forever dissolved the nuptials as forced and offensive to him. The pure word of God needs no such alliance-no such aid. This heavenly manna, as Milton intimates, is not to be seasoned with the tainted scraps of an unknown table. The spotless and undecaying robe of truth-we still use the words of the great poet-is not to be interlaced, and set off with the over-worn rags that have dropped from the toiling shoulders of time, however carefully gathered up, and by whomsoever preserved. So Protestants feel. With them the Bible alone is the Word of God. Divine truth, like the seamless vesture worn by the Master, was not rent by the Spirit, and divided between the Scriptures and tradition, the written and the unwritten word. No, it is whole and entire in the Bible-in the doctrine and discipline of the gospel-in the cross of Christ, and the glorious truths which encircle that bright and burning focus of Christianity; and requires most of all a humble, contrite heart-a heart in sympathy with what is holy, to understand and love it. It is upon minds darkened by guilt, upon hearts alienated by transgression, that the Bible fails to make its legitimate impression. If the gospel, therefore, be hid from any, it is not from those who, "on bended knees, and with hearts raised to heaven," are seeking the truth; but from those whose minds the god of this world hath blinded. The difficulty is in the hearts of men, who obey not the truth. The rays of light from the pages of inspiration fall upon troubled waters, and therefore, the image of the heavenly is not seen. Let the winds of passion just cease to disturb the surface of the human mind, let the sea of the corrupt heart once cease to cast up mire and dirt, and the understanding be opened by an influence from above, and then men will understand the Bible-then will the bosom of those same waters catch and retain the image of the truth, and reflect its softness and beauty to the eye of men, and make them wise unto salvation. "Here endeth the first lesson."

The second part of "the Guide" respects the unity of the church. Here the Rector is equally felicitous in his positions. Without defining the term, he proceeds to say, that the violation of this unity is a sin-that it has been violated, but is careful to tell us that the sin does not lie at the door of his denomination that the Episcopal church in this country is the child of that in England, which, before the times of Luther, was one that at the Reformation she threw off the impositions of popery and returned to the primitive faith-that the Papists,

who would not submit to this, left the church and became separatists and schismatics, and that the Puritans also, in the reign of Elizabeth, left the church and formed an opposing communion, that unable to mould the church according to their views, "inasmuch as she went as she had begun under Edward VI., looking to primitive antiquity, and the consent of the Catholic Fathers, and the ancient bishops as her guide and pattern," the Puritans began "to declaim against the church as popish and superstitious; and affirming Episcopacy to be antichristian, they separated from the church, and formed conventicles." Hence the author concludes that the sin of schism does not rest on the Anglican church, nor on her fair daughter in America.

History gives us a very different version of this matter. In the reign of Edward, the ignorance of the clergy called for the preparation of homilies and prayers to aid them in their duties. The Book of Common Prayer was compiled, and chiefly from the Roman. It retained many of the strong features of popery. It was afterwards revised, and some of these were left out. Elizabeth had the liturgy remodelled, and issued fifty-two injunctions, regulating worship and discipline-the lives and duties of clergymen-rites and ceremonies, and the like. Respecting the forms of worship, the convocation was about equally divided in opinion. One part urged, and with great earnestness, a return to greater simplicity. The other opposed this. The queen, who was fond of splendor in worship, and claiming supreme authority in religious matters, carried her point, and enforced uniformity to her views. According to Hume, the forms and ceremonies retained by Elizabeth in the liturgy tended to reconcile the Catholics to the established religion. The same historian adds, that if the queen could have had her way, the external appearance of worship would have had a still greater similarity to Rome,-that her love of state and magnificence, which she affected in every thing, inspired her with an inclination towards the pomp of the Catholic religion, and that it was in compliance with the prejudices of her party that she gave up images, addresses to the saints, and prayers for the dead. The Puritans saw this, and grieved over it. The crust of popery was indeed broken, but much of the shell was still retained. They wished to throw away the whole of it; and they would have moulded the church according to their views, if they had not been resisted by one, who, like the pope, claimed

supreme authority in matters of religion, and who established a worship, full of "the show and pomp of Rome," and ordered all her subjects to conform to the same.

The Episcopalians "went as they had begun under Edward, looking to primitive antiquity-to the consent of the Catholic Fathers and Ancient Bishops"-but not to the New Testament, as the ultima ratio legum in regard to all religious matters. They stopped where it was safe for them to stop. Determined to retain the forms and practices of Prelacy, it would not have been wise for them to have gone beyond primitive antiquity, and to have ventured into the presence of the New Testamentthe witnessing spirit of the first and purest age of the church. The safe place for Prelacy is in the sea-weed and shells of Milton's drag-net-which in the third century, the period of "the church's virgin purity," had gathered together a multitude of forms and ceremonies, unknown in the days of the apostles. This, therefore, is the never-failing refuge of Episcopalians when discomfited, as they are sure to be, whenever they so far forget themselves as to venture into the clear light of the Scriptures with the claims of Episcopacy. The church of England, therefore, under the auspices of Elizabeth, who "regarded her spiritual supremacy as the brightest jewel in her crown," looked only to primitive antiquity-to the consent of the Catholic Fathers and of the Ancient Bishops. The Puritans looked beyond the authority of man to that of God-beyond the decrees of councils to those of heaven. The Prelatists were satisfied with a partial reform. The Puritans were for thorough work-for pushing the Reformation back to the beginning, and for planting every thing pertaining to the church on the simple basis of the New Testament. With them it was not enough that the wretched incrustation of popery was broken; every part and particle of it was to be thrown away. The question with them was, whether they should return to the simplicity of apostolic worship, or rest satisfied with that which was "full of the show and pomp of Rome." Here they could not, for one moment, hesitate. Prelacy established its forms and ceremonies, and demanded compliance with them. The Puritan could not conform. His conscience would not allow him to do it. Prelacy, "looking to primitive antiquity," frowned and menaced through her court of High Commission, her Inquisition in miniature. The Puritan laid his hand upon his Bible, and by its authority claimed the right of private judgment in matters of religion.

SECOND SERIES, VOL. XI. NO. I.

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Prelacy, with "the consent of the Catholic Fathers," lighted up the fires of persecution. The Puritan, following a nobler example, took joyfully the spoiling of his goods. That which was born after the flesh, persecuted that which was born after the Spirit. Thus Prelacy, in its very essence intolerant, drove from her communion, and ultimately from her soil, the Puritans, those men of God, of whom the world was not worthy.

During the Reformation in England, the community was divided into three great parties. The Catholics took their stand in defence of all the abominations of popery. The Prelatists in some things were in favor of reform. The Puritans urged an immediate return to the simplicity of apostolic worship. According to the Rector of All Saints, the Prelatists were perfectly right in doing what they did-were discharging an indispensa ble duty in throwing off what seemed to them the impositions of popery. And so we believe. But how comes it, that the Puritans were not discharging the same high and imperative duty in casting away all that seemed to them of the same character? The Prelatists justified their action by an appeal to the Bible-to the liberty which it gives to each one of thinking for himself. The Puritans made the same appeal, and how is it that they had not the same right? Prelatists shaped the forms and ceremonies of their worship to suit their views: why must the Puritan conform to a mode of worship, in his opinion, full of the show and pomp of Rome, or, if he thinks for himself, be branded as a separatist and a schismatic? With what countenance can Prelatists claim for themselves what they deny to all others, the right of private judgment? On what ground can they fix upon others the odious charge of schism, for doing the very thing they did-for casting away the impositions of popery? The English church took a position which is right, but which gives to all others what she claimed for herself--the liberty of conscience-the liberty to think, each one for himself. To say, therefore, as the author of the Guide does, that all who do not conform to her mode of worship are separatists and schismatics, is monstrous in the extreme. It is virtually saying, that the Episcopal church alone has the right of private judgment-that in her bosom alone is the liberty to be enjoyed, with which Christ has made us all free. They may alter and amend their forms of worship-may cast off what seems to them the impositions of popery, and it is all right. But if others exercise

the same freedom, and, following the Bible and the dictates of conscience, go further than they do in the work of reform, and return to the simplicity of the gospel, as they think, they transcend their liberty, they break the unity of the church, and commit sin! We know of nothing more preposterous or intolerant. Such a feeling has in it the germ and the essence of that which established the Court of High Commission, and laid the foundations of the Inquisition. The position is verily ridiculous. It involves a most palpable absurdity. We will suppose that a member of All Saints, who has hitherto taken Prelacy upon trust, as it is to be feared too many do, is led to test its claims by Scripture, and comes, after much prayerful consideration, to the conclusion that its doctrines and practices are not countenanced by the Bible. He comes to the Rector with his difficulty. "I cannot conscientiously," he says, "affirm what the church affirms, or practise what she enjoins, without doing wrong. What am I to do? You tell me, in the Guide,' that separation from the Episcopal communion is a great sin-that it is breaking the unity of the church-I am therefore in a strait. If I stay, I feel that I shall commit sin by so doing. If I leave the church, you say I will commit sin. How, then, am I to act?" Perhaps the Rector, aided by the Oxford Tracts, with which there is great sympathy in the Guide, might relieve the conscience of his inquirer thus: "You must distinguish here; though you cannot secede from us without sin, yet it does not hence follow that you are a sinner, for a man may commit sin, and yet not be himself a sinner!"*

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We proceed with our "Guide." "For six centuries the oneness of the church was preserved-These were the days of her glory and her strength-The fruits of the Spirit everywhere abounded-Christians were known by the loftiness of their lives—The soldiers of the cross were successful in their warfare with the god of this world, and the cross was carried forward in triumph." To the first century and to the succeeding half of the second, this language may apply. But to the far greater part of this period of the church's pretended oneness, it is wholly inapplicable. It is a well-known fact, and one over which the spirit of piety weeps in unavailing sorrow, that even in the days of Irenæus, a fatal eclipse began to cover the disk of the church,

See Tract No. 51, where the " supra mundane doctrine" is taught, that man may commit sin, and yet not be a sinner.