Christian first principles, but also to the principles of any pure theism or rational monotheism. The worship of the Virgin and Saints which they contain and authorize, is of the nature of Divine worship, due to the Almighty alone. It will be remembered that we have cited only specimens out of scores and scores of passages we might adduce from the present authorized offices and accredited writers of the Roman Church.

We need not deny that the disclaimer of idolatrous intention in the setting forth and use of such offices is sincere, and that the distinction between latria, dulia, and hyperdulia is honestly made. We need not deny that this sincerity and honesty may, in the sight of God who judges the heart, free those who use them from the sin and guilt of idolatry. But as a vindication of such language, they are utterly inconsistent and purely nugatory. In fact, they are nothing but subterfuges in argument. If the Roman Church had intended to sanction formal idolatry, it is scarcely possible to imagine language more decidedly expressive of such an intention than that which this Church has set forth, prescribed, and authorized. If it did not so intend, why, in the name of common sense, should language be set forth which in its plain, obvious, and grammatical interpretation is of the nature of Divine prayers and praises? We shall not now attempt to answer this question, - to trace the causes through which this Saint worship has grown to its present development in the Roman Church. We have only to say, that, repugnant as we hold it to be to the pure principles of Christianity, it seems to us it must be- and we doubt not it is corrupting and pernicious in its practical influence on the religion of the great masses of the members of the Roman communion.

ART. X.

THE LITURGY AND THE ARTICLES.

Two historic sections have existed in the Church since its refor mation. Within certain limits both were intended to be included. The reckless intensity of the age is, however, pushing many of their members into extremes equally inconsistent and pernicious. In the one are those who deny the obligation of the Liturgy, and dare to mutilate its sacred services according to their opinions or their caprice. In the other are those who assert the Articles have

no binding force on the consciences of Clergymen. Recently it has been maintained by a most amusing logic, that if no doctrinal formulary had been adopted by our American Church, that of the English Church would have been our inheritance; but that the General Convention by establishing a standard of faith has vitiated all title to our maternal creed, and to the adherence of its own supplied no obligation, so that our Fathers nullified by their resolution the very object it proposed. Opposing both these views, we wish to show that the Doctrines of the Articles and the Forms of the Liturgy are most solemnly imposed on every Clergyman.

And here let us deny in the beginning that between the Liturgy and the Articles there is the slightest antagonism. This is deducible from the Scriptures themselves, which clearly contain both the sacramental system and the evangelical system. If, on the one hand they represent us as regenerated by Baptism, on the other hand, they describe us as justified by Faith. Divine grace is bestowed in the initiatory rite of our Holy Religion, not that the trust of the penitent sinner in his Saviour may be annulled, but that it may be strengthened; and is continued in the Blessed Eucharist, not to supersede the belief of the heart, but to promote the excellence of the life. The spiritual birth enjoined by our Redeemer in His discourse to Nicodemus, the faith made the condition of pardon by St. Paul in his Epistle to the Romans, and the works required by St. James in his inimitable address to wordly Christians, are all harmonizing parts of the great system of Christianity, and are all essential to its completeness. Throughout the writings of the ancient Fathers, and the services of the ancient Liturgies, we observe the very same conjunctions of truths, never for one moment conceived to be irreconcilable. Let us take St. Augustin as the most learned, and powerful, and eloquent interpreter of the Church in whatever relates to its Doctrines and Sacraments. First, what does he say of FAITH? Hear words which will satisfy the most evangelical Churchman :

"But the true Mediator whom in mercy thou hast shown to the humble, and sentest, that by His example also they might learn the same humility, that mediator between God and man, between mortal sinners and the immortal Just One, that, because the wages of righteousness are life and peace, He might by a righteousness conjoined with God, make void that death of sinners now made righteous, which He willed to have in

common with them. Hence He was showed forth to holy men of old that so they through Faith in His Passion to come, as we through Faith of it passed, might be saved.” "What shall we say,' says the same Apostle in another place, that the Gentiles which followed not after righteousness have attained to righteousness'! And what righteousness? Even the righteousness which is by Faith. Yes, the Gentiles which followed not after the righteousness which is of the Law, as though their own which is produced by fear of punishment, not by the love of righteousnesss, because they followed not after righteousness, have attained to righteousness, even the righteousness which is of Faith."

And now what says St. Augustin in regard to Sacraments? Hear words which will charm the most pronounced Church

man:

"See, ye are on the point of being baptized! Then all your sins will be blotted out! none whatever will remain." "There is one remission of sins which is given once for all in Holy Baptism." "In Baptism, all debts, that is, all sins, are entirely forgiven." "For that regeneration also in which there is remission of all past sins, is wrought by the Holy Ghost, as the Lord saith. Except a man be born of water, and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.'" "They come both to grace; are both baptized; they enter debtors, they go out free." "All sins were blotted out in the Sacrament of Baptism, all entirely, of words, deeds, thoughts, all were blotted out." "For he saith, speaking to the faithful, speaking to the baptized, all of whose sins have of course been forgiven them in the holy laver, Yet because by the grace of Bap. tism and the laver of Regeneration, both the guilt itself wherein thou wert born hath been done away, and all past acts of consent to evil lust in whatsoever deed, whether of impurity, or violence, in whatsoever evil thought, in whatsoever evil word, all have been effaced in the fount wherein thou didst enter a slave, wherein thou comest out free.""

If Augustin in his views of Faith and Sacraments represents the consciousness of the ancient Church, perhaps the English Church will find its completest type in Hooker, who united in himself vastness of learning, simplicity of intention, and keenness of discrimination - all controlled by a heart pervaded with a spirit of piety, and a mind evincing the most admirable balance of intellectual powers. Not the excellent and gifted Bishop of Ohio could more fully express the very essence of Evangelical Truth. How admirable this exposition:

"Satisfaction is a word which Justice requireth to be done for contentment of persons injured, neither is it in the eye of Justice a sufficient satis

faction unless it fully equal the injury for which we satisfy. Seeing then that sin against God, eternal and infinite, must needs be an infinite wrong, Justice in regard thereof doth necessarily exact an infinite recompense, or else inflict upon the offender an infinite punishment. Now because God was thus to be satisfied, and man not able to make satisfaction in some sort, his unspeakable love and inclination to save mankind from eternal death, ordained in our behalf a Mediator to do that which had been for any other impossible, therefore, all sin is remitted in the only Faith of Christ's Passion, and no man without belief thereof justified. Faith alone maketh Christ's satisfaction ours, howbeit that Faith alone which maketh us by conversion His."

On the other hand, the statement of Hooker in regard to the Sacraments are strong as these indulged by the venerable professor of Oxford, whose name is now inseparable from the system he advocated. He says,

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Seeing therefore that grace is a consequence of the Sacraments, a thing which accompanieth them as their end, a benefit which he that hath receiveth from God Himself the author of the Sacraments." 66 'This, therefore, is the necessity of the Sacraments. That saving grace which Christ originally is, or hath for the general good of his whole Church, by Sacraments he severally deviseth unto every member thereof." "For we take Baptism nor the Eucharist for bare resemblances, or memorials of things absent, neither for naked signs and testimonies assuring us of grace received before, but, as they are in deed and verity, for means effectual by which God, when we take the Sacraments, delivereth into our hands that grace available unto eternal life, which grace the Sacraments represent and signify." "We receive Christ Jesus in Baptism once as the first beginner; in the Eucharist often as being by continual degrees the purchaser of our life. By Baptism, therefore, we receive Christ Jesus, and by Him that saving grace which is proper to Baptism. By the other Sacrament we receive Him also, imparting therein Himself, and that grace which the Eucharist properly bestoweth."

As our Saviour, in His conversation with Nicodemus, spoke of the new birth through "water and the Spirit," and of everlasting life through faith; as St. Paul inculcates burial in Baptism, and "justification by faith," as St. Peter describes the Gentiles who had received remission in Baptism as yet " purified by faith," as the ancient Fathers taught together the highest views of sacramental grace with the doctrine of salvation through faith approved by works; as the great Anglican writers constantly discourse in a similar manner, we might expect in the English formularies of a

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reformation whose glory was the revival of primitive truth, the same Scriptural statements without explanation or apology. We will not be disappointed. The baptismal service less than any other follows the forms of the old Liturgies. Had our Fathers departed from the primitive teaching, here was an opportunity to have exhibited their change. What are the facts? The English office is far more distinct than the Roman office. The latter stood, even in a. D. 1549:

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Almighty God, the Father of our Lord Jesus, who hath regenerated thee of water and the Holy Ghost, and hath given thee remission of all thy sins: He vouchsafest to anoint thee with the unction of the Holy Spirit, and bring thee to the inheritance of everlasting life."

This was the sole reference to the blessing bestowed on the child. In A. D. 1552 the clause was omitted, and we have the strong and unmistakable expressions in regard to the infant as "regenerate, and grafted into the body of Christ's Church," and thanks are returned to God that "it hath pleased Him to regenerate this infant with His Holy Spirit, to receive him for His own child by adoption, and to incorporate him in His Holy Church," and while the baptismal service is continued in the highest sense as a Sacrament of Regeneration, we find it stated in the Articles,

"We are accounted righteous before God only for the merit of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ by faith, and not for our own works and deservings; wherefore that we are justified by faith only, is a most wholesome doctrine, and very full of comfort, as more largely is expressed in the homily on Justification."

Nor can the Creed of the Church be arrayed against the Liturgy of the Church. Sacramental grace is not more distinctly

recognized in its Offices than in its Articles. Those who would array the Liturgy against the Articles must also array the Articles against the Articles. Do we have in the eleventh, "Justification by Faith?" Turn to the twenty-seventh and the twenty-eighth! After having been previously assured that the "Sacraments are certain sure witnesses and effectual signs of grace," we are told that

"Baptism is not only a sign of profession, and mark of difference whereby Christian men are discerned from others that be not christened, but it is also a sign of Regeneration, or new birth whereby, as by an instrument, they that receive Baptism rightly are grafted into the Church;