the Truth-how-whether we rightly understand the Word-Are we to go to Scripture to find our faith-or to prove it? Are the sacred books designed to be in the first instance our instructors—or, are they to be regarded as the touchstone of what we receive from other sources? Has GOD committed the conversion of the world to His written word alone: or, has HE confided it to a living ministry, and endowed them with these living oracles, as a treasury out of which they should bring forth things both new and old? The Christian world at the present moment presents a lamentable picture of discord and disunion, and yet the leader of each party claims to have inspired authority for his statements. Now all cannot be right, for "GOD is not the author of confusion but of peace in all Churches of the Saints." All cannot be right. Who is? What means has GOD left us for the right understanding of His own will? All will agree that the Bible is the Law, beyond which there is no appeal, and the standard by which all controversies must be tried: the testimony which all must hear and none can gainsay the fine gold which can never become dim: the balance of the Sanctuary, and the unvarying shekel by which all must be weighed and measured. All will agree that Holy Scripture, in the language of our Sixth Article, "containeth all things necessary to salvatation, so that whatsoever is not read therein, nor may be proved thereby, is not to be required of any man, that it should be believed, as an article of THE faith, (mark, my friends, the definite article, which is often omitted by those who quote this article to libel our Reformers, by saying that they did not defer to Catholic Antiquity: it is not said an article of any faith, but of THE faith-the

Church's faith: the faith of the Creeds: that is, (but more of this in future numbers,) or be thought requisite or necessary to salvation." All are

agreed thus far, and with the exception of the Socinians, (and I except them only because we are speaking of all those "who call themselves Christians," whether rightly or not is beside the question): all are agreed thus far, and with the exception of the Socinians, all are agreed a step farther, all will admit that for the right understanding of Scripture GOD vouchsafes HIS HOLY SPIRIT, that the HOLY SPIRIT of Wisdom and Truth must take of the things of the FATHER, and shew them unto us, that HE alone can guide us into all truth. Up to this point the English and Continental Reformers, and after them true Churchmen, and modern Ultra-Protestants, all journey together, but here they diverge and take different roads.

The question recurs, how does the HOLY SPIRIT act for this purpose? and no sooner has the question taken this shape than the conflicting parties cease to return an united answer. The cold rationalist of Germany traces His operation in the metaphysical disquisition of a highly cultivated reason: the Ultra-Protestant of another school claims for the dogmas of his individual private judgment, the infallibility, which when claimed by the Romish doctors is by these same persons charged upon them as a token of the Mystery of Iniquity; while another class will see the footsteps of HIM, the whithersoever of whose going, and the whence of whose coming no man can tell, will discern the HOLY SPIRIT of GOD in an excited state of the animal feelings! But to enumerate the various modes of operation which have been at various times and by different persons assigned to the HOLY

SPIRIT of Truth, when acting as the TEACHER and GUIDE of GOD's Children, would be to lay bare irreverences and crudities which might shock and astonish, but could hardly edify. Enough for us, as faithful sons and daughters of the English Church, to know the verdict she returns upon this subject, and when we know it, that we strive to act upon it.

If then we refer to her twentieth article, we shall find that she claims authority in controversies of faith, albeit she limits the exercise of this authority by the self-imposed condition, that it is not lawful for the Church to ordain any thing that is contrary to God's word written. She tells us that the Church is the Witness and Keeper of Holy Writ; and then she adds that, and ought not to decree anything against the same, so besides the same ought it not to enforce anything to be believed for necessity of salvation. And consistently with this statement she requires her Clergy to fashion their teaching out of Scripture by that rule of consent in matters of the faith which has universally and uniformly obtained everywhere among the faithful. She requires this by precept and example. By example in her accredited formularies, which bear the vivid impress of being Catholic, and in those Homilies, which she adjudged to be seasonable and wholesome for the times in which they are written, and which abound with quotations from those whom she there styles the learned and godly doctors of Primitive Antiquity. By precept in one of those canons of discipline of the English Church, which were ratified by the proper ecclesiastical authority in 1571, about nine years after the settling of our Thirtynine Articles. The title of these canons is as follows: "there follow in this book certain definite

articles concerning the sacred ministry and the regulation of the Churches, which were fully agreed upon in convocation by Matthew Lord Archbishop of Canterbury, and Primate of all England and Metropolitan, and by all the rest of the Bishops of his province, a part of them personally present, a part by proxy under their own sign manual in a convocation assembled in the Church of St. Paul, in London, on the third day of April, 1571."

Of the validity then of these canons, and their obligation upon the Clergy of the English Church, there can be no reasonable doubt, and in one of these canons we find the following among other directions for Preachers: "First, then, they shall see that they do not ever teach anything in a sermon, which they wish to be religiously held and believed by the people, except what is agreeable to the teaching of the Old and New Testament, AND what the Catholic Fathers and Ancient Bishops have collected from that same teaching."

Now, modern Ultra-Protestants, impatient of authority, may consider this rule very foolish and savouring of Popery; and others, humble minded sons of the Church, may think it very wise; but whatever people may think is beside the question, here is the simple naked fact that the Reformed Church of England has unequivocally laid it down as the direction for her Clergy. And in the words of Mr. Faber, an independent testimony on the present question, "If we of the Clergy dislike the regulation, as encroaching upon what is sometimes (perhaps without full consideration) denominated the Protestant right of private judgment, we are quite at liberty, without any persecuting, let or hindrance to throw up our ministry; but I see not

how we can honourably retain our office within the pale of the church, if we professedly despise or openly reject the regulation. We are free to act as men, but we are not free to act as honest Churchmen. A pledge has been given and accepted, and by that pledge we are bound, I should think, to abide, so long as we exercise our ministration in the Church of England." And with regard to the wisdom of the regulation, this same writer says, "the wisdom however of the regulation with all due respect to the nineteenth century, I deem more especially apparent, because it takes the middle course between the Romish doctrine of unwritten tradition on the one hand, and the vulgar modern notion of insulated private judgment on the other hand: the former of which would cause us to rejoice in the teaching of a single Pope; while the latter, by making every man his own Pope, claims to have produced a "Bible made easy."

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It is ruled by ancient custom" was a favourite motto in the famous Council of Nice, and such was the constant cry of the Leaders of the English Reformation. The Church of England recognizes the Bible as the sole ultimate test of her creeds or rules of faith; but to understand the Bible's meaning aright, she rests not on the fallible judgment of herself or her individual members, but humbly decides by the concurrent testimony of the Primitive Church, thus identifying Catholic with Scripture truth. The Church of England requires of her sons to prove all things, and to invent none; to examine all her statements by the Bible, to hold fast by her only, if she declares what is good, to leave her if she does not, and in determining this to defer to the consent of Christian men in past generations; in other words, she echoes the words of the LORD JESUS