comprehending the blest in heaven, it is called the Church Tri umphant; the souls in purgatory, the Church Suffering; believ ers on the way, the Church Militant; not that these are three different Churches, but different parts, or rather states, of one and the same Church. But with the Church in this comprehensive sense we have in our present dscussion nothing to do. The question obviously turns on the Church Militant.

2. The Church Militant is defined by Catholic writers to be "The society of the faithful, baptized in the profession of the same faith, united in the participation of the same sacraments, and in the same worship, under one head, Christ in heaven, and his Vicar, the Sovereign Pontiff, on earth." But even this is too comprehensive for our present purpose,-to indicate at once the precise points in the controversy between us and No-Church

men.

3. We must distinguish, in the Church Militant, between the Ecclesia credens, the congregation of the faithful, and the Ecclesia docens, or congregation of pastors and teachers.

The Church, as the simple congregation of believers, taken exclusively as believers, is not a visible organization, nor an authoritative or an infallible body. On this point we have no controversy with the Christian Examiner; for we are no Congregationalists, and by no means disposed to maintain that the supreme authority in the Church, under Christ, is vested in the body of the faithful. The authority of the Church in this sense we cheerfully admit is "a fiction," "a mischievous fiction," as the history of Protestantism for these three hundred years of its existence sufficiently establishes.

When we contend for the Church as a visible, authoritative,. infallible, and indefectible body or corporation, we take the word church in a restricted sense, to mean simply the body of pastors and teachers, or, in other words, the bishops in communion with their chief. We mean what Protestants would, prhaps, better understand by the word ministry than by the word church, although this word ministry is far from being exact, it designates functions rather than functionaries, and, wher

used to designate functionaries, includes the several orders of the Christian priesthood,-not merely the bishops or pastors, who alone, according to the Catholic view, constitute the Eccle sia docens. Nevertheless, to avoid the confusion the word church is apt to generate in Protestant minds, we shall sometimes use it, merely premising that we use it to express only the body of pastors and teachers, by whom we understand exclusively the bishops, in communion with their chief, the Pope.

Now, the question between us and No-Churchmen turns precisely on this Ecclesia docens. Has our blessed Saviour established a body of teachers for his Church, that is, for the congregation of the faithful? Has he given them authority to teach and govern? Has he given to this body the promise of infallibility and indefectibility? If so, which of the pretended Christian ministries now extant is this body? These are the questions between us and No-Churchmen, and they cover the whole ground in controversy. There is now no mistaking the points to be discussed.

I. We take it for granted that the writer in the Christian Examiner admits, or intends to admit, the divine origin and authority of the Christian religion, and that the name of Jesus is the only name "given under heaven among men whereby we must be saved." We shall take it for granted that he holds the Christian religion to be, not merely preferable to all other religions or pretended religions, but the only true religion and way of salvation. We are bound to do so, for he is a Doctor of Divinity, a professedly Christian pastor of a professedly Christian congregation, and it would be discourteous on our part to reason with him as we would with a Jew, Pagan, Mahometan, or Infidel. We are bound to assume that he holds, or at least intends to hold, that the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ is the only law of life, without obedience to which no one can be saved; and, since he makes Christianity and the Church coëxtensive, that out of the pale of the Church as he defines it, there is no salvation. The Church, he says, comprehends and

is composed of all the followers of Christ. No one, then, whe is not in the Church is a follower of Christ. If the Gospel of Christ be the only law of life, no one not a follower of Christ can be saved. Consequently, no one not a member of the Church of Christ can be saved.

To deny this is to reject Christianity altogether, or to fall into complete indifferency. If men can be saved, or be acceptable to their Maker, in one religion as well as in another, wherein is one preferable to another? If the Christian revelation was not necessary to our salvation, why was it given us, and why are we called upon to believe and obey it? why did God send his only begotten Son to make it, and why was it declared to be of such inestimable value to us? If Jesus Christ taught that salvation is attainable in all religions, or in any religion but his own, why were the Apostles so enraptured with the Gospel, and why did they make such painful sacrifices for its promulgation? If they had not been taught to regard it as the only way of salvation, their conduct is unaccountable; and if it be not the only way of salvation, they and their Master can be regarded only as a company of deluded fanatics, whose labors, sacrifices, and cruel deaths may indeed excite our pity, but cannot command our respect. We shall presume the writer in the Christian Examiner sees all this as well as we, and therefore shall presume that he holds with us, that all mankind are bound to worship God, that there is but one true way of worshipping God, and therefore but one true religion, and that this true religion is the Christian religion. He who does not admit this much can by no allowable stretch of courtesy be called a Christian. This premised, we proceed.

In order to be saved, to enter into life, or to become acceptable to God, one must be a Christian. To be a Christian, one must be a believer. No one is a Christian who is not a follower of Christ. Every follower of Christ, according to the Christian Examiner, is a member of the Church of Christ. But, according to the same authority, the Church is a company of believers. Therefore a Christian must be a believer. He

who is a believer is a believer because he believes something Therefore, in order to be a Christian, it is necessary to believe something.

The Christian Examiner must admit this conclusion; yet some Unitarians have the appearance of denying it. A short time since, we read an article in a Unitarian newspaper, written by a distinguished Unitarian clergyman, in which the writer maintains, that, although faith is indispensable to the Christian character, belief is not; yet he fails to define what that faith is which excludes or does not include belief. The late Dr. Channing, in his Discourse on the Church, objects to all forms, creeds, and churches, and declares that the essence of all religion is in supreme love to God and universal justice and charity towards our neighbour. Yet we presume he wishes this fact, to wit, that this is the essence of all religion, should be assented to both by the will and the understanding. But this is not a fact of science, evident in and of itself. It depends on other facts which are matters of belief, and therefore must itself be an object of belief. Not a few Unitarian clergymen of our acquaintance understand by faith trust or confidence ( fiducia), and contend, that, when we are commanded to believe in Christ, in God, &c., the meaning is, that we should trust or confide in him. To believe in the Son is to confide in him as the Son of God. But I cannot confide in him as the Son of God, unless I believe that he is the Son of God; I cannot confide in God, unless I believe that he is, and that he is the protector of them that trust him. Where there is no belief, there is and can be no confidence. Confidence always presupposes faith; for where there is no belief that the trust reposed will be responded to, there is no trust; and the fact, that the one trusted will preserve and not betray the trust, is necessarily a matter of faith, of belief, not of knowledge. Faith begets confidence, but is not it; confi-. dence is the effect or concomitant of faith, but can never exist without it. So, however these may seem to deny the necessity of belief, they all in reality imply it, presuppose it.

Moreover, all Unitarians hold, that, to be a Christian, one

must be a follower of Christ. Their radical conception of Christ is that of a teacher, of a person specially raised up and commissioned by Almighty God to teach, and to teach the truth. But one cannot be said to be the follower of a teacher, unless he believes what the teacher teaches. Therefore, to be a Christian, one must be a believer.

This, again, is evident from the Holy Scriptures. "For without faith," says the blessed Apostle Paul, "it is impossible to please God." Heb. xi. 6. So our blessed Saviour: "He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that be. lieveth not shall be condemned." St. Mark, xvi. 16. "He that believeth in the Son hath eternal life; but he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him." St. John, iii. 36. This is sufficient to establish our first position, namely, that, in order to be a Christian, it is necessary to be a believer, that is, to believe somewhat.

This somewhat, which it is necessary to believe, is not falsehood, but truth. What we are required to believe is that for not believing which we shall be condemned. But God is a God of truth, nay, truth itself, and it is repugnant to reason to assume that he will condemn us for not believing falsehood. The belief demanded is also essential to our salvation; for it is said, "He that believeth not shall be condemned." But it is equally repugnant to reason to maintain that a God of truth, who is truth, can make belief in falsehood essential to salvation. Therefore the belief demanded, as to its object, is truth, not falsehood.

The truth we are required to believe is the revelation which Almighty God has made us through his Son, Jesus Christ, or in other words, the truth which Jesus Christ taught or revealed. The belief in question is Christian belief, that which makes one a Christian believer, a follower of Jesus, a member of the "uncounted and wide-spread congregation of all those who receive the Gospel as the law of life." But one can De a Christian believer only by believing Christian truth; and Christian truth can be no other truth, if different truths there be,