the church whose head sits triplecrowned on the seven hills of Rome. In Dissenting Churches there is no legitimate administration of the sacraments. Their ministry can convey no blessing, proclaim no pardon, remit no sin. Their ministers are intruders, who have no right to warn sinners to repentance, or to preach the Christ crucified.

It cannot but be a matter of deep concern to faithful ministers of the Gospel to watch the progress of these principles, and to take account of the hindrances they place in the way of the advance of the Kingdom of God. Every day affords proof that they are in most active operation. In some form or other, almost every parish in the kingdom is infected with them. They are among the most dangerous of the adversaries with which Christian ministers have to contend-the most dangerous, because they delude the souls of men, and substitute for the grace of Christ "another gospel, which is not another." (Gal. i. 6, 7.)

Before, however, we point out the modes of activity adopted by the advocates of "Church principles," it is important to notice the views they hold with regard to the nature and objects of dissent. Overlooking or disparaging all that nonconformity has done for the education and the religious instruction of the people, they place it in the forefront of those obstructions which impede the progress of the Church. Says Archdeacon Sanderson, "It undermines the clergyman's influence, and counteracts his ministrations every day. It furnishes a rallying point for the disaffected and self-willed in all our parishes. It is a snare to both pastor and people. It has wrought and is working vast and extensive evil, and imperilling to a

fearful extent the faith, the loyalty, and the moral and religious life of the people" (Bampton Lectures, pp. 72, 73). Hence our efforts for the salvation of souls are regarded, not only as "unauthorized," but "antagonistic" to the Church of England. The "Mother and Instructress of the entire English people" is thereby robbed of her children, dissent making them disaffected both to Church and State, they become the victims of heresy and blasphemy. Our "works of faith" are "the endeavours of sectaries to make proselytes to the various religious bodies competing for popular favour" (Huntington's ChurchWork, p. 58). Our Sunday schools are taught by teachers who are both schismatic and disloyal. "Uncommissioned by the successors of the Apostles," our ministers have intruded themselves into the work of the "Church," which "alone claims to be the representative of Christ for the English people" (pp. 83, 84). Our theology, our ecclesiastical cal polity, our religious institutions, are systems of human invention." vention." The spirit which has led so many of us astray from the "Ark of God's appointment," has in it the "germ of that lawlessness, that mystery of iniquity, that development of self-will, whose end is the denial that Christ has come into the flesh, that rejection of the Lord Jesus against which St. Paul pronounces his anathema maranatha" (p. 141). Our refusal to recognise the spiritual powers of Anglican prelates comes, the Bishop of Oxford tells us, from that contempt of authority which has broken out "into the sins and schisms of puritanical independence (Ordination Addresses, p. 261). Our plea of conscience is declared to be "a modern artifice on the part of Dissenters, who wish to see them-

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selves regarded as martyrs." Dissent is vicious, inherently vicious."

Examples of similar abuse might indefinitely be multiplied from Church publications. High Church and Low Church unite in the expression of like sentiments, and agree to shut their eyes to every generous act, to every spiritual and Christian work, that a dissenting community may undertake. Meanwhile, the

most strenuous efforts are made to destroy our influence, to impede our exertions, and to hinder the progress of the Gospel. Yes; to hinder the progress of the Gospel; for what are the "distinctive Church principles" which it is the "Church's mission" to teach, but subversive of the Gospel itself? Take the following statements from the Bishop of Oxford's Addresses to candidates for ordination :

"The Church distinctly asserts the regeneration of all infants by the act of God in Holy Baptism, even when that Sacrament is administered by unholy hands, and though no one, save that ungodly minister, and perhaps an equally ungodly witness, be present.”p. 72.

Again, on the doctrine of the sacraments, and especially with reference to "the inscrutable mystery of the true taking and receiving of the Body of Christ by the faithful in the Holy Eucharist," the bishop says:

Against the various sects and Protestant communities we have to maintain the reality of Christ's gifts in the sacraments, the certainty of His presence in them according to His covenanted promise, and to their high privilege of being the direct countersign and outward instrument of his spiritual working, whereby they are distinguished from other, though most Holy offices,

such as prayer or reading God's word, which, blessed as they are, yet are not sacraments, nor possess the special honour of sacraments -namely, to be the appointed and ordinarily the indispensable channels, through which, when duly administered and rightly received, the Almighty binds himself to convey the necessary graces of regeneration and renewal."—(p. 69.)

We wish our readers to ponder the awfulness of the above statement, and especially of its closing words. Let them observe how completely it sets aside the teachings of the New Testament. It is a fair specimen of the teaching which, as was shown in our last number, places the Church before the Bible, and makes its doctrines dependent on the "inspired judgment" of the Church-that is, the hierarchy of the Church of England.

How antagonistic "Church principles" are to our usefulness, the following extract from the Bishop of Oxford's last charge will further show. Our ministry, on the view here given, is absolutely worthless:

"We want more distinctive Church teaching for our own people. We believe that we do possess, as we cannot see that others do, Christ's direct commission for our ministry, and a certainty of fulness therefore of His Presence and of His Sacramental working which, to say the least, may be lacking elsewhere. If we do not hold so much as this, we must dissent from the plain language of our own Ordination Service; and, if we do, we must teach as well as live as those who are possessed by this belief."-(p. 30.)

It is unnecessary for our pur pose to quote other illustrations of what is meant by "distinctive Church principles." From the

sacramental and sacerdotal theories here put forth, necessarily flows the desire expressed by the bishop to see the "Church in its completeness" sent forth into every distant land, as well as predominant in our own. Hence it comes to pass that instead of the spread of the gospel of Christ, the diffusion of the word of God, and the growth of godliness in all classes of the community, being the special aims of the Church of England, our ears are deafened by phrases utterly unknown to the Bible, expressive of other purposes and directed to other ends. Missions must be established to excite "attachment to the Church." If the young are to be taught, they must have a "Church education," "true Church teaching." In his ministry the clergyman must put forth "the multiform subjects of Christianity and the Church, in continual discourses," Monro's Pastoral Life, p. 48.) "Men must be busy about the Church's work." Politicians must acquaint themselves with the claims

and prerogatives of the "Church"; they ought to be "Church statesmen boldly and unflinchingly advocating her claims and defending her rights. It is a part of the "Church's mission" to put down schismatics and all who disregard the "Church's directions." Their restoration is the "Church's recovery of her lost children." An augmentation of clergy, or deacons, or sisterhoods, is an increase of "Church agencies," a growth of "Church machinery," an example of "Church development." Men are taught that to belong to the "Church" is at least as necessary as to belong to Christ, and to be "churchmen" is more surely to secure salvation than if they should follow simply the teaching of the Divine Word.

The agencies set on foot during the last few years to ensure the pre-eminence of the Church" throughout the land, and to arrest the progress of dissent, are very numerous. Many of them are to be found active in a single parish, while there are very few parishes into which one or more have not been introduced. To attract people to church, "Church architecture" has been most sedulously improved, the accommodation rendered more accessible to all classes, the pews have been abolished, and the windows filled with glass of glowing colours, in memory of the departed dead. It is rare now to hear the service read, as in former years, with careless voice and prayerless feeling. More often it is intoned, and the choir sounds forth anthems of glorious praise. Great regard, too, is paid to the manner and subject of the sermons. The cold essay of the last age is discarded for a discourse, at least tinged with patristic piety, if not more often warmed with evangelical truth. But in order to meet the religious wants of the people, as well as to secure them for the "Church's fold," still other elements of attraction are employed. In many churches. there is daily or weekly communion, performed with solemn chant, white robed servitors, and awful solemnity. Confession to the priest is also fostered, to perfect the priest's hold on the conscience, and to ensure humble service for the "Church."

For the rising generation, schools are everywhere opened on terms with which it is almost impossible for the dissenting bodies to compete. Here catechisms, hymns, and ballads, history and science, all saturated-often nauseouslywith "Church principles," are most sedulously taught. Landlord influ

ence is brought to bear upon recusants, while others are attracted by weekly "alms" or monthly "doles." Threats are freely used where persuasion avails nothing. Our village pastors find themselves at every turn blocked out by authority; and measures of the most unchristian sort are employed to rob them of their flock, and of the lambs of their fold.

In many parishes sisterhoods have been introduced, as much by their influence in the sick chamber, the hospital, or the school, to counteract dissent, as to afford opportunity, by seclusion, for the attainment of a higher Christian life. Church temperance societies, with the vicar at their their head, to the exclusion of the dissenting minister, are frequently formed to secure other classes, while guilds of a mixed character, having in view both temporal benefits and the advancement of "Church influence," are coming largely into favour in our great towns and cities.

The amusements of the people are not overlooked. The maypole and its joyous dances, running in sacks, and the like old English sports, are in great favour with clergy of mediæval tastes.

In a

little book before us, written. to show how parishes may be governed on the "Church plan," we have a grave description of an amusement for Christmas, called "bullet pie," in which the fun lies in the players, their hands tied behind them, searching for a bullet in a mass of flour with their lips. Concerts in the school-room, illustrated lectures, and pic-nics, for young and old, are favourite schemes of other clergymen, who perhaps think the nineteenth century will scarcely relish being dressed like a mummer of the fifteenth.

Of larger and more important efforts to strengthen and extend the power of the Church," are Church unions, congresses, decanal assemblies, diocesan synods, and parochial dedications. These schemes are growing rapidly in number and influence, while pastoral-aid societies, additional curate societies, spiritual help societies, and diocesan colleges, multiply clergy to work them, and increase the efficiency of the "Church's mission" in all its departments.

Were these activities directed to the diffusion of the gospel of Christ and to secure the salvation of men, they would deserve our commendation. But they are openly, almost ostentatiously, set

on

foot to promote pernicious heresies and to destroy dissent. As we have seen, the sacramental theory is the very bone and muscle of "Church principles," a theory subverting the foundations of our faith as well as the liberty of Christian men. Whatever dissent may or may not have done, it has at least kept true to the Word of God. It has always testified, sometimes in sackcloth and great tribulation, to the grace and love of the Redeemer, the free gift of God received direct from Him, without the intervention of priest or sacrament. To make this kown is the mission of Nonconformity. The revival of " Church principles" both assures its continued life, and establishes its necessity; the acceptance of these heresies by the clergy, and their spread among the people, demand the most diligent efforts on the part of our pastors and spiritual leaders to counteract their souldestroying effects. The Bible, not the Church, is the teacher of the ignorant; Christ, not the Sacraments, is the Saviour of the lost.

IF

every

minister of Christ were to keep a faithful record of the conversions resulting from his labours of the circumstances attending each conversion-of the means that were employed in each case in awakening the sinner to reflection -and of the process of mind by which the soul was brought to rest in Jesus, a mass of valuable information might be furnished, and a volume might be published of more practical worth than half the books the world contains. The essentials to a successful ministry of the Gospel, or to successful effort for the conversion of souls on the part of any Christian, are not simply a knowledge of the way of salvation, and the faculty of communicating that knowledge; but also an acquaintance with human nature, a clear perception of the deceits of the human heart, and of the sophisms by which it cheats itself into a neglect of God, and a knowledge of the influences and idiosyncrasies by which the heart is closed to the Gospel, of the keys by which it may be opened, of the appliances by which it may be successfully assailed, and especially of the means through which God is more generally wont to work in calling men into the kingdom of His dear Son. On all these points, one fact is better than ten thousand theories, and one illustration is more instructive than many treatises-even as one siege will teach more of the art of war than a whole life of study in a military college.

One special case in my own experience is suggestive, if not illustrative, of these remarks; and perhaps there is scarcely a minister of Christ whose journal would not afford cases equally interesting and

instructive. In one of my pastoral visitations, I was forcibly struck by the utterance, by a lady of my congregation, of the words at the head of this paper-"We who are not Christians." The subject of conversation was the most interesting mode of conducting the services of the sanctuary. She remarked, "WE WHO ARE NOT CHRISTIANS, want something in which we can take part." The former words of the sentence arrested my attention, fastened themselves on my memory, and so completely laid hold upon me, that I could not drive them from my mind. It was not so much the fact that she was not a Christian that moved me, but that a rǝgular attendant on the means of grace, the child of pious parents, and one who uniformly manifested a deep interest in everything connected with the House of God, could thus deliberately, and apparently without regret or concern, say, "We who are not Christians!" especially when I remembered that my first introduction to this lady was on her coming to the chapel, after a confinement which had almost cost her her life, and when she appeared so frail and delicate as to preclude much hope of restoration to strength. "We who are not Christians!" Iimmediately rejoined. "Do youjintelligently, and yet thus calmly, speak of yourself as not a Christian ?" "Yes," she replied, "I do; such is the case. I know that I am not a Christian." "But," I added, "is it possible that, knowing all that is involved in not being a Christian-being a constant attendant on a Gospel ministry, and acquainted with all the invitations and threatenings of God's word-you can with such resigna