as perfectly safe so long as embraced within its communion; and, no matter what their crimes, they are committed to the dust"in the sure hope of a blessed resurrection."

There is one effect of this false theory of the church which ought to be specially noticed. It is the parent of bigotry,religious pride combined with malignity. Those who cry, The temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord are we, are an abomination in the sight of God. That this spirit is the legitimate fruit of the ritual theory is plain. That theory leads a particular class of men to regard themselves, on the ground of their external relations, as the special favourites of heaven. It is of course admitted that a sense of God's favour, the assurance of his love, is the fountain of all holy affections and right actions. Hence the Bible is filled with the declarations of his love for his people; and hence the Holy Spirit is sent to shed abroad his love in their hearts. The assurance of the divine favour, however, produces holiness, only when we have right apprehensions of God, and of the way in which his love comes to be exercised towards us. When we see that he is of purer eyes than to look upon sin; that it is only for Christ's sake he is propitious to the guilty; that the love and indulgence of sin are proof that we are not the objects of his favour, the more we see of our unworthiness, the more grateful are we for his undeserved love, and the more desirous to be conformed to his image. But when men believe they are the favourites of God, because members of a particular society,-that no matter what their personal character, they are objects of God's special love, then the natural and inevitable effect is pride, contempt, intolerance, malignity, and, when they dare, persecution. The empirical proof of the truth of this remark is found in the history of the Jews, of the Brahmins, of the Mahometans, and of the Christian church. It is to be found in the practical effect of the doctrine in question, wherever it has prevailed. The Jews regarded themselves as the peculiar favourites of God in virtue of their descent from Abraham, and irrespective of their personal character. This belief rendered them proud, contemptuous, intolerant, and malignant towards all beyond their exclusive circle. In the Christian church we always find the same spirit connected with this doctrine, expressed under one set of circumstances by anathemas, enforced by the rack and stake; under another, by denying the mercy of God to the penitent and believing, if not subject to "pastors having succession;" by setting up exclusive claims to be the church of God; by contemptuous language and deportment towards their fellow-Christians; and, as in the case of Mr Palmer, with the open avowal of the right and duty of persecution.

Such are the legitimate effects of this theory,-effects which

it has never failed to produce. It is essentially Antinomian in its tendency, destructive of true religion, and injurious to holy living, and therefore cannot be in accordance with the Word and will of God.

The only answer given to this fatal objection is an evasion. Ritualists abandon pro hac vice their theory. They teach that, to the visible church, Christ has promised his constant presence, his guidance, his protection, and his saving grace; and that in order to membership in this church, no internal virtue is required, no regeneration, piety, sanctity, visible or invisible. But when it is objected, that if the promises are made to the visible church, they are made to the wicked, for the wicked are within the pale of that church, they answer, “The wicked are not really in the church;" the church really consists of "the elect, the predestinated, the sanctified."* As soon, however, as this difficulty is out of sight, they return to their theory, and make the church to consist "of all sorts of men." This temporary admission of the truth does not counteract the tendency of the constant inculcation of the doctrine, that membership in that body to which the promises are made is secured by external profession. Wherever that doctrine is taught, there the very essence of Antinomianism is inculcated, and there the fruits of Antinomianism never fail to appear.

The same argument, afforded by a consideration of the promises made to the church to determine its nature, flows from a consideration of its prerogatives. Those prerogatives are the authority to teach, and the right to exercise discipline. These are included in the power of the keys. This is not the place for any formal exhibition of the nature and limitations of this power. To construct the argument to be now presented, it is only necessary to assume what all Christians concede. Christ has given his church the authority to teach, and to bind and loose. He has promised to ratify her decisions, and to enforce her judgments. In this general statement all denominations of Christians agree. Our present question is, To whom does this power belong? To the church, of course. But is it to the visible church, as such, irrespective of the spiritual state of its members, or is it to the church considered as the communion of saints? The answer to this question makes all the difference betweeen Popery and Protestantism, between the Inquisition and the liberty wherewith Christ has made his people free.

The prerogative in question does not belong to the visible church, or to its superior officers, but to the company of believers and their appropriate organs-1. Because it presupposes the presence and guidance of the Holy Spirit. It is * Palmer on the Church, vol. i., pp. 28, 58.

only because the church is the organ of the Spirit of Christ, and therefore only so far as it is his organ, that the teaching of the church is the teaching of Christ, or that her decisions will be ratified in heaven. It has, however, been abundantly proved from the Word of God that the Holy Spirit dwells only in true believers; they only are his organs, and therefore it is only the teaching and discipline of his own people, as guided by his Spirit, that Christ has promised to ratify. To them alone belongs the prerogative in question, and to any external body, only on the assumption of their being, and only as far as they are what they profess to be, the true children of God. No external visible body, as such, is so far the organ of the Holy Spirit that its teachings are the teaching of Christ, and its decisions his judgments. No such body is, therefore, the church to which the power of doctrine and the key of the kingdom of heaven have been committed.

2. As it is undeniable that the visible church is always a mixed body, and often controlled in its action by wicked or worldly men, if Christ had promised to ratify the teaching and discipline of that body, he would be bound to sanction what was contrary to his own Word and Spirit. It is certain that unrenewed men are governed by the spirit of the world, or by that spirit which works in the children of disobedience, and it is no less certain that the visible church has often been composed, in great measure, of unrenewed men; if, therefore, to them has been committed this prerogative, then the people of God are, by Christ's own command, bound to obey the world and those governed by its spirit. If wicked men, whether in the church or out of it, cast us out of their communion, because of the opposition between us and them, it is nothing more than the judgment of the world. It is neither the judgment of Christ nor of his church. But if true believers refuse us their fellowship, because of our opposition to them as believers, it is a very different matter. It is one thing to be rejected by the wicked because they are wicked, and quite another to be cast off by the good because they are good. It is only the judgment of his own people, and even of his own people only as they submit to the guidance of his own Spirit (i. e., of his people as his people), that Christ has promised to ratify in heaven. The condemnation of Christ himself by the Jewish church, of Athanasius by the church of the fifth century, of Protestants by the Church of Rome, was but the judgment of the world, and of him who is the god of this world.

3. If the power of the keys is, as ritualists teach, committed to the chief officers of the church as a visible society, if it is their official prerogative, then there can be no such thing as the right of private judgment. Such a right can have no place

in the presence of the Spirit of God. If the chief officers of the church, without regard to their character, are the organs of that Spirit, then all private Christians are bound to submit without hesitation to all their decisions. This, as is well known, is the doctrine and practice of all those churches which hold that the promises and prerogatives pertaining to the church belong to the church as a visible society. All private judgment, all private responsibility, are done away. But, according to the Scriptures, it is the duty of every Christian to try the spirits whether they be of God, to reject an apostle, or an angel from heaven, should he deny the faith, and of that denial such Christian is of necessity the judge. Faith, moreover, is an act for which every man is personally responsible; his salvation depends upon his believing the truth. He must, therefore, have the right to believe God, let the chief officers of the church teach what they may. The right of private judgment is, there fore, a divine right. It is incompatible with the ritual theory of the church, but perfectly consistent with the Protestant doctrine, that the church is the communion of saints. The latter is consequently the true doctrine.

4. The fact that the teaching of the visible church has so often been contradictory and heretical, that council is against council, one age against another age, one part of the church against another part, is a clear proof that the prerogative of authoritative teaching was never given by Christ to any such erring body. And the fact that the external church has so often excommunicated and persecuted the true people of God, is proof positive that hers are not the decisions which are always ratified in heaven.

There are many difficult questions respecting the "power of the keys," which are not here alluded to. All that is now necessary is to show that this is a prerogative which cannot belong to the visible church as such. It can belong to her only so far as she is the organ of the church invisible, to which all the attributes, the promises, and prerogatives of the true church are to be referred. And no more wicked or more disastrous mistake has ever been made than to transfer to the visible society of professors of the true religion, subject to bishops having succession, the promises and prerogatives of the body of Christ. It is to attribute to the world the attributes of the church; to the kingdom of darkness the prerogatives of the kingdom of light. It is to ascribe to wickedness the character and blessedness of goodness. Every such historical church has been the world baptized; all the men of a generation, or of a nation, are included in the pale of such a communion. If they are the church, who are the world? If they are the kingdom of light, who constitute the kingdom of darkness? To teach

that the promises and prerogatives of the church belong to these visible societies, is to teach that they belong to the world, organised under a particular form and called by a

new name.

ART. IV.-1. Regeneration. By EDMUND H. SEARS. Printed for the American Unitarian Association. Boston: Crosby, Nichols, & Co. 1853. Pp. 248.

2. Christ in Theology; being the Answer of the Author before the Hartford Central Association of Ministers, October 1849, for the Doctrines of the Book entitled "God in Christ." By HORACE BUSHNELL. 1851. Pp. 348.

3. Spiritual Progress; or, Instructions in the Divine Life of the Soul. From the French of Fénélon and Madame Guyon. Edited by JAMES W. METCALF. New York: M. W. Dodd. 1853. Pp. 348.

4. Principles of the Interior or Hidden Life. By Professor UPHAM.

5. The Mystical Presence. A Vindication of the Calvinistic or the Reformed Doctrine of the Holy Eucharist. By Rev. J. W. NEVIN, D.D. 1846. Pp. 256.

6. What is Church History? A Vindication of the Idea of Historical Development. By PHILIP SCHAFF, D.D. 1846. Pp. 128.

7. The Contrast: or, The Evangelical and Tractarian Systems compared in their Structure and Tendencies. By the Rev. JOHN S. STONE, D.D., Rector of St Paul's Church, Brookline, Mass. Protestant Episcopal Society for the Promotion of Evangelical Knowledge. 1853.

8. The Church of Christ not an Ecclesiasticism.

JAMES. 1854. Pp. 72.

By HENRY

9. The Complete Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge. With an Introductory Essay upon his Philosophical and Theological Opinions. Edited by Professor SHEDD. In Seven Vols. New York: Harpers. 1853.

10. A System of Moral Science. By LAURENS P. HICKOK, D.D., Union College. Schenectady: G. Y. Van Debogert. London: John Chapman. Philadelphia: C. G. Henderson & Co. 1853. Pp. 431.

THERE are three ways in which we may meet the spiritual extravagances of our time. The first is to fall in with them, and try to make oneself famous in that way. There is a philosophy of so profound depth and such intuitional insight, that it can find coherence, esoteric meaning, intense vitality, and a