PART IV.

THE CHURCH.

ITS SACRAMENTS AND ITS MINISTERS

19. OF THE CHURCH.

20. OF THE AUTHORITY OF THE CHURCH.

21. OF THE AUTHORITY OF GENERAL COUNCILS.

22. OF PURGATORY.

23. OF MINISTERING IN THE CONGREGATION.

24. OF SPEAKING IN THE CONGREGATION.

25. OF THE SACRAMENTS.

26. OF THE UNWORTHINESS OF MINISTERS.

27. OF BAPTISM.

28. OF THE LORD'S SUPPER.

29. OF THE WICKED WHICH EAT NOT THE BODY

OF CHRIST.

30. OF BOTH KINDS.

31. OR CHRIST'S ONE OBLATION.

32. OF THE MARRIAGE OF PRIESTS.

33. OF EXCOMMUNICATE PERSONS.

34. OF THE TRADITIONS OF THE CHURCH.

The

Of the Church.

ARTICLE XIX.

visible Church of Christ 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.

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.

De Ecclesia.

Ecclesia Christi visibilis est cœtus fidelium, in quo verbum Dei purum prædicatur, et sacramenta, quoad ea quæ necessario exigantur, juxta Christi institutum recte administrantur. Sicut erravit Ecclesia Hierosolymitana, Alexandrina, et Antiochena; ita et erravit Ecclesia Romana, non solum quoad agenda, et cæremoniarum ritus, verum in his etiam quæ credenda sunt.

NOTES ON THE TEXT OF ARTICLE XIX.

The following Latin equivalents may be noted:-'Congregation,' Latin, cœtus; 'Duly,' Latin, recte; In their living,' Latin, quoad agenda; 'Matters of faith,' quæ credenda sunt.

The Article remained unchanged in the revision in Elizabeth's reign.

The Seventh Article of the Confession of Augsburg was manifestly the origin of the first clause, now before us. 'The Church is a congregation of saints, in which the Gospel is rightly (recte) taught, and the Sacraments are rightly administered.'

THE PRINCIPAL DIVISIONS OF ARTICLE XIX.

1. The word 'visible,' as it is used here, necessarily implies the existence of its opposite, 'invisible.' Otherwise the word ‘Church,' unqualified by an epithet, would have sufficed. Hence the student must consider in accordance with wellarranged Scripture proofs—

A. The nature and privileges of the Church visible.
B. The nature and privileges of the Church invisible.

2. An assertion historically demonstrable is made that certain ancient Churches have erred. The general Scripture mode of dealing with this will be a consideration of the question whether a promise of inerrancy was left by the Saviour to the Church under any definition of that term. And whether, in point of fact, any Church in New Testament times, and the Roman Church in particular, proved itself in

errant.

THE DEFINITION AND NOTES OF THE CHURCH VISIBLE.

The early Christian Fathers often urged the name and authority of the Church Catholic against heretics. The thoughtful student will, however, perceive a very important distinction between our position and theirs, which may materially affect, not the truth and point of their assertions, but their application to the changed circumstances of the Church. We have arrayed against us the bulk of the Western Church, which has overlaid, added to, and corrupted the ancient Faith, and abandoned the rule of Faith in Scripture. We are severed by almost as serious differences from the varied sections of the Eastern Church. And there have grown up amongst us communities of Christians, differently organised, and often opposing our action, and yet for the most part readily acknowledging the same creeds and doctrinal articles. There is no parallel to this state of things in antiquity. Hence, in many things the voice of antiquity fails practically to teach us. The dictum of some ancient sage and Father of the Church, wise and true in its first application to the Church,

as it was, may fail in point, or even in truth, if applied to the Church as it is. Ignatius might truly say,' speaking of the three orders of bishop, presbyters, and deacons, 'Apart from these there is no Church.' It was, doubtless, an unquestionable fact in that age. Apart from them there might be Jew, Heathen, or Gnostic, but not the Church. But to take these sayings of old, and to force their application dogmatically to a condition of the Church of which the venerable martyr had not the faintest glimpse, must surely be unjust to his memory and untrue to the facts.

Bishop Browne on this Article has collected a series of definitions of the Church from the writers of the first four centuries. They will be found to be very closely in accordance with our present Article, and to have little in them that is hierarchical and sacerdotal. But it was not until the great disruption of the Western Church at the Reformation that the question of the true definition of the Church acquired great importance. The claims of the popes, on the one hand, to universal dominion; and of the reforming bodies, on the other, to an independent constitution of their Churches, raised the question of the true nature of the Church.

The technical phrase in use among divines to express the essential qualities which mark the true Church is Notes of the Church.

Hence these Notes of the Church have been hotly debated between Romish and Protestant controversialists, and again between the Church of England and rival sects.

In the definition before us in the present Article we have the following notes:

1. The Church is a society of believers.

2. In it the pure word of God is preached.

3. In it the sacraments are duly ministered in all essentials of Christ's institution. The confession of Augsburgh in the clause quoted above contains precisely the same definition.

In

pursuance of the plan of this work to introduce the student to recognised English theology, in further illustration of this Article we shall refer to the works of three writers who stand in 1 Ep. ad Trall. 3.

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