about the middle of the third century ; we see it first distinctly in Cyprian, Novatian, and Gregory Thaumaturgus ; and in the fourth century it is very strongly marked." Again he says, of its credulity : " It is a grave intel lectual blot ; it was worse perhaps in the West than in the East ; it clouded the judgment and affected the doctrine of the Church, though not in essential points." And then he goes on to discuss how the practice and thought of the church in those times were infected by various heathen customs, adopted often as a means of edification, or for missionary purposes, but with unhappy results. To these in fluences we must attribute the use of holy water, of lights, of incense, of a great deal of the cere monial which grew up round the eucharist, and also to various uses or mis-uses of the eucharistic elements which are always superstitious, and sometimes re volting. We must remember, again, that none of these things come to us recommended by universal custom or official authority. Some of them are later than the period with which we are concerned. Many of them, e.g., the use of images, are condemned severely by writers who saw that mis-use begin ning. All these aspects of the matter, we repeat, 37 •o? ZU (gppeaf of tU must be considered when the literature and practice of the First Six Centuries are discussed ; and the Dublin Reviewer has, evidently, not con sidered them. He writes as though men in this twentieth century were precisely the same as men under the decadence of the Roman Empire. Our contention is that they are different, intellectually, socially, politically. Our whole outlook upon the universe and its laws is different. Our notions of God and of the divine order have, of necessity, gone through some corresponding changes and re adjustments. " Omnes dii gentium daemonia," says the Vulgate rendering of the 95th Psalm. We do not understand daemonia as " devils," in the medi aeval sense. Neither do we make it equivalent to daipovis in the Greek meaning. Our knowledge about the growth of religions and institutions leads us to other, perhaps to wiser, certainly to more charitable conclusions. But we must not forget the notions about daemons or divine powers which were prevalent in the early centuries, and which were un doubtedly transferred to saints, martyrs, angels, and personages in the celestial hierarchy of the Christians. These, then, are some of the points on which we would advise the Dublin Reviewer to meditate. With regard to vestments, we refer him to archaelogical remains, so far as they exist, and 33 fcflurcff of (Bngftwo. &» to ^written authorities. In the former, we find ecclesiastics represented in the garments of Roman civil life, and they kept to these garments after the barbarian conquests. All the ecclesiastical vest ments were probably modifications of the Roman civil dress, which became conventionalised through popular disuse and liturgical conservatism, just as the clerical tonsure became conventional on the lawyer's wig, and as the wig itself is the conven tional and attenuated form of what was once a prevailing and splendid fashion. In later times, symbolical meanings were attached to the conven tional vestments ; but the eucharistic vestments of the mediaeval and papal church were either sur vivals of ordinary Roman dress, or they were additions, some of them as late as the ninth cen tury, and they do not therefore come within our period. The question of vestments has been discussed more recently, in the " Times," in a slip-shod and inaccu rate manner, which is lamentable in so refined a scholar as Canon Bigg. He has maintained, first of all, that ecclesiastical vestments were originally nothing more than the ordinary civil dress of the later Empire. In saying this, Canon Bigg is assuredly right. But, when he goes on to say that the ordinary civil dress, which in time became con- 39 •©-J ZU (Appegg of tU ventional, and so acquired a liturgical sanctity, has in our days no doctrinal signification, and that a chasuble is nothing more than " an old great-coat," we cannot but think he is entirely wrong, besides being not a little mischievous and silly. As we have just remarked, mystical and symbolical mean ings were attached to the sacerdotal vestments in the later middle ages ; and Canon Bigg would know this if he had studied any liturgical authori ties. Doctrinal meanings and associations were also connected with the eucharistic vestments ; because the symbolism, of which we have spoken, would have been meaningless without the material and sacri ficial notions which were a consequence of the belief in trans-substantiation. Whatever, then, the eucharistic vestments may have been originally, they are now much more than a survival of Roman civil and official dress, and they cannot be regarded as indifferently as " an old great-coat." There is also, apparently, some confusion as to what the eucharistic vestments really are, even in the minds of those who have more zeal for ritual than knowledge about the correct and historical use of it. The cope, according to Roman usages which go back at any rate to the fifteenth century, is, we maintain, not an eucharistic vestment at all. The chasuble is the sacrificial vestment of the Roman 40 Cflurcfl of (gngftmo. j» church. If high mass should be preceded by the asferges, a cope would properly be worn for that ceremony, and it would be exchanged for a chasuble when the mass began. If mass should be followed by any ceremonial, such as benediction, or the abso lutions in a requiem, the chasuble would be taken off at the end of mass, and replaced by a cope. It is true that a cope is used at benediction and in processions of the sacrament, but a humeral veil is always worn over the cope on those occasions, and it is with the veil that the utensil containing the eucharistic elements is handled or covered. The chasuble, then, and not the cope is the sacrificial and eucharistic vestment A cope is merely a vest ment of ceremonial dignity. It is never used by the celebrant in a sacrificial service. It has no doc trinal or symbolical associations. It was with a full knowledge of these usages, as we may think, that the cope was retained by our reformed church, as a vestment of ceremonial dignity, in certain places of worship, where such dignity is becoming ; and the cope might be used more generally than it has been of late, subject to lawful authority, without any fear of doctrinal innovation or retrogression. The chasuble and maniple, which are the two exclusively eucharistic vestments, i.e., the two vestments used only at the mass, and worn only by the celebrant, 41 +§ ZU (Appegf of tU are not found earlier than the end of the eighth century or the beginning of the ninth, as distinct and recognized ecclesiastical ornaments. They are, therefore, ruled out of this Appeal by their date. Whatever claims they may have cannot be founded on usage within our Six Centuries. The chasuble was the ordinary cloak or, as Canon Bigg describes it, the " great-coat," of the fifth century. It only became an exclusively ministerial vestment in the ninth, and it was only after the decree of trans- substantiation that sacrificial and symbolic mean ings were attached to it. For nearly seven hundred years, then, with all due respect to Canon Bigg, the chasuble has been something more than a Roman peasant's cloak, or a modern great-coat. The genesis of the maniple is obscure. Its usage is cer tainly not older than the eighth century. It has no practical use ; but it has a symbolical meaning, and it is worn only during the sacrificial act. But, turning from all these exterior and ephemeral things, which do not affect the essentials and funda mentals of Christianity, we can say that the creeds and the organization of the church, from the fourth century to the end of the sixth are perfectly clear. There is no controversy about them. And we may ask the Dublin Reviewer, first, why do the organiza tion, the jurisdiction, the whole government of the 42 fcflurcff of 6ttgggn6. g» Roman curia and the papacy differ from anything which we can trace, even indirectly or in germ, during the First Six Centuries? Why, again, does not the Roman church of the present day find the Nicene creed sufficient to express its particular beliefs? How is it that when a convert is received, when a doctor's degree is given, when any solemn profes sion of faith has to be made, it is not the creed of Nicaea which is required, but the creed of Pius IV. ? This very significant fact shows how far the papal church has moved from the beliefs of the of the First Six Centuries. We wonder what Clement of Alexandria and Jerome would say if they were asked to subscribe the beliefs of Trent. Even that creed, made only in the sixteenth century, does not cover the newer and important dogmas which were manufactured in the nineteenth. The difference shown by the creeds of Nicaea and Trent, moreover, do not affect merely exterior and epheme ral things. They go to the root of our whole con ception of the church, of its government, of its relation to scripture, as well as to matters of essen tial and fundamental belief. The questions raised by the differences between these two creeds, and by the necessity for the later one, are as important as any of the points in Jewel's challenge ; and cer tainly they are quite as difficult for a Romanist to 43 +s ZU (^ppeag of answer. A Romanist may, indeed, answer this diffi culty as he would answer Jewel, by begging the question, i.e., by appealing to the papal authority against scripture and church history ; but without that authority, to which no Anglican has any law ful or logical recourse, there is no way of escaping from these dilemmas, or of justifying these innova tions. The theology of the fourth Lateran council, the theology and conception of the church expressed in the creed of Pius IV., are only available for those who accept the papal authority as supreme in all matters of theological controversy and ecclesiastical organization. I described the literature of the First Six Centuries as a maze or labyrinth. The Dublin Reviewer has been serviceable and timely in pro viding us with a clue for exploring that maze, and exposing some of its mysteries. He has enabled us, perhaps, to clear our thought with regard to that old period and its obscurities. He has forced us to enlarge our point of view, to examine the prevailing thought and customs of the period which we are discussing, instead of isolating its theology and ecclesiastical affairs, as is too commonly done, from their en vironment and from the human beings by whom they were so gravely influenced. Let me say these two things to the Dublin Reviewer, as I thank him for the most useful illustrations 44 fcflurcff of (gngfano. &>. with which he has provided us. First, that we are not able any longer, in these days of scien tific history and rigorous examination, to accept as final such statements as that the sign of the cross comes down from the apostles, even when they are made by men whom we revere justly, like Basil. Though we may revere such men and the bulk of their writing, we do not accept any state ment of theirs as historical or authoritative unless it be in agreement with accepted facts, or confirmed by external evidence. We either disbelieve such statements, or we suspend our judgment. Neither can our attitude towards ancient writers be that of Cosin, when he says we respect the Fathers of the first five centuries " because they were men of learning and piety, whose testimony was sealed in many cases by their blood." Their learning we respect, indeed, so far as it is sound, and we revere their piety ; but our whole way of looking at his torical questions, our standards of evidence, our loyalty to truth and accuracy, make us hesitate to accept martyrdom as a criterion of accuracy. Martyr dom is a proof of courage, of zeal, of confidence in the opinions for which a martyr dies. Surely it is no proof whatever that those opinions are correct or true ; because opinions, causes, religions, even theologies and politics, which we 45 -*? ZU (^ppegg of tU should all admit to be palpably untrue, have never theless produced their martyrs. Neither martyrdom nor canonization makes any man infallible in his tory and scholarship. We do not, then, accept any authority blindly, nor mistake heat for light. The day for such unscientific thinking is over. Secondly, among the obsolete or superstitious practices of the early centuries, there are some which concern the eucharist. We read of it, for instance, as conveyed from the holy table to the sick who could not attend communion ; and we note the difference between this practice and the modern reservation of the elements for use without any connexion with a communion service. Again, we read of the eucharist as being sent from one person to another, in a token of good will or of communion ; and we cannot conceive of such a practice being either allowed or wished by Christians who are driven logically to all the scrupu losities and terrors involved in trans-substantiation. We even read of the eucharist being placed in the mouths of the dead, and still less is this compatible with the modern belief in trans-substantiation. What we do not read of during the First Six Cen turies are reservation for purposes of worship, pro cessions of the eucharistic elements, benediction, exposition, elevation in the communion service. To all such things, those early centuries would have 46 fcfltcrcff of (gngggnfr. s- been too easily inclined. Their notions of worship would have led to them very naturally, if they had held that belief which alone can suggest such prac tices and give them a meaning. These practices, as we know, are not found earlier than the thir teenth century, if so early. They were consequences of the decree of trans-substantiation in 1215. That they are not found in the primitive church is an additional proof that trans-substantiation was not held then. It is quite certain that the real presence was held then, as it is held in the Church of Eng land now. With these remarks about the creeds, about the eucharist, about church polity, and govern ment, we may take our leave of the Dublin Reviewer, pointing out to him that the Church of England is still satisfied with the Nicene creed, since it still expresses her fundamental beliefs ; that the ancient ordinals and liturgies still contain her beliefs about the eucharist and the ministry, though they do not satisfy modern papal standards ; and that she has not yet been able to find the papacy, as the Reviewer understands it, in the constitution or the creeds of the early church. Thus far, in our consideration of church history, we have examined the various points set forth by Jewel in his challenge. Those points which refer to the eucharist and eucharistic practices have all 47 «os ZU (^ppegg of tU been traced, in their origin, to the ninth century, when they were formulated as a novelty by Pas- chasius Radbert. They reached a more definite stage, both of growth and of acceptance, in the eleventh century, when Gregory VII. condemned Berengarius for challenging the material views of Radbert. Those material views of the eucharist reached their final stage of definition when Inno cent III. issued his decree of trans-substantiation in 12 1 5. From that time onwards material notions of the eucharist were developed still further, and took a practical form in devotions and liturgies. The eucharistic liturgy and the ordination services were so altered as to express the new beliefs, and thus we find ourselves in the two centuries which preceded the reformation. Our English reformation has been described as an appeal to sound scholarship. To understand the full sense and bearing of this expression, we must go beyond the eucharistic errors of the middle ages, and set before ourselves very briefly the whole state of the mediaeval world. As it would be im possible to understand many things in the primitive church and its literature without examining the intellectual, political, and social conditions of the Roman Empire, in which that church lived and had its being ; so, if we would understand and explain 48 fcflurcff of Sttgggno. s» the mediaeval churches of the west, we must take into account the human beings who composed them, and the whole environment of the society by which they were of necessity influenced. It is a common place of ecclesiastical historians that the church made the nations of the middle ages, and this is one aspect of a truth ; but it is also true that the people and society of the middle ages, to a very large extent, made the mediaeval church : at any rate, they made it what it was, they were the cause of its distinguishing features ; and it is these features which we must now examine and explain, if we wish to understand the theology and the church govern ment of the middle ages. In the fifth and sixth centuries, the Roman Empire was practically broken up. It was divided sharply into east and west, into its Greek and Latin elements. The east, including also north Africa, was conquered and settled by the Arabians. Three of the great patriarchal sees were destroyed, and the patriarchal constitution of the church came to an end. The western Empire was invaded, conquered, over-run, and resettled more or less, by barbarians. The bishops under the Roman Empire had been civil officers, recognized by the State. The organization of the church had been adapted to the civil and civic administration of the Emperors. The new society was military. 49 D «*? ZU Jlppegg of tU Its chiefs were conquerors. Its people were soldiers. The nation was the army. Its organization was feudal : that is, it was based on military service, on the tenure and defence of land. As the church made its way under these conditions, it became feudalized too. Bishoprics became baronies. Bishops were not only barons, but often barons in full armour. The sword and the crozier were in the same hands : mitres and helmets were on the same heads. Church towers were beacons and for tresses. In due time there were military Orders, which would have been most astonishing of all to those Christians of the third and fourth centuries, who fled into the desert or the cloister to escape their civil and military duties. The mediaeval church, then, was literally the church militant. That is one aspect of it which we must not over look ; and the feudal character of the Church had a great deal to do with the development and organi zation of the later mediaeval papacy. The ideal church of Gregory VII. and Innocent III. was a copy of that feudalized Empire, which was to them the culmination of human society and government. So far, then, for the body and outward fabric of the mediaeval church, for its constitution and legisla tion. Its mental equipment, its theology, must now be accounted for. In the first place, it was cut off 50 Cflttrcfl of (Kitq-ggno. s+ from the east, and therefore from Greek, the original tongue of Christianity, even in the west, and the chief treasury of its literature. The Greek Fathers were unknown in the original ; and if known second-hand, they existed only in fragmentary and often falsified translations. Acts of councils were very much in the same bad case. Thus the history and antiquities of the early church were also lost to the middle ages. Scripture, again, was only known in a Latin version. The greater part of the best Latin authors were unknown, and the still more precious inheritance of Greek thought and art was lost. The two saving elements of society were first the essentials of Christianity, which were handed on through the evil time ; and the splendid inherit ance of Roman law, which modified and humanised feudalism. It was among such conditions as these that the mediaeval churches of the west grew up. It was only these conditions which made the evolu tion of the papacy attainable. Things were at their worst between the sixth century and the ninth. It was precisely during this period, as we have seen, that the papal and mediaeval theology were germi nating, and that material notions of the eucharist began to circulate. The starting point of the medi aeval papacy was unsound. Its theology was viti ated at the source. It is impossible, without seeming 5i -g ZU ^ppegg of tU prejudiced and excessive, to describe the ignorance, the superstition, the puerilities, the false and ludic rous notions of the universe, which prevailed in those literally dark ages. The western church was most ignorant at the very time it was evolving the notion of its theological infallibility, i.e., when it was least of all competent to decide matters of scriptural and theological controversy. The light did not begin to shine again until the classical revival, until a know ledge of antiquity was being recovered. It is a mis take to limit that revival and its effects to the literature and arts of Greece and Rome, or to what is described superficially and incorrectly as pagan ism. Christian antiquity, which had also been lost, was recovered as well. The effect was almost in stantaneous. Quite early in the revival, Lorenzo Valla (1406-57) challenged the papal claims and ex posed the forgeries by which the mediaeval churches had been deceived, and the papacy constructed. By the end of the fifteenth century, thoughtful men had realized the distinction between the medi aeval church and the primitive. Our own reformers took their stand upon that distinction. They appealed to the primitive church, to catholic anti quity, against the usurpations and errors of the existing papal system. This is the meaning of our Anglican appeal to sound scholarship. It is similar, 52 fcflwcfl of (Sttq-ggnb. &. in principle, to Jewel's Appeal to the First Six Cen turies. The only difference is in details. Jewel's appeal is confined to certain specific points ; though, as we must remember, these points go to the root of the whole controversy between the papacy and the reformation, between the primitive church and the mediaeval, between catholic antiquity and western misconceptions in the dark ages. Jewel's two main points, as I have explained, are first the papal authority, and secondly those eucharistic notions and practices which we may sum up as Lateranism ; since they themselves, and all their logical developments, rest solely upon the definition by Innocent III. in 121 5. With regard to the papal authority and claims, there can be no dispute among loyal and instructed members of the Church of England. Our church has no reason to deny the primacy of Rome, i.e., the veneration and the precedence due to the Roman patriarch, from the history, the former position, and the antiquity of his bishopric. What it does chal lenge and repudiate is the lawfulness of those claims and usurpations which make up the papal supre macy and jurisdiction, as they were conceived and enforced from Gregory VII. onwards. These claims violate the older constitution of the church. They are incompatible with the freedom and sovereignty 53 *>? ZU ^ppegg of of the civil government. Their invalidity and unlaw fulness were exposed to the western churches in the fifteenth century, and the reformation of the sixteenth century was a consequence of that ex posure. By the oriental churches the petrine and papal claims had never been accepted. They were repudiated by our nation and church, thanks to. the strong and conservative policy of Henry VIII. Neither our church in its corporate capacity, nor any private member of it, can admit the papal claims without stultifying our reformation, and being untrue to our historical and theological posi tion. Our position may be right or wrong : that is an open question for neutrals and opponents. But, granting our position, there can be no doubt as to the logical consequences resulting from it. We can not, without stultifying ourselves and incriminating our spiritual ancestors, make any compromise with the existing papacy, either in the matter of jurisdic tion, or with respect to its material and mediaeval teaching about the eucharist. Surely the same line of reasoning holds good for all other theological opinions and practices which depend solely on the Pope's authority for their guarantee. Among such opinions are the current teaching about the sacra ment of penance and the priesthood itself. All these opinions, in their existing form, can be shown 54 fcflurcfl of (gngggno. s©. to be not earlier than the thirteenth century. Some of them are considerably later. Even in germ, those material notions of the eucharist, which were defined in 121 5, cannot be found earlier than the second quarter of the ninth century. Berengarius was condemned by Gregory VII. for questioning those notions, although he showed that the material views and teaching of Paschasius Radbert were in compatible with the writings of the earlier Fathers and with the old standards of belief. That condem nation shows both the depth of mediaeval ignorance and the height of papal usurpation. It also shows the impassable barrier which that ignorance and arrogance had set up between the more learned and liberal orthodoxy of the Greek Fathers and the narrower system of the mediaeval schoolmen. That difference was perceived by a few thinkers through out the middle ages, even before the revival of learning and the exposure of the papal claims. It was made clearer to the theologians of the sixteenth century by the larger knowledge which was acces sible to them. Our own still wider knowledge, our more scientific methods in history and criticism, should compel us to reject these doctrines even more thoroughly than they were rejected four centuries ago. The Learning which rejected them at that time was New. For us it is no longer New, but has 55 <•$ ZU (^ppegg of tU been tried and proved, and the results obtained by it have grown more certain and unassailable with the progress of time and scholarship. It is not progress, but reaction and retrogression to adopt once more those mediaeval errors which depend solely on the acceptance of papal authority, and which even our predecessors of the sixteenth century saw clearly were not catholic. Since then, we have come to understand antiquity and church history much better. Indeed, the traditional methods and material of controversy between the churches are to a large extent obsolete. This change has been effected by the enlargement of our knowledge, by our more exact and rigorous methods of applying it, by the scientific spirit, by sounder theories of criticism, by wider and truer notions of history. All these things have produced a corresponding and necessary change in our point of view. Our church was reformed and refounded upon sound scholar ship in the sixteenth century, as we have seen. That scholarship compelled us to reject a great deal of papal and mediaeval theology as neither catholic nor primitive. Since then scholarship has become more accurate and sound. It has enlarged its domain and improved its methods. The result has been to vindicate the learning and conclusions of our best divines. Their opinions about church 56 fcflurcfl of