The design of the sermon before us, which is founded upon John xviii. 17-21, is to show Christ as the one only Head of the Church, sanctifying himself that the Church may be sanctified through him, and thence deducing those great results that necessarily flow from such a doctrine. Thus, for example, the nature of that real spiritual presence, in the eucharist, of Christ our head, as held by our Church, is thus taught ;—

"We may observe, with respect to the grace annexed to the communion of his body and blood in the sacrament of the eucharist; that we here acknowledge a real presence of Christ to the faithful receiver, though we are assured, at the same time, that the body of our Lord is not on earth, but in heaven, there abiding until the second personal advent of the Lord to judgment. We acknowledge, that is, that he is effectually present to the faithful; for that such receive the consecrated emblems in that sacrament-not as signs only according to their earthly nature, but as signs effectual to that end for which the Lord ordained them; effectual for the supplying of that spiritual food and sustenance, which the body and blood of the Lord would impart to the soul, could they be actually and corporally present in their substance, and not simply by their signs and by spiritual manducation. Thus it is, then, that we may consistently maintain a real spiritual presence of Christ in the eucharist, though we deny a corporeal carnal presence. We doubt not the efficacy of the grace of his passion, though his passion itself is a by-gone event; though having died unto sin once, he now dieth no more; though that body which once was broken, can be broken no more; and that blood which once was shed, can be shed no more; we doubt not, I say, still, the efficacy of the grace of his passion to penetrate all distance of time and place; and, without any conducting medium, without intervention of any thing but the use of the appointed means on which his blessing and promise rest, thus to quicken our dull souls with new life, and assimilate them to him who is their food. Hence our Church cautions us, in the Homily on this subject, to take heed in celebrating this feast, lest of the memory it be made a sacrifice; and, following the words of Scripture, speaks of this sacrament as a communion of the body and blood in a marvellous incorporation, which by the operation of the Holy Ghost (the very bond of our conjunction with Christ), is, through faith, wrought in the souls of the faithful: whereby not only their souls live to eternal life, but they surely trust to win to their bodies a resurrection to immortality. Again, directing to the worthy receiving of the sacrament, the Homily calls on the communicant to have not only a general faith in the atonement of Christ, but to make a particular application of that faith to himself. It exhorts him to believe, as it goes on to say, 'so that thou acknowledgest no other Saviour, Redeemer, Mediator, Advocate, and Intercessor, but Christ only; and that thou mayest say with the apostle, that he loved thee, and gave himself for thee: for this is to stick fast to Christ's promise made in his institution, to make Christ thine own, and to apply his merits unto thyself. Herein thou needest no other man's help; no other sacrifice or oblation; no sacrificing priest; no mass: no means established by man's invention. So strictly are we enjoined by the language of our Church to look to no secondary agency for bringing down the presence of Christ to us in this holy sacrament. And if in this sacred rite, in which the Lord especially vouchsafes his presence, we are required to go immediately to him, and believe him to be present on the sole strength of his promise, much less must we be tempted to think, that he has authorized his ministers to present him to us in a more sensible manner, by any rites or ordinances of the Church, or to set up the Church before the world as the living impersonation of the Saviour."-(pp. 10-12.)

Again, the mistaken views of the Romanist, respecting the headship of Christ upon earth, and all the evil consequences of Church authority, the theory of developments, and the rest that flow from it, are thus ably stated and refuted :

:

"The advocates of Rome suppose, in fact, the Church, as instinctive with the Lord's divinity, to be precisely analogous to the condition of the gospel during the incarnation itself of Christ on earth. So long as Christ lived and taught, as both God and man, in the flesh, so long, they hold, was the Church concentrated in him, its King, its Priest, and Prophet. When he ascended into heaven, and endued the apostles with power from on high, to carry on the work of evangelizing the world, then, according to their view, began that order of things, which has subsisted to this day in the Church. The apostles, as they state, were fully constituted in his place, to continue what he had begun; to establish and spread, by the divine word imparted to them, the kingdom of God on earth. They, indeed, were human: but so also was that nature which the Lord assumed for the accomplishment of his ministry. His ministry would have been defective, had it been simply human. By the union with the divine nature, the frail and fallible was rendered, in all its operations, divine and perfect. So the apostles, as men, it is argued, were weak and fallible; but, as inspired and guided by the divine word, they were rendered unerring in all they said and did for the furtherance of the gospel, and mighty in the power of their priesthood. And what the apostles were, that also, according to this theory, are their successors for ever: those who from them have received that commission, which they, as successors to the entire office of Christ, were empowered to transmit to their immediate successors; and those successors again to others after them, to the end of the world. This is the true account of that supremacy of power and teaching, which Romanists attribute to their Church. It is here no question of degrees; no ground of comparison between the deference due to the Scriptures and the ministry of the Church, in the diffusion of the gospel and exposition of the faith. There can be no doubt, if our Lord himself were still on earth, teaching with his own voice, and building up his Church with his own hands, that he must be looked to as the supreme, absolute authority; and that the written word must be interpreted and applied as he would direct. As his enlargement of the law of Moses, and interpretations of the Old Testament, are authoritative and infallible,—so also must his subsequent teaching have overruled all previous statement in the written revelation of the New. Now, if we regard the apostles as the entire successors to his office, so that whatever they rule in their sacred office, must be regarded as ruled by the Lordwhatever act they perform in it as accompanied by the power of his divinity, what we have observed, on the supposition of his continuing on earth in his own person, must apply equally to them, and to those after them, who receive from them the same power. Whence it follows, that the Christian is bound to have recourse to the ministers of the Church, as the vicegerents of Christ himself as the appointed dispensers of grace, and teachers of his word; believing whatever the Church believes, and doing whatever the Church enjoins: persuaded that, as without Christ there is no salvation, so without that society in which alone his saving presence is perpetuated, there is no salvation. Before such a living organ of Christ, the Scriptures necessarily sink in value and importance to the Christian soul. They are nothing more than the teaching of the Church at the time when they were written: containing, indeed, the substance of the truth, but not that explicit form of it in which a subsequent age of the Church has unfolded it, and stated it. Consequently, to take them as they stand in their original form, is, according to this view, to overlook the successive expansions or limitations of their meaning which they have since obtained. It is to mistake hints and outlines for a finished structure; statements, sufficient for the needs of the Church at

the time when they were put forth, as if they were adequate for the purpose of a later age: whereas successive occasions have called upon the Church to pronounce more definitively than the Scriptures have done on many points of doctrine; and by these accordingly the Scriptures must be interpreted, and not these by the Scriptures.

"Thus does what, in modern phraseology, is termed the theory of developments, very naturally obtain a place in the Romanist theory of the Church; and that theory of the Church alone gives a warrant to it. Unless the Church be regarded as invested with the mediatorial power, though it may possess authority to teach out of the Scriptures, and lead men to the acknowledgment of the truth in Christ, and administer the ordinances of religion, it has no authority to impose the sense on Scripture, or require anything to be believed, or done, as necessary to salvation, but what is found in the written commandments of the Lord, and the inspired organs of his revelation."-(12-15.)

The essential difference between our own Church and that of Rome, as resulting from the widely different views we take of the headship of Christ, is shown in the following passage :—

Here, accordingly, lies the great difference in the teaching of the Church of Rome, and our own Church. The Church of Rome asserts, that the several forms of doctrine, by which the faith is expressed, are its own spontaneous effusions-decisions and declarations of the truth, possessing a divine sanction, as proceeding from itself, because it has the mind of Christ informing it, and the voice of Christ speaking in it. The evidence of Scripture, accordingly, is not essential to the proof of its doctrines. It is enough that they are referred to the authority of the Church. They are the doctrines of Christ, because they are the doctrines of the Church. The Church of England, on the other hand, disclaims any right_to_originate articles of faith of its own motion, or any authority to command what shall be believed by the faithful. It only proposes, for the acceptance of its members, what itself believes to be the doctrine of Christ, in the way of authoritative counsel and direction to them; and bids them search the Scriptures whether its teaching be true or no.

"It matters not to the point, be it observed, whether the reference to Scripture be full of difficulty, or impracticable, to the generality of Christians. This is an objection often thrown in the way by controvertists, when it is, in fact, beside the question. For the real question at issue between Rome and ourselves is-Is there a divine authority, of knowledge and power, vested in the Church, or no? If there be such authority, then the whole system of the Church of Rome necessarily follows. Its doctrines, its discipline, its worship, are but the developments of this principle. And those who accord this principle to the Church, must, if they be true to their profession, sooner or later, admit and adopt the whole scheme of religion taught and practised in that Church. But if there be no such divine authority vested in the Church, then neither can its teaching or its power be regarded as authoritative in itself: its doctrines and its power must rest on other evidence than its own assertion of them; and that evidence drawn from some confessed divine source, such as the Scriptures are proved to be."-(pp. 21, 22.)

The Professor proceeds to remark, "This line, then, should be distinctly drawn between the two churches, as a boundary which cannot be passed by either, without an invasion of the territory of the other." It is even more than this, it is the line which no Church, no Christian community, on the same side of it as ourselves, can ever pass without the most imminent peril. It is the

Rubicon between truth and error. Within the safe bounds of Scripture, all is security and peace; step beyond it, cross the line by which this land of freedom is circumscribed, and we are immediately astray. How far we may go, it is impossible to say; but astray we are, wandering from "the old paths," "the good way' which alone leadeth to life eternal.

Again, the following is all-important, as showing the rise and development of the system in that university which of late years has been spreading so rapidly

"Inquiring minds have sought a station of rest amidst the agitations of sectarianism, and have found it only in the extreme of an infallible Churchauthority; and others, won by the attractions which a scheme of such imposing pretension offers, have readily given themselves to the support of the specious delusion. Persons are but too apt to dislike those that differ from them, especially in religious opinion, in proportion to the greater interest of the subject; and the feeling against dissent, aggravated by its increase of power and extent, has naturally laid hold of that which gave expression to it in the most intense form. Hence that disposition towards the Romanist view of Church-authority which has been manifested among us. For that view involves in it a hatred of dissent: of dissent, not only on account of its errors of doctrine, but because it is dissent because it is then regarded as a wilful rebellion against the authority of Christ himself, like the rebellion of Korah, Dathan, and Abiram, against the Lord's authority in Moses and Aaron; or like the secession of the ten tribes, and the setting up of the kingdom of Samaria against the Theocracy in Israel; and assumes, accordingly, the nature of impiety and sin. That this feeling unhappily exists to a great extent among us, we cannot deny; and that it has met with a congenial support in the high notion of ecclesiastical supremacy, which has been, of late, so sedulously insinuated into the minds of the rising generation of this university especially, by a party, itself based on that notion, and the living energizing expression of it. The ascendancy, however, of a principle, even the temporary ascendancy, such as it has enjoyed during the flourishing days of this party, shows its true character. 'Apxǹ τdv ăvôpa deí§e is true of principles as of men. We might not have been disposed to take the warning which the long experience of the world has given in the case of the Church of Rome: because it might have been supposed that the principle could be inculcated under the shade of a reformed Church, apart from its obnoxious accompaniments in the former instance; the corruptions of faith and practice which have followed in the Church of Rome. But we have now seen that these corruptions are its natural and proper results; that we cannot take up an extravagant, unscriptural theory of the Church, without taking along with it its unscriptural consequences; that, if we become Romanists in principle, we must be Romanists throughout; believers in the doctrine of the mass, and of purgatory, and of invocation of saints and angels, of justification by the sacraments, of the merit of good works, and other corruptions of the Church of Rome; and that we must also become assimilated to it in conduct, having words of peace and gentleness on our lips, and persecution in our hearts. The developments of the last few years have strikingly brought this fact before us; and we may learn, therefore, that there is no security to us in the soundness of our doctrines, if we admit any tampering with the principle of Church-authority: that while we are building up the walls of our city on high, and fortifying it against attacks from without, we are but giving a rallying point to a faction within us; a citadel to be seized by an oligarchy at home, as occasion may offer, from which they may exercise their despotism safely, and model the existing constitution of things to their pleasure. We

should know, too, how dangerous it is, to invite for succour against our adversaries, the alliance of a principle which is, by its nature, too strong for us; which will not retire within its own dominion, when it has accomplished the work for which we have called it in; but will turn its triumph against our enemies, (as history has often shown in the case of states obtaining the aid of some more powerful state against their neighbours,) into the means of mastery over ourselves."-(pp. 26-28.)

We fear that our extracts have been already too long, or we should have given some more from the conclusion of the sermon. We will, however, content ourselves with commending it to our readers, as a very able defence of Church of England Scriptural truth against the antique innovations which have lately been sought to be grafted on it.

A LETTER to the Managers, &c., of St. Paul's Church, Aberdeen. By the Rev. Sir W. DUNBAR, Bart. Third Edition. Aberdeen. 1843.

A DISSUASIVE FROM SCHISM. By C. H. TERROT, DD., Bishop. Edinburgh: Grants. 1843.

AN ADDRESS to the Congregation of St. Thomas's English Episcopal Church. By the Rev. D. T. K. DRUMMOND. Edinburgh: Kennedy. 1843.

AN EXPLANATION of the Position of the Twenty-first Canon of the Scotch Episcopal Church. By the Rev. A. EWING, Incumbent of St. John, Forres. Aberdeen: Brown. 1844. THE SCOTTISH EPISCOPAL CHURCH proved to differ essentially from the Church of England, both in Doctrine and Government. By an ENGLISH EPISCOPALIAN. Edinburgh: Kennedy. 1844.

In our number for January, in last year, we reviewed this controversy to that period. Since then, Mr. Drummond's congregation, warmly attached to him personally, and to the Church of England, of which they viewed him as a faithful minister, have built him a new church, in which he now officiates. The above pamphlets have also since been published in Scotland. There are many reasons why our readers should be well informed on the nature of this controversy. It is most intimately connected with the Tractarian movement in this country, and the proceedings of the Scottish Episcopal Church are highly commended by the Trac