If the Protestant Episcopal Church be the Comprehensive Church, it becomes the privilege if not the duty of all Christians to unite themselves with it-extent of this duty-a recapitulation of the various comprehensive traits elucidated in the preceding sections—the Protestant Episcopal Church proved to be the Comprehensive Churchthe only Church founded successfully and completely upon the maxim of the primitive and Apostolical Church-there are few even of its own members who understand its comprehensiveness-this Church not originated by human wisdom or accident-it is a system provided by the gracious providence of the Lord for the Christian and ecclesiastical unity of all His disciples.

WE hold it to be an axiom that, if the Protestant Episcopal Church be the Comprehensive Church—that is, if it have within its system all the particulars which are held essential, not only by all Christian denominations jointly, but also by each distinctively-and if there be no other system in our country equally comprehensive, then it is, if not the bounden duty, certainly the privilege of all Christians who love their Lord, and wish to keep His commandment of unity, to unite themselves at once, even if it be at some personal sacrifice, with it.

And one or both of two things is required of every one who would, with a good conscience, avoid uniting himself with this Church: either he must disprove what we have just laid down as an axiom, that is, disprove the importance of obeying his Lord's command, when he has it in his power to do so; or else he must prove

that the Protestant Episcopal Church is not the Comprehensive Church.

It will not be enough for an objector even to prove that he is in a Church which has a valid ministry and valid sacraments, and with which he himself is perfectly satisfied. He must prove that his Church is comprehensive, and capable of receiving all sincere disciples of his Lord, whatever their diversities of opinion and customs; or else his Church has not the characteristics of Christ's one Church adapted to all His disciples; and he is therefore bound to leave it as a defective and so far a corrupted Church, if indeed he may find the one comprehensive system elsewhere.

In summing up the characteristics of the Protestant Episcopal Church, we shall merely recapitulate some of the main thoughts suggested in the preceding sections.

The Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States, while it is historically at unity with the ancient and Apostolical Church, is, at the same time, purely an American Church, and therefore is entitled to the sympathies of all American Christians.

Its members are classed necessarily just as they are in every Protestant Church; and this fact recommends it to the members of all other churches as a medium of unity, having in this particular a quality common to them all.

Its territorial divisions, while prepared for its universal extension, are yet perfectly simple, and afford the most desirable facilities for the external union of all Christians.

Its laws and government are such that every one of its members is represented in them, and has a power of

control over them; and they are constituted upon such equitable and truly republican principles, as to endear the Church to every Christian who loves the free and righteous principles upon which our political institutions are ordered.

Its ministry is such that every conceivable and useful mode of clerical influence may be exerted; while every minister, in every degree, is directly responsible to the Church for his faithfulness and obedience to its laws. Its ministry meets exactly the wishes of every true Christian in our land.

Its sacraments are free to all true disciples of the Lord Jesus Christ, without regard to their differences in the interpretation of difficult passages of Scripture or in their abstract systems of theological and philosophical doctrine. In this fact it welcomes all to one communion and fellowship.

Its standards, although explicit, are never oppressive; and its doctrines and preaching are Scriptural and practical; so that on these subjects its system tends to concord.

Its discipline is severe against manifest sin, but it is patient toward human infirmity, "loving mercy and not sacrifice," "desiring not the death of the sinner, but rather that the sinner turn unto God and be saved;" so that in this it is sure of the approval of all who are like their Father in Heaven, and who have the meekness and gentleness of His only Son.

Its modes of public worship, while they seek to encourage solemnity and the spirit of devotion and prayer, are yet always accommodated to the spiritual wants and the Christian judgment of its members; so that all

Christians, who unite themselves with it, do have it in their power to worship God according to the dictates of their own consciences, and the necessities of their own hearts.

Its laity are fully and effectually represented in all the regulations and action of the Church, and have not only every right which they have in other Churches, but also, in some very important respects, more rights, and always the power of self-protection. In this particular, therefore, the Church may expect the favor of all Christian laymen in our country.

Its arrangements concerning Baptism, and its connection of the Rite of Confirmation with that ordinance, furnish, what in no other Church has been done, the means of uniting on a basis of harmony all Christian people, who in other denominations are so widely at variance on this theme of the subjects and mode of Baptism.

Its views of the Lord's Supper agree, substantially, with those of other orthodox and catholic communions, while its terms of admission are more liberal than those of most others; and thus it is able to combine and associate them all around one table of mutual charity.

It furnishes opportunities for the exercise of every benevolent affection; it cultivates literature and labors for Christian education; and it is pledged wholly and without reserve to the work of missions in all the earth; so that all Christians must admire its singleness and honest devotion, who love to labor for the good of men, and to fulfil the last charge of the ascended Lord.

It tolerates all the modes through which the piety

of the heart would find outward expression; and it invites to its protection every variety of temperament and habit; so that all may join themselves unto it, who take delight in the worship of God. It has forms, but it is not tied to forms. Outside of its prescribed rules for special occasions, it invites to every variety of Christian worship, and every method of Christian activity. It is like a broad country, through which, among a hundred other roads, a railroad runs. If you get into the cars, you must, while you are in them, ride the rails. But off from the railroad you may go upon as you please, in carriages or on foot, and indulge in all the privileges of a free and law-abiding citizen.

Finally, it is capable of modifying itself, in any and in every possible respect, to the circumstances of society and the wants of men, in all periods of time; so that it is able to unite all Christians into one body, and to be the Church of the world.

Now we inquire: Is not the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States entitled peculiarly to the name of the Comprehensive Church? Are not all the essentials of a Church within it, and all the essentials for Christian and ecclesiastical unity?

The writer will be pardoned if he ventures the remark that, of all the ecclesiastical systems which the history of the past and of the present has brought under his notice, there is none which, in the principles of its organization, has carried out the maxim upon which the Primitive and Apostolical Church was organized, as alluded to in our first chapter, so fearlessly and so successfully as that which it has been the design of the foregoing sections to illustrate.