structure, not in the foundation. Either the persons of whom I am speaking use the term in this sense, or they do not. If they do not, they are merely introducing a new phraseology into divinity, which, it is to be feared, will only tend to confusion of ideas. If they do use the term in this sense, then I would fain ask, when did the Catholic Church ever make the points in which the Churches of England and Rome differ, terms of communion, or regard an agreement in definitions respecting them as indispensable to salvation? If the Catholic Church has not done so, no branch of that Church is warranted in doing so, neither can it do so, without injury to its own claim to be considered Catholic. The Catholic Church never has done so: and of this a reasonable proof may be immediately adduced. For, if any one of the points of difference comes near to be accounted fundamental, I presume it is the Canon of Scripture, which, accordingly, is usually placed first in the list. But we know that, while the Catholic Church in general held the same canon that we do, the African Church received, with one exception, the canon which the Church of Rome has since adopted. But the difference on this point was never then made a ground for interrupting communion. The other Churches did not excommunicate the African, nor the African excommunicate the others. The Church of Rome, indeed, has made this and almost all our other differences, terms of communion, considered them as funda

mentals and necessary to salvation. But, in so doing, as she has departed from the Catholic standard, the only effect has been to bring her own claim to be considered Catholic, into question, if not to destroy it altogether. If the Church of England shall make the negative of these propositions fundamentals and terms of communion, she will, as was before observed, be treading in the same course. As yet she has not done so; and, it is to be hoped, she never will. Neither at baptism nor confirmation does she require an opinion on these points; nor when converts come over to her from Rome, has she authorized her ministers to make a disavowal of belief in respect of them a term of communion; and if individual prelates or presbyters have taken upon them to do so, they have done that which they have had no warrant for doing, either from the rules of the Catholic Church or of their own branch of that Church.

Let me not be misinterpreted, as stating the points in dispute to be light and trifling. It is not so: many of them are of extreme importance, and we shall not faithfully discharge our duty to God or to our people if we fail to bear witness to the truth in respect of them. They are new, they are unwarranted, they are false, they are hazardous. But between all these, and fundamental, according to the ecclesiastical and scriptural use of that term, there is a wide difference, which it can answer no good purpose to overlook. And, as St. Paul, while he reprobated the

error of those who gave in to the "voluntary humility and worshipping of angels," did not enjoin such persons to be excommunicated, we are taught that we are not warranted in interrupting Catholic communion, and excluding from Christian fellowship, on account of every important error, against which, at the same time, we may yet think it our duty to bear witness. The Church of Rome has taken a different course; but her course, being unwarranted, is rather to be shunned with indignation, than to be imitated by all true Catholics.

The main question then, between the Churches, appears simply to be this: "Is the Church of Rome warranted in thus interrupting Christian unity, and causing division among the believers in Jesus Christ, by erecting this wall of partition? If the doctrines in question are necessary to salvation, unquestionably she is warranted, in respect both to truth and charity; and the English Church worthy of all condemnation for rejecting them. If they are not necessary to salvation, then the Church of Rome is not only not warranted in her course, but is guilty of greater sin than even Balaam dared to commit, while she ventures to curse whom God hath not cursed." It is affirmed, on the part of the Romans, that a belief in the doctrines in question is necessary to salvation, and upon the truth or falsehood of this assertion the main controversy turns. Although the Church of England has recognized only one standard for ascertaining necessary Christian truth,

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namely, the record of Holy Scripture, (not as undervaluing tradition, but as rightly conceiving that there is no true essential doctrine taught by tradition, but the same is also either contained in Holy Scripture or may be proved thereby,) her sons need make no scruple to allow the Romans to avail themselves of the other, which (independent of Holy Scripture) their Church has recognized, namely, tradition, either from Christ Himself, or from the Holy Spirit, through the mouths of the Apostles, preserved by continual succession in the Catholic Church.-(Council of Trent, Sess. 14.)

If, either according to Scripture, or according to tradition as set forth by continual succession of witnesses in the Catholic Church up to the times of the apostles, the Roman position be true, that the doctrines in question are necessary to salvation, it must be capable of being proved so. Let her advocates proceed to show this. It is to this they are invited: a safe invitation, since it is certain that the records of the early Church enable us, in respect of most of the Roman doctrines, to lay our fingers on the very years when, successively, they were compulsorily thrust into the Christian religion, and forced down the consciences of the timid under sentence of anathema. The records of the Church, the writings of the Fathers, the decrees of the Councils, the only witnesses of tradition, enable us to assert, without fear of contradiction, that no one of the doctrines in question was authoritatively adopted until nearly the

close of the eighth century, when image-worship was enjoined by anathema, at the Deutero-Nicene Council. If any of the bishops of the Church of Rome think they can prove to the contrary, in God's name let them do it; for we seek not victory, but truth. Let them show, if they can, any earlier authority for the compulsory adopting any one of the doctrines in question, or making it a term of communion. But if they cannot, then they are witnesses against themselves, that they are teaching, for necessary Christian truths, doctrines which they can produce no authority for so teaching from either of those sources, from which alone they themselves affirm Christian truth is to be derived.

Now, to bring this question to the shortest issue, let us try it in a few instances. The Church of Rome enforces, on pain of anathema, teaches to be essential to salvation, and requires as a condition of communion, an assent to the following propositions:

I. That they are accursed, who do not honour, salute, and honourably worship the holy and venerable images.-DeuteroNicene. See pp. 109, 110, 111. Creed of Pius IV. p. xlviii.

II. That they are accursed, who do not believe that Christ is present in the holy eucharist by way of transubstantiation: or who affirm that after consecration the substance of the bread and wine remain in the consecrated elements.-Lateran iv. pp. 132, 133. Trent, pp. 238, 239. Creed of Pius IV. p. xlviii.

III. That they are accursed, who do not believe that there is