the doctrines of the church, are, par excellence, those which this light is to assimilate to itself, or accept at the dictation of the established priesthood; while to the prescribed ordinances it is bound to submit, as the medium of that grace which the priesthood are divinely authorized to convey. The inward light points to, longs after, an external form-a visible unity with God's church; this church is presented to the redeemed world in the formularies, creeds, ordinances, and apostolicity of the whole catholic body, or, as we understand him, in the confessedly corrupt church of Rome, and the soi disant reformed church of England, but still more conspicuously and clearly, as that church is now re-reforming itself by stepping nearer to its professed source, the somewhat vitiated matron, who, though she has in a few things unfortunately diverged from the apostolic doctrine, and never been very intelligible upon the favourite and characteristic notion of George Fox and Mr. Maurice, has nevertheless always been the catholic church, which has preserved the essential doctrine of sacramental grace, a lineal and episcopal priesthood, and has uniformly denied the right of private judgment and interpretation—an abomination which has from the first been deemed sufficient to exclude all its abettors, whether individuals or professed churches, from all the benefits of union with the true church, and from all participation in the grace of the gospel. So that it seems even the quakers, favourites as they are with our author, in some respects, are far from possessing a title to be numbered with the church now, or to be admitted to the Saviour's glorious kingdom hereafter. We beg to note, however, that this inference is not broadly and frankly drawn by our author, it is wholly our own, yet flowing unavoidably, as we conceive, from his doctrine of sacramental grace which the quaker repudiates; his priesthood, which the quaker disowns; and the doctrine of union with his church which the quaker refuses. Mr. Maurice's great principle is, that 'the universal light can only be fulfilled and made practical in ' a universal church,' vol. ii. p. 13; and he further describes the church of England as a branch of the universal church, that is, of the church of Rome, for he distinctly and repeatedly denies that the sects or denominations are churches at all, or branches in any sense, of the one universal church. But the author must allow us to say, that he assumes, in his own case, what he not only denies to all other protestants, but he assumes the facts to be proved, in defiance of the documents both of his own church and of the Roman catholic church. He insists upon it that the church of England is a branch of the living tree, which tree is the Roman catholic church-while, in the first place, the church of England standards denounce the church of Rome, utterly repudiate its authority, and admit no sort of communion with it. On the other hand, the church of Rome utterly denies the claim of the church of England, and excommunicates all its

bishops, clergy, and people, as open heretics and schismaticsand yet our author, with many other ecclesiastics of the day, constantly affirms this notion of a universal catholic church meaning the churches of England and Rome, while these two branches not only have no formal or visible fraternity, union, or communion as churches, but reciprocally denounce each other as false, heretical, and antichristian. We speak not of the writings, speculations, tracts, or opinions of individual ecclesiastics, but of the established and authorized documents of each of these would-be catholic churches, all of which confessedly go to the denial of the christianity, apostolicity, and catholicity of the other. We should be glad to be informed upon what ground but that of the right of private judgment, the church of England can justify its claim to be a branch of the universal church-that prior universal church at the same time denouncing its right to set up a distinct church, and to dissent from Romish dogmas, while in defiance of all these denunciations, the church of England still insists that it is a branch of the universal church of Christ. Yet this very church, which thus has its origin in private judgment, and begins with throwing off the authority of the existing church, immediately places itself in the position of the church from which it has dissented, denounces private judgment or dissent from its own authority, and utterly refuses to all who differ from it, the title of Christian churches. They can be no true churches of Christ, nor branches of the universal church in any sense, because they dissent from the church of England; while the church of England, dissenting from and condemning Rome, as the mother of harlots, &c., still asserts its title to catholicity, though it stands in precisely the same relation towards Rome, that the churches of the nonconformists occupy towards itself. Now it appears to us, that it must either give up its claim to catholicity, or it must admit the claim of others. The church of Rome is so far consistent, that it denies the claim of all others, makes itself the exclusive church, consequently the universal one, because on its theory there can be no other. But those writers of the church of England who parade the doctrine of catholicity, are guilty of the double inconsistency of admitting another true church, in relation to which they have no communion, but exist in a state of schism; while on the other hand, they refuse to admit into their catholicity those nonconforming churches whose claim rests upon precisely the same ground as their own. The plain and obvious conclusion is, that there is no such thing as a visible, practical catholicity. It is an idea that may float in the imagination; it may be a spiritual emotion expanding the hearts of good men of all churches, and cementing them in spirit one to another; but the thing is an idea having its reality, its counterpart externally, only to him that has set

apart the godly for himself.' The church of England is the last body of Christians in the world that should preach about its catholicity, for it is systematically isolated-it is hedged round on every side; and as a church, with its ecclesiastical canons and invariable forms, is as exclusive as Rome itself, with not a tithe of its numbers, while practically it enjoys less community with other churches than any of the sectaries, and is in spirit less tolerant and liberal than the most rigid of them.

Mr. Maurice has written scores of pages upon the idea that the universal light in man must be met by a universal church, with which it must have communion-that this communion is divinely provided for in the sacraments-that those sacraments are secured in their official administration by an episcopally ordained and apostolically descended priesthood, whose incorporation constitutes the church of Jesus Christ. But he has utterly failed, indeed he has never attempted, to prove, that the dogmas thus asserted and reasoned upon have their foundation in the inspired records. He has endeavoured to buttress up his system by the consent of Fathers and the voice of tradition; but in this case he must allow us to say his authorities do not go high enough for us, and moreover appear to contradict the fundamental laws and principles of the gospel of Christ. We put it to him upon his own principle of the universal light, why, if an external society or church is necessary to man, he may not find this, supposing him a quaker, among the quakers? why, if he is convinced of the duty of observing christian sacraments, he cannot find them just as really and more scripturally among the baptists, supposing him an adult baptist? Or among presbyterians, independents, and methodists, if their views harmonize best with his own? Why, if he wants communion with fellow Christians on the ground of agreement with them in the doctrines of the gospel, he cannot find that in any of the churches that teach the apostolical doctrine, as well as in that church which insists upon the virtue of an apostolical descent, which it disgraces by its disagreements, and which it cannot prove by history? And finally, why he cannot be catholic in spirit, while he belongs to an individual or particular church, without deluding himself with a mere notion of catholicity, in a church which both theoretically and practically denounces all others, and holds no communion with any one? For our own parts we can discover no semblance of catholicity in the church of England. It is, practically, any thing but catholic, and all the talk about it is mere idle mockery. We may safely challenge any of its advocates to point out a single proof of this pretended catholicity in any of its documents, or in any part of its practice. It neither in point of fact embraces all Christians, nor does it so adjust its terms of communion and fellowship, as to admit all those into its bosom who are con

fessedly accepted of its professed Lord and head. It has made its terms of communion straiter than Jesus Christ has made his, and it has obviously added to and altered in various essential points his original church constitution. Its own decisions and inventions it has placed on the same footing as his precepts and institutions. It therefore is not, never has been, and never can be, a catholic church. What right then has it to make so unfounded a pretension in the face of its straitness-its unrelaxing tenacity of human prescriptions-its sweeping denial of the apostolicity of all the other churches, Rome itself, the source of its own episcopacy, not excepted.

We must leave our author and the Oxford divines to try their dialectical skill upon these yet unsolved difficulties, while we proceed to press upon them another point which they are stout in asserting but backward in confirming. The question of apostolicity between them and all the nonconforming churches is-whether it consists in identity of sentiment and spirit or in personal succession. Our author, with all the advocates of the new school adopts the lineal descent, as essential to the validity of the ministry. But a lineal descent which cannot be made out, is much the same thing as a genealogical table that shows gaps in the middle; or a chain some of the links of which are missing-very much, indeed, resembling what common sense would call a rope of sand. Amidst the daily and monthly advocates of this now favorite doctrine of the Church, we have not yet found one that has dared to touch the thing in the only efficient way. Though all are loud in their pretensions that they are descended from the apostles, nobody has attempted to prove it. All we could wish is, that they would undertake the task of showing that they are descended from any one of the apostles. This is the thing that should have been first done but unfortunately for their pretensions it remains unessayed. They are like parties who come into court, as for instance the notorious Earl of Stirling, to prove a title to certain large estates, by the law of inheritance or lineal descent, but, alas, the genealogy proves imperfect, or turns out to be forged, and the pretender makes himself the laughing-stock of the whole kingdom. These very churchmen surely have acuteness enough to perceive, that they cannot proceed a step beyond the Reformation, without authenticating the legitimate apostolicity of the Romish succession; but verily if they do that, they both authenticate the apostolicity of the present Romish clergy, who inherit in the continued line of their own bishops, and they further establish an authority which utterly denounces themselves as heretics. Thus they totally neutralize their own claim, and concede at the same time the pestilent and false one of the Romish church. They may say, we admit the apostolicity of Rome as to ordination, 'but we claim a right to repudiate that in the doctrine of Rome

'which we deem corrupt and unscriptural.' Granted that you shall do so-but then observe, you assert thereby your individual and private judgment against the judgment of the universal bishop and his universal church. We are content that you should do so -but then we are not content that you should refuse us nonconformists the same right of private judgment. If you have formed your own church upon your own judgments of what is scriptural, and not according to the decisions of Rome, and insist that it is a true Christian church-and even the catholic church, though it is only a church comprising part of the Christians of one nationthen we challenge you either to concede to all churches, based on the same principle of private judgment-the epithet to which yourselves lay claim-of being branches of the catholic church-or else to renounce the principle on which your nonconformity to Rome is founded, confess your dissent to be a schism made in the catholic church, and against the authority of that church, and go back at once to Popery. We confess we can logically find no intermediate ground between these two alternatives. All Protestantism is based on the right of private judgment. The Church of England has no other solid ground, whatever its advocates may pretend. In decrying that, they commit suicide. In claiming it for themselves and denying it to others, they are unreasonable, self-contradictory, and unjust. If they place their apostolicity in official descent, they supersede aud stultify their church at a single stroke. If they place their own apostolicity in accordance with apostolic standards, then in principle they clearly sanction, and in practice ought to embrace, all churches that hold and teach the same faith of the gospel. In denying the apostolicity of these churches, they negative their own-for no other claim to apostolicity can ever be substantiated, and certainly never ought to be, but that which consists in the integrity of gospel truth and ordinances.

If these gentlemen demur to our reasoning, and insist upon their descent, we then challenge them to make it out, in any of the lines which ecclesiastical history can supply; and we pledge ourselves, despised nonconformists as we are, to prove that upon their own showing, their apostolical descent has not even the cohesion of a cobweb-it cannot be traced up to any one of the apostles. So their most learned divines have testified over and over again. A man might as well attempt to make out a pedigree that should trace his own lineal descent up to Noah, as an ecclesiastic prove that his ordination has descended to him in a legitimate line of apostolic men. If our churchmen will have it, then let them produce their evidence and substantiate their succession -we are ready at any time to join issue with them upon that question, or if they decline to adduce the proof of the boasted fact, let them abandon the pretence. One or the other they must