a centre for the reunion of separated communities on the basis of the apostolic succession, the words 'not by her covenant' would need to be brought to memory.

To take only one example of this out of several which suggest themselves. The principle of the apostolic succession involves the truth that the bishops of the catholic Church are clothed with a spiritual authority, and a corresponding responsibility, as the guardians of Christian truth and worship and discipline, an authority and a responsibility which they cannot alienate from themselves, or commit to the secular government, without treason to their great Head. God in fact has instituted two kinds of societies in the world-coincident but distinct-the ministers of each representing His authority in their own sphere: indeed in one aspect the record of Christian history is the record of the divine overruling of various attempts on the part of one of these two authorities to deny to the other its independent existence. The early Christian Church recognised without hesitation that 'the powers that be are ordained of God,' but on the other hand the secular power alarmed at the growth of the new spiritual society-the imperium in imperio-endeavoured to crush out the Church. At a later epoch, when the balance of powers had changed, the great writers of the middle age acknowledged side by side the Holy Church and the Holy Empire, but in the climax of its might the papacy would not be satisfied with less than the annihilation of the independence of the State. Once more and for the last time, an attempt was made which is specially identified with the history of the English Church and race, so to emphasize

the idea of a Christianized nation, that Church and State could be regarded as only different aspects of the same society. On the basis of such a theory, if the State pledged itself to the Church's faith, the Church on her side might be content to merge her independent governmental authority in that of the State.

The logic of events falsified in turn each of these attempts to fuse the distinct spheres of 'the two empires.' If circumstances have made it absurd in England now to speak of the nation as committed to the catholic faith or of her national courts as 'spiritual,'1 then circumstances have taught us also how dangerous it was for the Church to go even as far as she did, in alienating her power of independent action. In the future she must be content to first of all act as part and parcel of the catholic Church, ruled by her laws, empowered by her Spirit. And, if the bishops are to make an intelligible claim, they must make it as the responsible guardians by Christ's appointment and apostolic succession of the doctrine and discipline and worship of the Church catholic, ready to maintain, at all cost, the inherent spiritual independence which belongs to their office.

If then this be the case, the English Church has to learn as well as to teach-to recover a principle as well as to maintain it. For it admits of no question that, for instance, the Established Church in Scotland, though it is presbyterian, has maintained more successfully than the Church of England with her catholic succession the spiritual independence of

1 As Hooker pleaded (E. P. viii. 8. 9): 'If the cause be spiritual, secular courts do not meddle with it: we need not excuse ourselves with Ambrose, but boldly and lawfully we may refuse to answer before any civil judge in a matter which is not civil, so that we do not mistake the nature either of the cause or of the court.'

Christ's society. We have to learn, then, as well as to teach.

But the object of this book was only to maintain a principle; and I should desire to have left before the minds of my readers the picture of a universal spiritual society, in which the apostolic succession of the bishops constitutes by divine appointment a visible link between different epochs, witnessing everywhere to that permanent element in human nature to which Christ's Gospel appeals,—that fundamental humanity, underlying all developments and variations, in virtue of which there becomes possible a real spiritual continuity between the generations, so that 'the heart of the fathers is turned to the children and the heart of the children to the fathers, lest God come and smite the earth with a curse.'

1 See the remarkable decisions of the Judges of the Court of Session quoted in the Report of the Royal Commission on Ecclesiastical Courts, 1883, vol. ii. p. 46.

APPENDED NOTES.

A.

DR. LIGHTFOOT'S DISSERTATION ON

'THE CHRISTIAN MINISTRY.'1

THE Church at large owes Dr. Lightfoot a debt of gratitude so (in the strictest sense of the term) incalculable--I do not say as Bishop of Durham, for that consideration would be out of place here, but as an historical critic of the very first order, as a defender of the faith, and as an interpreter of St. Paul-and, more than this, any would-be vindicator of the Christian ministry owes so great a debt to the scholar who has again set almost beyond the reach of cavil the genuineness of the Ignatian Epistles, that, in venturing to say a word in criticism of what he has written and confirmed with his mature approval, one runs a great risk of incurring the charge both of arrogance and of ingratitude.

Yet there is no doubt that the Essay named above has caused a great deal of disquiet and confusion: it has been found an effective instrument in defence of 'Congregational principles' by their ablest advocate3: and, though all this may have been due in most part, as Dr. Lightfoot says, to its 'partial and qualifying statements' being 'emphasized to the neglect of the general drift of the Essay,' it does seem to justify such misinterpretations (if I may so speak) by the great ambiguity of the position which it takes up.

This has recently been made all the more apparent by a statement of the author, that he recognises in Dr. Langen (the distinguished OldCatholic divine) one who 'gives an account of the origin of episcopacy precisely similar to his own, as set forth in this Essay' i. e. the Essay

1 See his Epistle to the Philippians pp. 181 f.

2 See the Preface to the Sixth Edition (1881).

3 R. W. Dale's Manual of Congregational Principles, appendix p. 216.

4 Pref. to Sixth Edition.

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