purposes; and Odd-Fellows associations, Masonic associations, and clubs for social purposes.

The question then is, Is a Christian Church needed for the permanent wants of man? Was such a Church established by Christ? If so, which Church is it? And what is to be its future character and mode of organization?

It is scarcely necessary to discuss here the abstract question - Is a church an essential want of man, so as to be needed by him forever? It is enough to show that a church is needed now, and will be, for a long time to come. Every religion has had its church. No sooner does a new idea arise, than it is incorporated in some outward union. The new wine is put into new bottles. Confucius has his church, Mohammed has his church; even Mormonism and Spiritualism have established their churches. The Christian Church arose immediately after the ascension of Jesus; it came as a matter of necessity, born not of flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. It has continued ever since, in ever-varying forms, but one undying body. Other institutions have risen and passed away. The Roman empire has disappeared. The barbarous nations overflowed Europe, and then were civilized, Christianized, and absorbed into the Christian Church. Protestantism separated from Romanism, but the Church remained in both. Other sects, Presbyterian, Independent, Quaker, Methodist, Baptist, Swedenborgian, Unitarian, Universalist, separated from the main Protestant body, but each took with it the church; each has its own church. Even the Quakers, the most unchurched apparently of any, who renounced the visible ministry, and the visible sacraments, made themselves presently into the most compact church of all. So the word continues evermore to be made flesh. So all spirit presently becomes incarnate in body. The body is outward and visible; the spirit inward and invisible. Both are necessary to the life, growth, and active influence of the gospel. Without the spirit of Christianity, the body would

be good for nothing; it would be only a corpse. Without the body of Christianity, the spirit would be comparatively inactive; it would be only a ghost. A body without spirit corrupts and is offensive; a spirit without body is inoperative and alarming. Through body alone the spirit can act; through spirit alone the body can live.

Without asking, therefore, for any other authority for the Church, than its adaptation to human wants, we may safely say, that it is a great mistake to suppose we can dispense with churches. You cannot overthrow the churches, not the weakest of them, by any agency you can use; for all came up to meet and supply a want of the human soul. They are built on that rock. What will you put in their place? A lyceum? A debating society? A reform club? What are you to say to the souls of men, hungering and thirsting for God? What to the sinner, borne down by the mighty weight of transgression? What to the dying man, who knows not how to prepare to meet his God? We need the Church of Christ the Church whose great aim it is, and always has been, to renew and regenerate the soul from its foundation, to lay the axe at the root of the tree of evil, and the very sound of whose bell, rolling its waves of music over the sleeping hills on the Sabbath morning, is worth more to the soul than a thousand lyceums and debating societies.

No; the Church is not to be destroyed; it is to be renewed with a deeper and fuller life. We want a better Church, no doubt one more free in its thought, more active in its charity, with more of brotherhood in it. We want an apostolic Church, fitted to the needs of the nineteenth century. The theological preaching which satisfied our parents is not what we wish now. We need Christianity applied to life the life of the individual and of the state. A better Church, no doubt, is needed; but we want the churches fulfilled, not destroyed.

and High Church. - Admitting, then, the permanency of the Christian Church, we next ask, "What is its true form?" or, "Which is the true Church?" or, again, to state it in another way, "Is the form of the Church permanent, or only its substance? Is any union for Christian purposes, for worship and work, a Church, or must it be found in some particular organic form?" To this question Romanism and High Church Episcopacy reply, "It must." The rest of Protestantism answers, "No." Romanism says - Jesus established an essential form for his Church, as well as an essential substance. The true Church is an organization as well defined as any corporation for secular purposes. It has the monopoly of saving souls, a patent right of communicating spiritual life, which cannot lawfully be infringed by any other corporation. This right was originally bestowed on St. Peter, and has been transmitted by him to his successors, bishops of Rome. The proof is in the original deed of gift, "Thou art Peter," &c., and in the regularity of the succession of subsequent bishops.

"According to the Catholic dogma," says Guericke,* "the Church is an outward community, by which all communion with Christ is conditioned and mediated. This outward community is the true Church, with the signs of unity, universality, apostolicity, and holiness, and is both the only infallible Church, and only one which can save the soul." This Church, according to Bellarmine, is a wholly visible and outward association; as much so as the kingdom of France or republic of Venice.† According to Moehler, ‡ the Church "is the visible community of believers, founded by Christ, in which, by means of an enduring apostleship, &c., the works wrought by him during his earthly life are continued

*Guericke, Christ. Symbolik, § 70.

† Ecclesia enim est cœtus hominum ita visibilis et palpabilis ut est cœtus populi Romani, vel regnum Galliæ, aut respublica Venetorum." Bellarmin. Eccles. Milit. c. 2.

Moehler, Symbolism, § 36.

to the end of the world." The Roman Catholic idea is of a visible Church only, and not of a Church at once visible and invisible, which is the Protestant notion. It is composed of good and bad, while the Protestant notion makes the true Church consist only of the regenerate.*

The chief refutation of this claim of the Romish Church is to be found in the very vastness of its assumption. Assuming itself to be the only true Church, and the only one founded by Christ, we of course require full and exact evidence in proof of its assertion. It must prove, (1.) That Jesus founded an outward Church of this kind; (2.) That he made Peter its head; (3.) That he gave Peter power to continue his authority to his successors; (4.) That the bishops of Rome are the successors of Peter; (5.) That this succession has been perfect and uninterrupted; (6.) That the Roman Catholic Church is infallible, and has never committed any mistake; (7.) That it is Catholic, and includes all true Christians; (8.) That it is at one with itself, having never known divisions; (9.) That it is the only holy Church, bearing the fruits of Christian character in a quality and quantity which no other Church can rival. If any one of these nine propositions fail, the whole claim of Rome falls prostrate. But they all fail, not one being susceptible of proof. It cannot be made to appear that Jesus ever intended to found a Church having such a monopoly of salvation; nor that the apostle Peter was ever placed at its head, with supreme authority; † nor, if he had this authority, that he ever was bishop of Rome; nor, if he were, that he transmitted his authority to his successors; nor, if he did, that the bishops of Rome are his successors; nor, if they are, that the succes

"Bonos et malos ad ecclesiam pertinere Catholica fides vere et constanter affirmat." Cat. Rom.

†The chief passage in proof of this, as is well known, is Matt. 16: 18, 19, "Thou art Peter," &c. But even Augustine, the great light of the Latin Church, says that "Peter was not the Rock, but Christ was the Rock." (Neander, vol. ii. p. 168.) The same power was given to the other apostles. Rev. 21:14.

Matt. 18:18. John 20:23.

sion has been unbroken; nor that the church has been actually infallible; nor that it includes all true Christians; nor that it has been free from schisms; nor that it has always been so pure and holy as to show that Romanism is eminently Christian, and Protestantism not so. The chain of proof, therefore, which, if one link parted, would be a broken chain, is broken at every link, and cannot carry conviction to any unbiassed mind.

In a little work lately published in France by the Protestant Pastor, Mr. Bost,* the author gives as a reason for not being a Catholic, that while the Church calls on us to submit to its authority, it cannot tell where the authority resides.† The Ultramontanes place it in the person of the pope; but the Gallicans have never admitted this idea, and place the supreme authority in a universal council.

Besides, what sort of infallibility is that which has tolerated the Inquisition, applauded the St. Bartholomew massacre, preached crusades against the heretics in France, massacred the Protestants in Holland, burned ten thousands at the stake in Spain? If it be said that Protestants also have persecuted, we reply, that they did it against their own principles, but that the Catholics persecuted in accordance with theirs; and that the Church which claims exclusive infallibility and holiness has no right to excuse itself because it has done no worse than those which it denounces as being in error and sin.

§ 3. The Protestant Orthodox Idea of the Church. Protestantism does not claim for its Church exclusive holiness or infallibility. It defines the Church to be "a congregation of faithful men, in which the pure word of God is preached, and the sacraments duly administered." Why, then, the reac

* Le Protestantisme Libéral par le Pasteur Bost. Paris, Baillière, 1865. t "Il est de fait que le Catholicisme, qui est essentiellement un principe d'authorité, ne sait pas dire où reside cette authorité."

"Thirty-nine Articles, art. xix." So Augs. Conf. art. 7: "Congregatio sanctorum, in qua evangelium recte docetur, et recte administrantur sacramenta." But it may be asked, Who is to decide on the "recte"?