Christianity, such as we are brought up to regard it, i. e. of an established, endowed, dignified church.

The apostles contemplate not sin in the baptized, but seem to hold, that Christians fall not into gross sin; or, if they do, they forfeit their Christianity. Hence, little is said in the New Testament of the danger of sin after baptism, or of the penitential exercises by which it is to be met.

The three first gospels contain no declaration of our Lord's divinity, and there are passages which tend, at first sight, the other way. The impression left on an ordinary mind would be, that our Saviour was a superhuman being, intimately possessed of God's confidence, but still a creature.

There have been unbelievers who have written to prove that Christ's religion was more simple than St. Paul's; that St. Paul's Epistles are "a second system" coming upon the Gospels, and changing their doctrine. Some have considered the doctrine of our Lord's divinity an addition upon the simplicity of the Gospels. Yes, this has been the belief, not only of such heretics as the Socinians, but of infidels such as the historian Gibbon, who looked at things with less of prejudice than heretics, as having no point to maintain. I think it will be found quite as easy to maintain that the divinity of Christ was an afterthought, brought in by the Greek Platonists and other philosophers, upon the simple and primitive creed of the Galilean fishermen, as infidels say, as that the sacramental system came in from the same source.

The New Testament nowhere declares itself to be inspired. We have no means of knowing that the whole Bible is the word of God, or that we have got the whole of the books that are the word of God.

The Church contemplates sin in the baptized, and has provided penitential means for its avoidance and pardon.

The Prayer-book expressly recognizes our Lord's divinity, and asserts his superhumanity and his uncreated being.

The Church holds the identity of the religion of Christ and of St. Paul.

The Church declares the New Tes tament to be inspired, and admits the commemorations for the faithful departed, which are omitted from the

canon.

But enough of these parallel citations; since all the differences are declared to be apparent only, and not real: but in what sense are we to concede this? Surely there are substantial diversities between the records of revelation and the historical institution, and must in the nature of the thing be such. What can be more clear than that the New Testament in all its parts presents the ideal of the Church equally existing in the individual and a corporation? Nothing can more strictly mark this than the sinless state of human perfection which is required of every

Christian by St. John and above alluded to. For such an one, no special sacrifice would be required, whose life would be all one sacrifice to truth and goodness—no special sacrament needed, whose every meal would be a sacrament—no shrine or altar or sacred building wanted for his devotion, to whom every place would be altogether holy, and no spot of earth unblessed by him who made it. Such is the character presented to us in the Gospel-a being carrying about in his person and habits of mind the most hallowed influences, and consecrating the very air in which he moves with the sanctity of his presence. But, alas! such is not man! The Christian is his highest style, but who has yet deserved it? Christianity from the first was and could only be a corruption of that which gave it birth. Christianity is not Christ-ism. Christianity is a system made by Christians, and not by Christ. It follows and embodies the usages of Christians, not the example of Christ. From the Church of Antioch to the present day it has been so, and could not be otherwise. Pure Christism contemplates Man as restored to his original purity, as incapable of sin, as a veritable child of God-but Christianity accommodates itself to fallen humanity, pities its errors, and condescends to its infirmities. When it became joined to the world, and was taken into partnership with the state-this was more particularly the case-a more decided compromise was effected between the ideal and the possible: and at different periods and in different places it has assumed different phases according to the circumstances and condition of the age and country. But no such compromise-no such accommodation is contemplated by the Gospels; on the contrary, their very spirit is directly opposed to it in every shape and in every degree. It is of no use deceiving ourselves for this is the case. It is not that the Gospel precepts are only apparently more pure than the practices of the Church in all times; but they are so in very deed and truth. Nor is this conclusion avoided by any necessity for supposing an antecedent institution as at once their author and interpreter. It is granted readily that there must have been a previous establishment virtually or actually and acting always in both capacities. What then? The documents would aim at the same end for which the institution existed; but they would work by different means. The purpose of the Institution would be to lead its members to the pursuit of the highest excellence practically; and the aim of the documents would be to hold up the standard of excellence as the object to be gained. The first would proceed by training an imperfect, uninstructed individual, and providing for him means whereby he might be perfected to every good word and work; this training and preparation-these means would all be adapted to his imperfection and ignorance. The second would be limited to announcing the idea of the utmost excellence, and strictly defining its image; permitting no mutation nor mutilation, but setting aloft the example to be studied, far above the mists of earthly passion and folly, in the pure ether of wisdom and goodness and power, not to be breathed by the profane, not to be approached by the unclean. A law is always more strict in its terms than the observance of it can be; and the perfection of holiness required by Christism was never attained by mortal man. Christianity is just so much as has been realised in time and space, and no more. Christism is to be found in the New TestamentChristianity in the Church, and Antichrist in both the Church and the World; and by so much as one differs from the other, by so much the

:

religion and morality of the New Testament differ from the institutions and customs of the Church.

Proof enough is given in the Tracts before us that if the Bible needs the interpretation of Church authority, the Church authority needs interpretation too. The works of the Fathers are full of difficulties, and the traditions of the Church are unsatisfactory. Nevertheless, to adopt the language of the tract-writer, "it never can be meant that we should be undecided all our days: we were made for action, and for right action; for thought, and for true thought. Let us live while we live, let us be alive and doing; let us act on what we have, since we have not what we wish. Let us believe what we do not see and know. Let us forestall knowledge by faith. Let us maintain before we have proved." Yeswe repeat with the tract-writer, let us do all this, and not be unwilling to go by faith. But why should we believe in the Church, or rather in the clergy of the Church? No, no; this is not the thing; but verily, we should believe rather in God! We should believe rather in the Christ! Between Deity and us we cannot suffer the clergy to stand as mediators by right of an hypothetical apostolic succession, which can never be proved, and for which, even as an assumption, there is confessedly no satisfactory evidence in the charter and the records belonging to the association of which they are members. Besides, the Church pre-existed this clergy, and of old times sought to God immediately and directly; and this state in which the Church is now with a clergy and laity is a second state; and may there not be a third to which the second is transitional? We have already said so; and hereby we are brought, as in a circle, to this very important point again.

The differences between the New Testament Christism and the Church Christianity, which we have declared are not apparent only but really result from the imperfection of the members of the Church, who have therefore need of mediates and helps, such as are provided in rites and ceremonies and public prayers, and the ministration of the better instructed. While the members of the Church continue in that state, these things must continue. But they were not from the beginning. The familiar and customary were then the holy-now it is the rare and solemn that is so. In a perfect Church estate, however, the holy will become the familiar,-every day will be a Sabbath. The perfect Christian will do no act that is not worthy of his name and calling-and that which is now extraordinary and awful will be common and easy. In the primitive Church, there was no meal that was not a sacrament—in the ultimate Church there shall be no sacrament that is not a meal. holy man can do nothing that is unholy-and the vessels that are marked "holiness unto the Lord" shall be used as the every-day utensils of meanest employment; for there shall no longer be any distinction between sacred and profane, between clergy and laity - for all shall be equally worthy

and able.

A

Now it is clear that the Church system, such as we have it, is but preparatory to this, and awaits its apotheosis in it. Providence is evidently operating this, and the tract-writers are as evidently striving to avert the consequence. They desire to keep apart from the laity, and to be alone the clerical-at a day, too, when almost every man has become as clerkly as themselves. The general diffusion of education must

break down the barriers of a distinction only proper to a state of transition. But how vain is the attempt? Can any stand that Oxford Divines may make in behalf of their apostolical succession, convince the men of these times? Can they restore the faith that was of old, but now is not? Faith was never yet made by the priest but the people. Nay, the character of the priest himself has been made by the people. Like people like priest,' it has been said, and also that in all superstitions the priest has only sanctioned what the people have invented. is a type of every one of his class:-and then only, when the general body of the worshippers shall have been perfected, will the priest himself be really what he now only professes. But when that time comes, he will arrogate no superiority-for the meanest votary, shall be the equal of the highest dignitary in all that makes man, man-in virtue and truth and wisdom.

Aaron

Would the Oxford Divines preserve the relative station of the order to which they belong, they must resort to other means than they have adopted. It is not by recurring to old customs and slavishly restoring the rubric that they can succeed. God has declared that the unity of the Church is not to be produced in any such worn-out way, or by means of such beggarly elements. Priestcraft is not possible now-what folly therefore, to try it? It is not possible, because the adage "Populus vult decipi, et decipiatur," is no longer applicable. No superstitious rite is likely to be forced on the priest by the people. Aaron thus is left without excuse, but equally without power to do harm. Is he superstitious? It is a private folly, not a popular madness. For a priest who ought to know better, to take up a superstition to deceive himself withal, and none else, is a sublimely ridiculous conception, or or an exceedingly villanous invention. A coarse-minded, though very upright, Iconoclast might say that the Oxford Divines are either knaves or fools. He might add, that they are men of learning does not preclude them from being the latter-but as some of them shew considerable logical acumen, and all evidently proceed upon a common system, it is rather to be believed that they are a confederacy of crafty men, who have conceived a strange design for their own advantage, but, miscalculating their means, have been full soon overtaken in their own craftiness. A generation of vipers they are, seeking to escape from the wrath to come, by flying to the past, which will drive them back again to the present, with tremendous recoil and rebound, by which they must greatly suffer. We say, a coarse Iconoclast might say this. We, however, know that their folly arises from a peculiar course of study, unenlightened by philosophy; their violent proceedings also are nothing more than the necessary reaction of a violent ultra-protestantism as much to be deprecated on the one hand, as their extreme and exclusive antiquarianism on the other. It has never been doubted by any one capable of appreciating the theosophical bearings of the subject that the position of Chillingworth (namely, that the mere text of the Bible is the sole and exclusive ground of faith, and practice) is quite untenable against the Romanists. It, said Coleridge," entirely destroys the conditions of a church, of an authority