Church-that we find it already preparing to attack the last bulwark of our national liberty, and, by the overthrow of the Act of Settlement, to bring the throne of England once more under the papal yoke.

The recent report of the Ritual Commission affords indisputable evidence of the extent to which the English Church has become leavened with Romish doctrine and Romish practice; and from the nature of the recommendations made by the Commissioners, it is clearly hopeless to expect any return to Reformation principles. A shrewd observer of events (Dr. John Bennett), who has now passed to his rest, wrote on this subject thirty years ago: "The moment Evangelicalism refuses to claim for itself to be the only revealed Truth of God, that moment its power is gone. Samson-like, it is shorn of its strength. Truth which is not exclusive is salt which has lost its savour.' The words were prophetic, and to-day their fulfilment is before our eyes. True Evangelicalism, as a living force in the counsels of the National Church, has ceased to exist. When its adherents were content to become a mere party, or a particular " school of thought," they wrote its death-warrant; and although the evangelical spirit still survives in individual thought and action, its power in a representative sense is gone.

Coincident with the growth of Romanism, has been the development of free thought and scientific scepticism concerning the things of God. While Popery thrives on ignorance and superstition, Secularism prospers through the progress of intellectual knowledge and research. The pagan theory of evolution, now so widely accepted in defiance of revealed Truth, is

largely responsible for the systematic doubt which characterizes much of the religious profession of the present day. It is greatly to be deplored in this connection, that many evangelical teachers, while rejecting the views of the "higher criticism," seek to reconcile the assumptions of science with the statements of the Word of God, and, by a fantastic interpretation of the Mosaic narrative, to explain the process of creation in accordance with the suggestions of human intelligence and human philosophy.

But the conclusions of metaphysical science, so far as they affect the absolute accuracy of the Bible as an historic record, are ipso facto false; for if the Scriptures were untrue in any single particular, they could possess no real virtue as a revelation from God. The doctrine of Moses is as explicit as the doctrine of Christ, and the two must stand or fall together. "If ye believe not his writings, how shall ye believe My words?" We have to choose between natural reason on the one hand, and supernatural revelation on the other hand; we cannot honestly bow to both. It is only when we deny, or ignore, the miraculous intervention of God in the genesis and subsequent ruin of the earth, that we are confronted with the necessity of interpreting the account of the creation otherwise than in the plain and obvious sense in which it has been received and understood, by believing Jews and Gentiles alike, since the foundation of the world,

The educational controversy has furnished some striking examples of the confusion of thought that prevails, in the minds of many public men, with regard to subjects

revealed religion. The perpetual association of doctrine with denominationalism is misleading and wrong. The fundamental truths of Scripture are necessarily doctrinal, and for centuries have been accepted as the hall-mark of the Christian religion, under whatever particular denomination it may be found. There can be no value, from a spiritual point of view, in any ethical or moral instruction, which is not based upon Bible doctrine and Bible Truth.

But the deceits of priestcraft are displacing orthodox belief in the Church of England, as latitudinarian thought is superseding Scriptural principles in the Free Churches. The authoritative pronouncement of the Romanizing party is that "the Bible is the child of the Church;" and on this hypothesis it is contended that "the Church alone can rightly interpret the Bible," or impart “religious teaching" to the people. (vide "The Catholic Religion: a Manual of Instruction for members of the Anglican Church, by the Rev. Vernon Staley.) Such pretensions are but an Anglican imitation of the decree of the Vatican Council in 1870, "that in matters of faith and morals pertaining to the building up of Christian doctrine, that is to be regarded as the true sense of sacred Scripture which Holy Mother Church has held and holds (which has the right to judge alone the true sense and interpretation of the Holy Scriptures), and therefore no one may interpret that Holy Scripture contrary to that sense, or even contrary to the unanimous consent of the Fathers": and they form a natural stepping-stone to the fallacy now so extensively propagated from press and pulpit, that the Roman Catholic

Church is "the parent Church of Christianity," and the Pope the official head of "Christendom."

The real conflict that lies before us is not between Romanism and Secularism, but between Faith and Unbelief. It is round the banner of the Christ on the one side, and the banner of the Antichrist on the other side, that the opposing forces will ultimately gather for the final struggle. In the meantime all things are shaping towards the consummation. Ecclesiastical systems are becoming more and more permeated with antichristian principles, and the Lord's work is being done in increasing measure, and the Lord's people are found in increasing numbers, without the camp of denominational religion, and separated from the Babylonian influences that have corrupted the churches.

This work consists to a large extent of the substance of addresses delivered some years ago. Its main object is to reassert the accuracy and sufficiency of the Scriptures, in opposition to the theories of scientists, and the errors of "church" or "denominational" teaching, falsely so called.

An annotated Bible, and a Greek and Hebrew concordance have been the chief books of reference. The author has sought to establish every position, and justify every statement, by the Word of God alone, according to the golden rule that God is His own interpreter, and on the principle affirmed at the Reformation, that the Holy Scriptures constitute the sole authority on all questions of Christian faith and practice, and that nothing is to be received or required of any man, that cannot be read

therein or proved thereby. A few quotations have been occasionally introduced for purposes of definition, or with a view of demonstrating how far the conventional Christianity of the present generation has departed from the faith, and outraged the testimony, of the believing people of God of all ages.

Much that has been written down in the following pages will be counted foolishness, and much will be condemned as "uncharitable." But the "first principles of the oracles of God" are counted foolishness in the estimation of modern criticism; and fidelity to the doctrine of Christ demands that evil should not be allowed to ripen unmolested. Every voice that can be raised, however feebly, in defence of orthodox Truth, in these days of doubt and indifference, ought to make itself heard, with the single desire to vindicate the honour of the Saviour, and to stimulate and strengthen faith in "the abiding things of God."

BALSALL COMMON, NEAR COVENTRY,

September, 1906.