ported by the earth, the earth by an elephant, the elephant by a turtle, and the turtle stands on his own feet. By a similar series of supports, the Inquisition stands on the Propaganda, the Propaganda on the Cardinals, the Cardinals on the Pope, and the Pope on nothing.

As a spiritual despotism it must remain as it is, or fall. Reform is impracticable. Luther and Melancthon sought this earnestly, boldly, but ineffectually. They did not break from the church until, for their efforts at reform, she cut them off as guilty of damnable heresy. Then the die was cast. They must protest, and fight for the truth, or die. The papal anathema roused the Saxon monk. "You will burn me," he says, "for answer to God's message which I strive to bring you. I take your bull as a parchment lie, and burn that." And proceeding with it to the eastern gate of Wittenberg, he kindled a fire which illuminated the whole north of Europe. "Confute me by proofs of Scripture," said he at the Diet of Worms, "or else by plain, just argument, otherwise I cannot recant. Here I stand. I can do nothing else. God help me."

Thus the battle commenced, the great battle of Armageddon, of truth against error, light against darkness, Christ against Antichrist. Here the papacy closes the breviary and "Opes the purple testament of bleeding war."

To the side of truth and freedom gather the faithful and free from every clime. They are cheered by the voices of the slain witnesses under the altar, saying: "How long, Lord God Almighty, shall we not be avenged?" And their final victorious requiem shall be, in the language of the seer of Patmos : Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen. For her sins have reached unto heaven, and God hath rewarded her iniquities. Alas! alas! that great city Babylon, that mighty city, for in one hour is thy judgment come!"

९९

ARTICLE VIII.

SHORT SERMONS.

"Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure.”—Phil. ii. 12, 13.

How entirely the salvation of man is of God, from first to last, and yet how indispensable are his own earnest and unceasing efforts, this text declares. We note,

1. The Christian's duty as respects his own salvation.

We say the Christian's duty; for the text is addressed to Christians, and can properly be addressed to none others. The exhortation implies:

(a) That his salvation is imperfect.

Else why commanded to work it out? His justification is complete at the very first moment of his believing, through the imputed righteousness of Christ. But his sanctification is a slow and gradual process, commencing at the time of his regeneration, and perfected only when he reaches heaven.

(b) That his salvation is an arduous work.

So the language imports; "Work out." So too, elsewhere, "Giving all diligence." "Strive to enter in." "Watch and pray." And why not? Shall men labor and toil after wealth, power, fame, and not for a heavenly crown?

(c) That it is a matter of vast and overwhelming importance.

It is salvation from the dreadful evil of sin; from the just displeasure of a holy God; from the bitter pains of eternal death. Therefore with fear and trembling work it out.

2. The Christian's encouragement to work out his own salvation. "It is God which worketh in you."

(a) "To will."

The will is only enmity against God, till he turns it by his grace, and thenceforth its motions are right only as influenced by his Holy Spirit. "Not that we are sufficient of ourselves," etc.-2 Cor. iii. 5. (b) "To do."

"He that abideth in me and I in him," saith Christ, "the same bringeth forth much fruit; for without me ye can do nothing." (c) "Of his good pleasure."

That is, according to his good pleasure he worketh in us. Herein

he shows the freeness and willingness of his grace. No obligation. He chooses to do it of his mere good pleasure. Delights to finish what he once begins. Never leaves anything unfinished, much less so glorious and excellent a work. Therefore,

1. Let the indolent professor take alarm.

2. Let the diligent be encouraged.

3. See the absurdity of waiting for God to do all.

"If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness."-1 John, i. 9.

THE daily confession of sin is the duty of all, "for there is no man that sinneth not." The text has direct reference to Christians, for the apostle is writing to Christians, and he says, "If we confess our sins." Can it be less the duty of ungodly men?

1. What is implied in confessing our sins?

(a) True conviction of sin.

Conviction of sin is true, only when it is wrought by God's perfect law, and is deep and thorough, including a sense of utter unworthiness and just condemnation.

(b) Sincere sorrow for sin.

Not for the consequences of sin, misery and punishment, but for sin itself, as the evil and bitter thing which God hates, and for which the Son of God endured the bitterness of death.

(c) Readiness to forsake sin.

To confess ourselves on the Sabbath miserable offenders, and then go and sin all the week, is only to mock and offend God. "I have done iniquity, I will do no more," is the language of true confession. 2. The benefits which flow from the confession of sin.

(a) Forgiveness.

Confession is not the ground of pardon, but prepares us to receive it as a free gift of God, through Christ's blood. The blessing is sure. He is faithful to his promise, and just to Christ, our surety, who bare our sins in his own body on the tree.

(b) Ultimate and complete redemption.

"To cleanse us from all unrighteousness." To this also is God pledged by his eternal truth and equity. This he is daily accomplishing in his people by the effectual working of his Spirit, through his word, the discipline of his providence and his ordinances.

What is the conclusion? "Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered."

ARTICLE IX.

LITERARY NOTICES.

1.-The Book of Common Prayer and Administration of the Sacraments, and other rites and ceremonies of the church, as amended by the Westminster Divines in the Royal Commission of 1661, and in agreement with the Directory for Public Worship of the Presbyterian Church in the United States. 12mo. pp. xxiv, 637. Liturgia Expurgata; or The Prayer-Book amended according to the Presbyterian Revision of 1661, and historically and critically reviewed. By CHAS. W. SHIELDS, D. D. pp. 188. Philadelphia: William S. & Alfred Martien. 1864.

THE historical fact has mostly fallen out of the knowledge of the churches that, in the reign of Charles II., a commission of Presbyterian and Episcopal clergymen, bearing his seal, was assembled at the Savoy in London to adjust a basis of uniform worship throughout the realm. Nothing came out of it in the way of establishing such uniformity, for the prelatic party showed so great unwillingness to yield a point, that "what was begun for a conference soon became a campaign." But though the bad faith of the king and the inflexibility of the bishops gave a new revival to high church pretensions for years thereafter, the revised ritual of the Elizabethan episcopacy now before us, in this new edition, is a lasting and most interesting memorial of that good attempt. It contains within itself a valuable monument of a critical epoch of ecclesiastical history.

Turning it carefully over and comparing it with the book in use among the Episcopalians, we find their chief material alike, in substance and arrangement. The forms of worship do not vary essentially, as composed of prayers, litany, Scripture readings. The main alterations are in the administration of the Sacraments, and are designed to remove the papistical leanings of the older Prayer Book, and to bring the whole to a more scriptural expression. This is very noticeable in the form of baptism. The order of inducting clergymen to their office is also omitted, and some other formularies which nobody, we believe, at present uses. In these respects the labors of the revisors were greatly valuable. It is manifest that they reduced their emendations to the smallest amount consistent with fidelity to their position as Christian ministers and men. their views, also, not a few of the prelates of the land concurred,

In

who openly gave their voice for a change of the rubric, and a “reduction of episcopacy," as it was then termed, so as to make "the diocesan bishop a sort of permanent moderator of presbytery and synod." But the extremists had the power in their hands, and the schism of Christ's body was not healed. If that Savoy Conference had succeeded according to the hopes of its authors, it might have changed the entire church history of the next two centuries in Great Britain and America.

Beside the common forms of morning and evening prayer with which attendants upon Episcopal services are familiar, this order of worship contains two or three other short rituals which may be used in place of the longer ones or combined with them, so as to vary the service both in length and expression. Instead of the Thirtynine Articles, the Shorter Catechism of the Westminster Divines is inserted. If a church desires to adopt a form of worship out of a book in place of an extemporized method, we think this reproduction of so ancient, scriptural, devout and orthodox a ritual presents every thing which is really desirable for that purpose.

The second title above is of a wholly separate work, though bound up in the same volume, to which it forms a valuable and quite necessary companion. The accomplished editor gives the history of the work which precedes it, and of the religious state of those times so far as this matter is involved. He then goes into an argument in favor of recalling into use this venerable ritual of his own church. The case, as he presents it, certainly has much strength. There are many things which suggest the possibility that our ordinary mode of non-prelatic worship may have too little of form for the best good of the bulk of our people, and thus tend directly to produce a very unspiritual and routine service. It is not wonderful that the English dissenters, thrown back so rudely by king Charles' bishops in their sincere efforts to modify the worship and polity of the realm, should have made so clean a sweep of every vestige of ceremonialism in their churches; nor that puritanism should have been so bent on unclothing itself of all the vesture which could possibly be spared, in its enforced contention against a terrible tyranny in church and state. But while we reap the great benefits of that heroic struggle, it is a question if we are not carrying on into the future some inconveniences accruing therefrom, which might now be dropped without harm to any one, and with the gain of some new power of attraction and adhesion which we very much need. Considerable changes are delicate things to manage, but they are often very desirable and sometimes really indispensable. If we inistake not, this volume points to a question which ought to be restudied, for practical pur