are the Protestants of Protestants, and who afford us a practical exemplification of what Protestantism is and must be, when and where it has the sense, the honesty, or the courage to be consequent, have already reached this important point. They cannot be said, in the proper sense of the word, to believe in any church at all. They see clearly enough, that, if they once admit a church at all, in any sense in which it is distinguishable from no-church, they can neither justify the Reformers in se ceding from the Catholic Church, nor themselves in remaining aliens from its communion. They have, therefore, the honesty and boldness to deny the Church altogether, and to admit in its place only a voluntary association of individuals for pious and religious purposes; in which sense it is on a par with a Bibie, Missionary, Temperance, or Abolition society, with scarcely anything more holy in its objects, or more binding on its members

The Christian Examiner, in the article we have referred to fully authorizes this statement; and though it by no means discards the sacred name of Church, it leaves us nothing venerable or worth contending for to be signified by it. The controversies, for the next few year, it thinks, will, not improbably, revolve around the question of the Church. "What, then," it asks, "is the Church? what is its authority? what its importance? what its true place among Christian ideas or influences?" These are the questions; and its purpose in the article under consideration is to offer a few remarks which may indicate a true answer to them, especially the last.

In answer to the question, What is the Church? the writer replies, "It is the whole company of believers, the uncounted and wide-spread congregation of all those who receive the Gospel as the law of lfe. It is coëxtensive with Christianity; it is the living Christianity of the time, be that more or less, be it expressed in one mode of worship or another, in one or another variety of internal discipline. The Church of Christ compre hends and is composed of all his followers."-pp. 78, 79.

The answer to the question, What is the importance of the Church? is not very clearly set forth. Perhaps this is a point

on which the writer has not yet obtained clear and distinct views. It is, probably, one of those points on which “ more light is to break forth." The place of the Church among Christian ideas and influences also is not very definitely determined; but it would appear that the sacred writers had two ideas, for they were not, like our modern reformers, men of only one idea,—and these two ideas were, one the Church, the other the individual soul. We do not mean to say that the writer really intends to teach that the Church is an idea, for a company of believers" can hardly be called an idea, nor can the individual soul; but he probably means to teach that the sacred writers had two ideas, or rather two points of view, from which they contemplated this company of believers,--the une collective, the other individual.

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"They loved to collect—in idea-the members of Christ, as they styled them, under one idea, and present them in this relation of unity to their readers. Thus viewed, the Church became the emblem of Christian influences and Christian benefits. It expressed all Christ had lived for, or died for. He had loved it, and given himself for it. It was 'the pillar and ground of the truth.' It was the 'body' of which he was the head."—p. 79. This unity, however, is purely ideal; that is, imaginary. The only unity really existing consists merely in the similar sentiments, hopes, and aims of the individual members. But

"There was another idea on which the Apostles insisted still more strenuously, that of the individual soul. They taught the importance of the individual soul. Around this, as the one object of interest, were gathered the revelations and commandments of the Gospel. Personal responsibleness-in view of privileges, duties, sins, temptations-was their great theme. They preached the Gospel to the soul in its individual exposure and want. It is the peculiarity of our religion, its vital peculiarity, that it makes the individual the object of its address, its immediate and its final action. Christianity divested of this distinction becomes powerless, and void of meaning. It contra dicts and subverts itself."—Ib.

Here, then, are two ideas,--the idea of the company, and the idea of the individual; and the first idea is to be held subordinate to the second; which, we suppose, means that the end of Christianity is the redemption and sanctification of the individual soul, and that the Church is to be valued only in so far as it is a means to this end,—a doctrine which we do not recollect to have ever heard questioned. The place of the Church is, therefore, below the individual, and being only the effect of the operation of Christianity in the hearts of individuals, as the writer tells us farther on, its importance must consist solely in the reaction of the example of Christians on those not yet converted, and in the aid and encouragement union among professed Christians gives to one another in their strivings after the Christian life. This, as near as we can come at it, is the Christian Examiner's doctrine.

The writer throws in one or two remarks, in connexion with his general statement, to which we cannot assent. "It has been maintained," he says, "that the Church is the principal idea in the Gospel. It has been generally supposed that the individual exists for the Church. Ecclesiastical writers have contended, and the people have admitted, that the rights of the Church were stronger than the rights of the members, that the prosperity of the Church must be secured at the expense of the believer's peace and independence; that, in a word everything must be made to yield to the Church."-p. 80. The writer must have drawn on his imagination for his facts. Ecclesiastical writers have never contended, nor have the people admitted, any such thing. The doctors of the Church have always and uniformly taught that the Church exists for the individual, not the individual for the Church, and that she is to be submitted to solely as the means in the hands of God of redeeming and sanctifying the individual soul. This is wherefore Catholics sc earnestly contend for the Church, so willingly obey her com. mands, and so cheerfully lay down their lives in her defence.

The question of a conflict of rights between the Church and the individual, which the Christian Examiner regards as the

great question of the age, is no question at all; for there never is and never can be a conflict of rights. It has never been held by any one of any authority in the ecclesiastical world, that the rights of the Church are stronger than the rights of the mem vers, and that the rights of the members must yield to those of the Church. Rights never yield; claims may yield, but not rights. Establish the fact that this or that is the right of the member, and the Church both respects and guaranties it; but where she has the right to teach and command, she does not come in conflict with individual rights by demanding submission, for there the individual has no rights. To hold him, within the province of the Church, to obedience, is only holding him to obedience to the rightful authority. When the law says to the individual, “Thou shalt not steal," it infringes no right; because the individual has not, and never had, any right to steal.

But passing over this, we may say, the Christian Examiner holds, that, in the usual sense of the term, our blessed Saviour founded no church; he merely taught the truth, and, by his teaching, life, sufferings, death, and resurrection, deposited in the minds and hearts of men certain great seminal principles of truth and goodness, to be by their own free thought and affections developed and matured. The Church. is nothing but the mere effect of the development and growth of these principles. "It is but a consequence" of the effect of Christianity upon those who are "separately brought under its influence." These, taken collectively, are the Church. These organize themselves in one way or another, adopt for their social regulation and mutual progress such forms of worship or internal discipline as are suggested by the measure of Christian truth and virtue realized in their hearts. This is all the church there is. If you ask, What is its authority? the answer is, "A fiction, a fiction which has cheated millions and ruined multitudes, but a fiction still." -p. 83. This, in brief, is the church theory of Liberal Chris tians, in fact, the theory virtually adopted by the great body of

the Protestant world, and the only theory a consistent Protestant can alopt, if not even more than he can consistently adopt.

The insufficiency of this theory it is our purpose in the following essay to point out, by showing that with it alone it is impossible to elicit an act of faith. We shall begin what we have to offer by defining what it is we mean by the Church, and what are the precise questions at issue between us and No-Churchmen. We do this, because the Christian Er aminer and its associates do not seem to have any clear or definite notions of what it is we contend for, when we contend for the authority, infallibility, and indefectibility of the Church, or what it is of which we really predicate these impor tant attributes.

The word church, it is well known, is used in a variety of senses. 'The Greek xxhŋola, ecclesia, rendered by the word church, taken in a general way, means an assembly, or congregation, whether good or bad, for one purpose or another; but is for the most part taken in the Scriptures and the Fathers in a good sense, for the Church of Christ. The English word church, said to be derived from Kúgioç and oluoc, the Lord's house would seem to designate primarily the place of worship; but as otxoç, like our English word house, may mean the family as well as the dwelling or habitation, the word church may not im properly be used to designate the Lord's family, the worshippers as well as the place of worship; in which sense it is a sufficiently accurate translation of the Greek xxλnoía, as generally used by ecclesiastical writers.

1. By the Church we understand, then, when taken in its widest sense, without any limitation of space or time, the whole of the Lord's family, the whole congregation of the faithful, united in the true worship of God under Christ the head. In this sense it comprehends the faithful of the Old Testament.— not only those belonging to the Synagogue, but also those out of it, as Job, Melchisedech, &c.,-the blest, even the angels, in heaven, the suffering in purgatory, and those on the way. Ar