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principles of those who profess it; and a Parliament composed in part of unbelievers and Jews is the only tribunal which can effectually correct the errors it may involve. It is not within the competence of the highest court in the kingdom, though constituted specially for spiritual and ecclesiastical purposes, to "settle matters of faith," or even to tell its suitors "what ought to be the doctrines of the Church of England." That Church, so far as the court is concerned, may teach damnable errors, may teach pollution of the worst kind; and, if so, it must continue so to teach; it is not the business of the court to make things straight, but to see that the law is kept; and it does not care in the slightest degree whether that law be good or evil.

If the "Church of England" teaches, as a matter of fact, a single article of the faith, that is an accident: it is no part of its business to do so. On the other hand, it may teach nothing of the kind. It may be, as the judges say, that "there may be matters of religious belief on which the requisition of the Church [of England] may be less than Scripture may seem to warrant." Thus, according to the highest authority of the Anglican community, it is possible that the ministers of it are not bound to teach fundamental verities without which salvation is impossible. A member, therefore, of the Establishment who should, with the utmost sincerity, set himself to ascertain what his religion means, may even, upon the principles which he holds, fail to discover that which it is absolutely necessary he should find: his Church does not speak the whole truth; it is silent where it ought to have spoken, and keeps back from those who belong to it what God has spoken to all. This is the real state of the case, according to the declaration of the supreme tribunal which regulates the national religion. The Established Church does not, upon its own principles, teach the faith.

To those outside that community, this is no novel information: it has long been known that the Establishment is a religious system inconsistent and incomplete; but it was hardly to be expected that we should hear from the mouths of the judges sitting in the highest court, that the tribunals of a religion which sets itself up as the most pure in the world, should be without jurisdiction to settle matters of faith;-in other words, the faith, as such, is a subject beyond its province, and there are no means accessible to the members of the Establishment, within that Establishment, by which they can tell what the faith is. Its ministers may preach lies, may deny the faith, and teach all imaginable errors, if so it please them; and there is no judge to correct their excesses, or even

to tell the people whether they commit excesses or not. We repeat, then, the Christian faith, as such, is not held by the Established Church; for that community is, according to the declaration of its highest court, not bound to hold or teach matters of faith.

It may be urged, in reply, perhaps, that "the Articles and formularies" derive none of their binding force from the secular courts which interpret them, and that they proceed from a higher original-from "the Church." But there is no recognition of that higher original anywhere to be found: the courts repudiate it; and, what is more to the purpose, the very men who adopted, as well as the men who devised, the Articles, never imagined that they could give them any weight. These men, better informed when they signed the Thirty-nine Articles in February, 1563, made a protestation of their own spiritual and civil impotence: they subscribed that document, and put it forth as a humble petition to the supreme authority that it might be made binding upon them.* The "formularies" by which, we presume, the Book of Common Prayer is meant are not the work of any other person than the civil legislature; for even in the 80th of the Canons of 1603, that book is referred to as "lately explained in some few points, by his Majesty's authority:" in other words, by King James I., who proved his supremacy by making corrections in the public offices of the religion he professed, the moment he crossed the border and became the holder of the crown to which that supremacy was annexed.

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Certain members of the National Establishment cling to it still, because, as they think, its ministers are priests, and administer at least two of the sacraments which our Lord had instituted for the salvation of men. Let it be admitted for a moment, but only by way of supposition, that there are priests, and bishops, and sacraments-two only-accessible to the members of the national community: it will make nothing for them. These priests and bishops have sold themselves to the secular power; they have betrayed their trust, and there is no security against deception. They have ceased to teach truth, as such; they are not bound to teach the truth at all. "Matters of faith" they have nothing to do with; and it is no part of their duty to teach them. They have thus abandoned the priestly function, and have abjured that knowledge

"Ista subscriptio facta est ab omnibus sub hac protestatione, quod nihil statuunt in præjudicium cujusque senatus consulti, sed tantum supplicem libellum petitiones suas continentem humiliter offerunt."-Wilkins, Concil. iv. p. 238.

the guardianship of which is committed to priests :-labia sacerdotis custodient scientiam.

Two most serious doctrines were admitted, in the court appealed from, to be doctrines binding on the conscience of the ministers of the national religion; and the promoters of the litigation in the court below did not dream that the sentence of Dr. Lushington could be reversed on those points, when it came to be reviewed by the supreme judges sitting in the court of final appeal. We borrow the words of Mgr. Manning in his short but impressive Letter to an Anglican Friend*:

After full hearing, the sentence given was a reversal of the judgment of the court below; or, in other words, a declaration that to deny the inspiration of any portion of the Old and New Testament, so long as no entire book is thereby erased from the Canon, and to deny the eternity of punishment to the wicked, is not at variance with the articles or formularies of the Church of England.-P. 19.

Thus the decision in itself is a very grave thing, no doubt, in one sense; but only till men realize that the judges were incompetent upon their own showing. They were not judges of doctrine, but of common and statute law, and had no sort of authority whatever to determine the questions put before them; neither did they-in fact, they determined nothing more than this that there is no law, common or statute, which requires any man to hold any opinion either way on controverted matter. The truth or falsehood of the incriminated propositions remains untouched, because the judges had no jurisdiction in the case.

The decisions of the Privy Council - whether right or wrong-are in themselves an element of no value in the appreciation which men ought to make of the national religion. The subject-matter really to be considered is the fact of the existence of that tribunal, and its own account of itself. The court is the highest spiritual court to which Anglicans have access, as Anglicans; from it they derive the knowledge of their duties, and the solution of their doubts: it is from it they learn whether certain propositions may be maintained; but they cannot learn whether they are true or false for the court cannot answer that question. If an

*The Crown in Council on the Essays and Reviews: a Letter to an Anglican Friend. By Henry Edward Manning. D.D. London: Longman. 1864.

This doctrine was taught in England about five hundred years ago, and was condemned in 1368 by Simon Langham, Archbishop of Canterbury, sitting at Lambeth. It was expressed in these words :-"Quod omnes homines damnati in inferno sunt reparabiles et beatificabiles."

Anglican wishes to learn whether Baptism has, in a given case, been validly administered, he cannot obtain any information; though if he wishes to know whether the administration was legal, according to Act of Parliament, the court will enlighten him but it knows nothing of the Divine law of which the sacrament of Baptism is a part.

It is taken for granted by this court, and ostentatiously proclaimed by it, when it discusses the extent of its jurisdiction, that the law it administers to the national clergy is not the law of God-of that it knows nothing, and apparently cares nothing its business is to regulate the preaching and writing of certain gentlemen according to the will of the nation, as that will is expressed in the statutes of the realm. It recognises neither church, nor sacraments, nor doctrines which it is bound to respect, and its religion has no higher sanctions and no more awful sources than has a turnpike or a railway act. It is useless to allege canons or texts of Scripture, however plain, in the highest court of this kingdomthough specially constituted for ecclesiastical and spiritual causes-because they have no authority except that which may be given them by Parliament. To discuss the truth or falsehood of a sentence given under these conditions is an absurdity; because the judges do not pretend to ascertain truth revealed verities are not subjects upon which they exercise their learning. In short, it is now ascertained, beyond the possibility of a doubt, by the confession, twice made, of the supreme court of the national religion, that the "faith of Christ" is absolutely banished out of the legal system of the land, and that the national clergy is not bound to hold or teach it, as such.

ART. II.-VENN'S LIFE & LABOURS OF S. FRANCIS XAVIER.

The Missionary Life and Labours of S. Francis Xavier, taken from his own Correspondence, with a Sketch of the General Results of Roman Catholic Missions among the Heathen. By HENRY VENN, B.D., Prebendary of St. Paul's, Honorary Secretary of the Church Missionary Society. Longman. 1862.

ERE it not for certain qualities which provoke no light sentence of moral condemnation, Mr. Venn's book would be highly amusing to any reader possessed already of a moderate knowledge of the subjects of which it treats. There is an artless and unconscious simplicity about its blunders and absurdities that reminds us of some of those delightful descriptions of the manners and customs of a strange country, which visitors for a few weeks occasionally publish for the edification of their friends. Mr. Venn has been on a tour of inspection. He has been travelling in a country to him entirely foreign, whose manners and customs and characteristics are certainly not such as those with which he has been familiar. He has set out, as a zealous Secretary of the Church Missionary Society should do, to explore the newly-discovered region of "Romish" missions. Perhaps there are many members of that Society who have never heard of such things, and who believe that their own missions stand alone in the world as instances of the evangelizing spirit bequeathed to the Church by the Apostles. To such readers as these, Mr. Venn's book will come like the letters of a traveller to his friends at home; for he not only professes to sketch the life and labours of S. Francis Xavier, but he throws in, out of the abundance of his information, a general account of the extent and, we need not add, failure-of "Romish" missions to the heathen. This general account is, indeed, drawn from authors, such as Mosheim and Geddes, not generally allowed to be remarkably veracious; but the result must of course be at once instructive and consoling to the supporters of the Church Missionary Society. It is true, their own missions do not seem to produce much effect on the heathen: the few nominal converts they make are apt to end by decamping with the missionary's silver spoons, or at all events by relapsing into the idolatry from which they have been rescued, as soon as the tangible motives

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