shall exist, professing the true faith, belong to the same Church. It is also called universal because all who desire to obtain eternal salvation ought to hold and embrace it, as those who entered the ark lest they should perish in the flood. Lastly, the Church is apostolic, because its doctrine. is the primitive truth, handed down from the Apostles, and disseminated through the whole world. For the Holy Spirit, who presides over the Church, governs it only through an apostolic ministry; and as this Church, being governed by the Holy Spirit, cannot err in handing down the discipline of faith and morals, so all others which arrogate the name. of church are, as being led by the spirit of the devil, necessarily involved in the most pernicious errors of doctrine and morals.

It is added that this article of the creed, no less than the others, surpasses our intelligence, so that we justly confess that we do not know the origin, gifts, and dignity of the Church by human reason, but behold them with the eyes of faith. For not men were the authors of this Church, but the immortal God himself, who built it on the firmest rock. Nor is the power which it has received human, but bestowed by Divine gift; and we understand by faith alone that in the Church are the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and to it has been delivered the power of remitting sins, of excommunicating, and of consecrating the true body of Christ.

It can hardly be denied that at least in some of its features the foregoing is a noble and attractive description of the Church; and if dissentients from it were only a few scattered and eccentric individuals, we might be tempted to receive it as a true representation of the Christian ideal. But when we survey the actual condition of Christendom, we see that a large part (I believe the larger part), consisting mainly of the Greek Church and the various Protestant bodies, stands outside the Roman communion; and when we apply the practical test of judging men by their fruits, we do not observe in the members of that communion a moral and

spiritual superiority corresponding to the prodigious apparatus of miracle on which it is professedly based. If it be true that no other body pretends to be the one and only Church of Christ, this fact does not necessarily favour the Roman claim; for such a claim may be only a mark of narrowness and presumption, from which other bodies have been happily liberated by a larger and juster theory. At all events the exclusion or secession of Protestants from the Roman communion rendered necessary, in order to defend their own position, a radical change of definition, which should, by implication, explain and justify the existence of several churches with their own separate governments. The general character of the Protestant view is clearly described in the Augsburg Confession1:- There is to be and remain for ever one holy Christian Church, which is the assembly of all believers, in which the Gospel is purely preached, and the holy sacraments are administered according to the Gospel. For this is sufficient for the true unity of the Christian Church . . . And it is not necessary to the true unity of the Christian Church that uniform ceremonies, instituted by men, should be everywhere observed. . . Although the Christian Church is properly nothing else than the assembly of all believers and saints, nevertheless, since in this life there are many false Christians and hypocrites, and open sinners remain among the pious, the sacraments are still valid, although the priests through whom they are administered are not pious.' In the Apology for the Confession2 a distinction, which is implied in the above definition, is clearly enunciated. The Church, it is said, is not merely a communion in external things, but is in principle a communion of faith and of the Holy Spirit in men's hearts. Nevertheless it has also outward marks, the Word of God and the Sacraments, by which it is known. This Church alone is called

1 Articles vii. and viii. I follow the German. The Latin is differently expressed, but similar in meaning.

2 Art. iv.

the body of Christ, because Christ is its head, and sanctifies and strengthens it through his spirit. Those in whom Christ effects nothing through his Spirit are not members of Christ. The Church being holy, the godless and wicked cannot be the holy Church. The title catholic' shows that the Church is not, like political institutions, limited to this or that land, but that the men who compose it are scattered here and there throughout the world, having one gospel, one Christ, one baptism and sacrament, and the rule of one Holy Spirit, though they have dissimilar ceremonies. Arguments are adduced to show that, properly speaking, the Church of Christ consists only of those who partake of the Holy Spirit and faith. The true Church is the kingdom of Christ; and all the godless, though they may be living in connexion with the Church, belong to the kingdom of the devil. This is taught in the parable of the tares, where the field is the world, not the Church, and the good seed are the children of the kingdom, while the tares are the kingdom of the devil. Thus the Church is concealed under the great mass of the godless; but still it is no imaginary Church, for there are really children of God here and there in all the world, in all kingdoms, islands, lands, and cities, from the rising to the setting of the sun.

The distinction which is thus clearly described was afterwards marked by the terms the 'visible' and the 'invisible' Church. One of these terms is employed in the articles of the Church of England; but its correlative is not used, and the subject is not worked out. The visible Church of Christ,' it is said, 'is a congregation of faithful men, in the which the pure Word of God is preached, and the Sacraments be duly ministered according to Christ's ordinance in all those things that of necessity are requisite to the same.'1 'Faithful' here apparently means no more than those who profess the faith; for in a subsequent article2 it is said that 'in the visible Church the evil be 2 xxvi.

1 Article xix.

ever mingled with the good.' It seems also to be implied that the visible Church consists of a number of separate churches, which may or may not be in communion with one another; for the article adds that As the Church of Jerusalem, Alexandria, and Antioch, have erred, so also the Church of Rome hath erred, not only in their living and manner of Ceremonies, but also in matters of Faith.' The validity of the word and the sacraments remains, although they be ministered by evil men'; but such men, if found guilty, ought to be deposed.1 It is declared that 'The Bishop of Rome hath no jurisdiction in this Realm of England.'2 This declaration is connected with the assertion of the royal supremacy over all estates of the realm, whether they be ecclesiastical or civil; and thus the Church of England quite definitely entered on the path of schism, making the visible unity of the Church impossible, not only in fact, but in principle. Coleridge would escape from this conclusion by the assumption that the Papacy is Antichrist. He says, 'If the Papacy, and the Romish hierarchy as far as it is Papal, be not Antichrist, the guilt of schism in its most aggravated form lies on the authors of the reformation.'3 This is an unpleasant alternative for the High Church party. By 'Antichrist' Coleridge means ' a usurped power in the Church itself, which, in the name of Christ, and pretending his authority, systematically subverts or counteracts the peculiar aims and purposes of Christ's mission; and which, vesting in a mortal his incommunicable headship, destroys and exchanges for the contrary the essential contra-distinguishing marks or characters of his kingdom on earth.'4

The Westminster Confession recognizes explicitly the distinction of the invisible and the visible Churches, but assigns rather a different meaning from that which is given to it

3 On the Constitution of the Church and State according to the idea of each: on the third possible Church, or the Church of Antichrist, p. 145. 4 p. 151.

(though without the name) in the Lutheran standards. 'The catholic or universal church, which is invisible, consists of the whole number of the elect that have been, are, or shall be gathered into one, under Christ the head thereof; and is the spouse, the body, the fulness of him that filleth all in all. The visible church, which is also catholic or universal under the gospel (not confined to one nation, as before under the law), consists of all those throughout the world that profess the true religion, together with their children; and is the kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ, the house and family of God, out of which there is no ordinary possibility of salvation.' This catholic church hath been sometimes more, sometimes less visible. And particular churches, which are members thereof, are more or less pure, according as the doctrine of the gospel is taught and embraced, ordinances administered, and public worship performed more or less purely in them. The purest churches under heaven are subject both to mixture and error; and some have so degenerated as to become no churches of Christ.' There is no other head of the church but the Lord Jesus Christ; nor can the Pope of Rome in any sense be head thereof; but is that antichrist, that man of sin, and son of perdition, that exalteth himself in the church against Christ, and all that is called God.'1

It is unnecessary to follow the variations of the Protestant definitions in greater detail; for the fundamental distinction between the Roman and the Protestant views is now sufficiently apparent. In the Catholic doctrine the Church is a single organism, under one supreme and invisible head, the Lord Jesus Christ, who exercises his monarchical authority through the Pope as his visible representative. In opposition to this attractive ideal of a single divine society, holding men together in fraternal and spiritual bonds, regardless of differences of race and nation, the Protestants were obliged, in order to justify their own existence, to dissolve the Church 1 Chap. XXV.