temptation to reject it, without any consideration at all; and therefore requires such an attentive exercise of the virtuous principle, seriously to consider that evidence as there would be no occasion for, but for such temptation. And the supposed doubtfulness of its evidence, after it has been in some sort considered, affords opportunity to an unfair mind, of explaining away, and deceitfully hiding from itself, that evidence which it might see." And so it is in the case we are considering. Were there an infallible authority in the existing Church to solve, at once, whatever doubts or difficulties might arise in matters of faith, there would be no scope for the exercise of those qualities by which the moral character is disciplined and improved. If it can be clearly proved from Scripture that God intended to establish such a tribunal, we bow, of course, to the divine will; but it is the height of presumption to say that it ought to be so, and therefore is so. From what has been said, it appears that it is not desirable it should be so. God has given us certain means whereby we may arrive at a knowledge of his will; certain aids by which we may interpret Scripture; but they are not of such a kind as to supersede our own diligence, not of such a kind as to be independent of the state of heart of the inquirer. To discover divine truth, patient inquiry, comparing Scripture with Scripture, observing what the Church has ever held—a balancing of arguments, a candid and conscientious mind, and above all, the guidance of the Holy Spirit-are indispensably necessary. There is no shorter road by which we may lay our doubts at rest.

We

are assured that if a man diligently uses these means he shall be led, not to the solution of every difficulty in his mind, but to all essential truth. On the other hand, it is very easy for a prejudiced, unhumbled mind to miss the truth altogether. The possibility this is what constitutes the inquirer's moral probation. It was thus, and for the same reason, that Christ spake to the Pharisees in parables; that, in the strong language

of Scripture, "seeing they might not see, and hearing they might not understand." He thereby tested the moral disposition of his hearers. The meaning of the parable would be clear to all who, with prepared hearts, and humble dispositions, sought for it; but it would not force itself upon reluctant or contemptuous minds, so as to preclude all possibility of its escaping them. Divine truth was, to a certain extent, concealed under a veil, and they who would appropriate the treasure, were obliged to search diligently for it. In like manner, unless we come to the inquiry with a humble, teachable mind, unless we make use of all the subsidiary aids which God has given us for the understanding of his word, unless we seek for the true key which opens the Scriptures, viz., the indwelling in our hearts of the same spirit who dictated them, we cannot expect a successful issue. The Romish doctrine of an infallible judge of controversies in the Church, supersedes and nullifies this moral probation; and in so doing, independently of being destitute of Scriptural foundation, runs counter to the analogies furnished both by the moral and intellectual world.

But, it is alleged, the Catholic Church "is that sacred institution which taught mankind the faith and practice of the Gospel long before Bibles were circulated-nay even before the canon of Scripture was fixed;" and again, "the Catholic Church collated and put her seal on the canon of Scripture.”* Here we have another of those hackneyed common-places which, though a thousand times exposed and refuted, the Church of Rome is ever producing afresh, in order to catch the ignorant and unwary. The Church of Christ existed before the Scriptures -nothing can be more true. The Church was brought into existence through the preaching of the Apostles or Apostolical men; and as long as they survived, the living word, which issued from their lips, was amply sufficient to build up Christians in their holy faith. The Apostles could,

*Convert's Letter already referred to

with the authority belonging to inspiration, decide upon whatever questions, and correct whatever errors, might from time to time arise in the Church. And could they have transferred their powers to others, had there been a real apostolical succession, the Church might have gone on, as it did for sometime after Christ's ascension, without any Scriptures at all. But inasmuch as it was not to be so, and the apostolic inspiration was to be confined to the twelve Apostles, it is evident that, unless their teaching had been committed to writing either by themselves or by others under their immediate direction, we should now be in a state of total uncertainty as to what was really the substance of that teaching. In his wisdom and grace God provided against such a possibility. For he so ordered it that the same doctrines which the Apostles preached, should be preserved, and for ever fixed, in those writings which we call the canonical books of the New Testament. These, their authentic writings, supply to all subsequent ages of the Church the place of the inspired twelve; and through them Matthew, John, Peter, and Paul speak to us as truly and as plainly as they did to the Churches which saw them in the flesh. Thus, unquestionably, Scripture was subsequent, in order of time, to the Church; the written word was addressed to Churches already existing; but how can this be made to establish the authority of the Church? There is no connexion whatever between the premises and the conclusion.

But on what grounds does our faith rest, that the books of the New Testament are really the productions of the writers whose names they bear? that they are entitled to be considered as the word of God? The assertions of the Romish Church on this point are as false as they are presumptuous. "It was from us that you Protestants received the Scriptures; it was our Church which 'set her seal upon the canon;' the authority of the Scriptures depends upon the authority of the Church (i.e. the Church of Rome); for with her

it rests to make a book canonical or not:" such are the statements we meet with in the writers of that Church. We deny them in toto; for

1. Firstly, it is historically false that we receive the canon of Scripture either from the present Church of Rome, or the Church of Rome of the sixteenth century. We receive it on the testimony of that primitive Church to which the Scriptures were originally addressed; a testimony which has been preserved and handed down to us, in the writings of the early Fathers. Of what value would the testimony of the Church of Rome, or of any modern Church, to the authenticity of the New Testament be, unless, by historical investigation, it could be proved that universal tradition, up to the very times of the Apostles, confirms that testimony? On this point the present Church of Christ can act only in conjunction with history; a circumstance which effectually precludes all claim to a divine authority to pronounce on the canonicity of this or that book.

2. Secondly, we deny that on the authority of any Church depends the authority of Scripture. The authority of Scripture rests upon its being the word of God, not on its being received by the Church. The Apostles addressed their epistles to Churches which they had themselves founded, or visited. These Churches received and acknowledged the Apostolic writings; and handed them down to a succeeding generation as the word of God. But in so doing they exercised no authority, put no "seal on the canon of Scripture," as if the latter were of no authority until authenticated by the Church. Rather it was an act of submission on their part-that submission to the writings of an apostle which they had already rendered to his words. If it be asked how Scripture proved itself to the apostolic Church to be the word of God, we answer, firstly, because the

authors of it were known to be those inspired messengers of heaven who had lately taught in the Churches; but secondly, and chiefly, because the apostolic Church possessed a sense and feeling of divine truth which en

abled it to discriminate between genuine and spurious compositions, and to recognize in the Scriptures that same divine word, by the living preaching of which it had been called into existence. This latter proof of the canonicity of Scripture has been much lost sight of in later times. It is easy to understand why Rome puts aside the internal evidence of Scripture, as she does generally the working of the Holy Spirit in the Church at large, her interest leading her to exalt the power and importance of the clergy at the expense both of the laity and of the Scriptures. But Protestant writers should never forget to insist upon that argument for the inspiration of Scripture, which was so constantly used by the Reformers, viz., its power to nourish, its correspondence with, the new spiritual life imparted to the Church through the preaching of the truths it contains. The Church is a society the living principle of which is the Spirit of God; the soul of the Church is the Holy Spirit; but the same Spirit has dictated the Scriptures; hence it is only natural to expect that the apostolic Church, animated as it was by the faith and the spirit of Christ, would at once recognize the agreement between its inward experience and the writings of the Apostles; and on this ground chiefly would decide on their genuineness. And although the order of things is now reversed, and in one sense the Scriptures are prior to the Church (in the sense, namely, that it is by the preaching of the word contained in Scripture, and not by living apostles that the Church is propagated), yet the relation in which Scripture stands to the Church is not altered; it is still as true as it was in the apostolic times that the written word proves to the Church its inspiration by its correspondence with that living faith which it was instrumental in creating. Or, will it be said that we, the present Church of Christ, have not the Spirit of God? So it often seems to be tacitly assumed. But let it be remembered, that if the Church has not the Spirit of Christ, it is no Church at all, or

only so in an improper sense of the word. But, no, it is not so. The promise of Christ, "on this rock" (the living faith exemplified in Peter,) "I will build my Church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it," still holds good; and at this moment He has a Church upon earth. But this Church possesses the very same spirit which the apostolic churches did, and therefore is as capable as they were of recognizing what is really the word of God. We then the Church of the present day -receive the Scriptures, not solely, or even chiefly, on the testimony of the apostolic Church, though that also is essential in its place, but because we have known and experienced the power of the canonical writings to cherish the life of God in the soul. All this is only another aspect of the fundamental truth, that to understand Scripture aright we must have the same Spirit who inspired its authors dwelling in us. The Scriptures were addressed, not to heathens, but to those who were actually living in Christian faith and Christian feelings -this inward life was the key which enabled them to understand the written word, and without it that word will be to us a sealed casket. If it be true that "the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit because they are spiritually discerned," it is also true that "the spiritual man judgeth (or discerneth) all things.' ." Hence it should seem that the famous dictum of Chillingworth, "the Bible alone is the religion of Protestants," is, to say the least, ambiguous and defective. It is not true that Protestants hold that, by a mere intellectual process, any individual can, for himself, discern the spiritual truth of Scripture. With the Word must come the Spirit, to shed a divine light upon what would otherwise be a dead letter; and the Spirit is (ordinarily) given through the instrumentality of the preaching and teaching Church of Christ. According, therefore, to God's ordinary mode of proceeding, the individual must first be a member of the Church, and a partaker of the spirit which animates the whole body,

and then come to the study of Scripture with a spiritual and discerning mind. If for "religion" we substitute "rule of faith," Chillingworth's aphorism will be true, and most important.

From what has been said, we perIceive what the Church's office is with respect to Holy Scripture. She is, as our article expresses it, 66 a witness and a keeper of holy writ;" a "witness" to its divine original and spiritual efficacy, and "a keeper" of it as a sacred deposit, to be preserved from addition, mutilation, or alteration. But she has no power or authority given her to make a book canonical which is not so, or to add 66 an unwritten word of God" to the written word. She has no authority to make the word of God at all, any more than she has to make the body and blood of Christ. Her office is only that of the Samaritan woman. (John iv. 42.) She was the cause, or occasion, of many of her countrymen coming to Christ-" Come and see a man who told me all things that ever I did: is not this the Christ?" But when they did come, and believe upon him, they "said unto the woman, Now we believe, not because of thy saying: for we have heard him ourselves, and know that this is indeed the Christ, the Saviour of the world."

consequences, have joined the Romish Church, are now heard confessing that what they had held and taught, while still in our communion, was essentially Romanism. They are perfectly right. There are, and have ever been, but two well-defined and distinct systems, Romanism and Protestantism. The attempt which is now being made, in certain quarters, to combine the two, and to make the Church of England a "tertium quid," neither Romanist nor Protestant, but something between the two, will assuredly fail. The issue will be either that our Church will become essentially Romish, (and that she may be while not in formal communion with the Bishop of Rome,) or that, if the Protestant spirit within her pale should prevail, the parties alluded to will be compelled to separate from her, and go whither their sympathies have been long directed. As opposed to dissent, the Church of England embodies important principles; but dissent is not Protestantism, though the two are often purposely confounded. Protestantism, as it is found in the confessions of the Reformed Churches, is a distinct and positive system of doctrine, as well connected and organized as Romanism is; and if our Church is not Protestant, in the sense of the word furnished by these confessions, she must be essentially Romish. But she is Protestant; there can be no doubt of it; and we trust she possesses inherent vigour enough to eject from her bosom those foreign and incongruous elements which it has been attempted of late to introduce into her bosom.

A WAND'RER in the worldof waves,
In vain the little swallow craves
Some clime of Spring;
How sad she eyes the watery waste,
Till lightly on some friendly mast
She rests her aching wing.

Thus have I wandered far and long
The barren world's wide waste among,
In search of peace;

I found it not, till from afar
Arose the holy eastern Star,

And bade my sorrows cease.

Now near the altar of my God
I chose my safe and blest abode
From morn till even;
O still upon its hallow'd breast
My heart shall build her lowly nest,
And find an earthly heaven.

"And it was now dark, and Jesus was not come to them."-JOHN vi. 17. How often does the spirituallyminded Christian obtain instruction or consolation from portions of Scripture, which, to others, seem only to record an historical fact long since done with! It was truly said, that "there is not a bone in God's word without marrow in it, if we had strength to break it." How well does the description of the text remind us of the cause of all our deep sorrow the absence of Jesus-when we are in affliction. The only antidote to this misery is given us by the prophet, "Who is among you that feareth the Lord, that obeyeth the voice of his servant, that walketh in darkness, and hath no light? let him trust in the name of the Lord, and stay upon his God." (Is. 1. 10.)

"My doctrine shall drop as the rain,
My speech shall distil as the dew,
As the small rain upon the tender herb,
As the showers upon the grass."

DEUT. XXXii. 2. May we not here consider "doctrine" as referring to those great statements of truth which form the primary elements of the Christian's creed, and which must be simply believed by all who would be saved; whilst by "speech" we understand all the promises and precepts which fill up the remainder of the Bible? Thus taken together, they include all which God has spoken in his word of truth. The Bible is here compared generally to rain and dew— to that wondrous machinery of Providence whereby the earth is moistened, and thus fertilized for its productive work; and does not God's word feed all the rivers of truth? Look also at the individual soul which is fertilized by it; and does it not resemble the rich valleys that have been irrigated by the streams, and refreshed by them? His motives and affections, his desires and his daily conversation, are all filled by this channel of holiness and grace, of truth and knowledge. Take away

the Bible, and the heart becomes a desert. What then must become of that soul which revelation has never visited? Must it not resemble the earth on which no moisture has ever come? The light of nature, and the voice of nature, and the sight of nature are all powerful in their way, and, as far as God intended them, they have their influence; but, after all, they cannot moisten the rock-they cannot soften that moral granite, the human heart-it is his own word which the blessed Spirit of God employs to accomplish this glorious work. (Is. lv. 10, 11. John xvi. 13.)

"Fear not, I am the first and the last." REV. i. 8-17.

This is the loftiest pinnacle of the Saviour's exaltation. The God man is the centre and the circumference, the commencement and the consummation of the whole universe of God! And every idea of his character and work as Lord of all, which falls short of his own blessed sayings, and of the apostolical descriptions which have been cited, must be denounced as sinking the platform of His throne below its legitimate level, as contracting the limits of his universal dominions, and as derogatory from that honour which God himself designs and desires that his Church should receive and enjoy. (John v. 22, 23.)

"God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world."-GAL. vi. 14. The apostle here so closely connects the doctrine and practice of the Christian, that we may, as it were, test the one by the other to the end of time. It is remarkable that, in proportion as Tractarianism advances in the visible Church, worldly conformity is exhibited by her members, thus proving that whatever respect may be had to the symbols of Christianity, that cannot be the apostle's doctrine which is not accompanied by the results which he marked out.