ence and perpetuity there is not the least reason in the world. True it is that Christians mourn over their divisions; we should all rejoice, our land would resound with hallelujahs, if we could all wake on the morrow and find ourselves united indeed in one Comprehensive Church. But alas! our divisions exist; and how shall we be made one?

Where is the Comprehensive Church?

Let us examine, without prejudices for or against it, the system of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States as it is. If it be feasible as a plan of unity, let it be embraced. If not, let its faults be shown, and let a better be substituted.

4

CHAPTER IX.

EXAMINATION OF THE PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH, AS IT IS.

The Protestant Episcopal Church proposed as the Comprehensive Church -proposition explicit-to be sustained by facts-the reader invited to look at the outlines of the system of the Protestant Episcopal Church as a system for Christian and ccclesiastical unity-examination to be distributed through twenty-one sections.

We propose the system of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States, as it is, for a basis of Christian and ecclesiastical unity to all the Christian people in our country. We propose it to their approval as the Comprehensive Church.

Our proposition is broadly and explicitly stated; and, if we fail in sustaining it by good reasons, our imprudence will be manifest. But we know the ground we stand upon, and feel no necessity for speaking cautiously or with qualification. Furthermore, our proposition is to be sustained by facts, and not merely by abstract disquisition, so that we cannot be sophistical if we would

We proceed to an examination of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States for one special purpose to discover whether it be not a system capable

of uniting the separated denominations of Christians into one Church.

In conducting this examination, we shall not advance the private theories or speculations of any individuals who are or have been connected with the Protestant Episcopal Church. Individuals alone are responsible for their peculiar views. Neither shall we exhibit all the minute details of the system; for a treatise so extensive would be inconsistent with our design and our limits.

We shall look at the outlines of the system. We shall mark its main proportions, with which all the minute arrangements must harmonize.

After giving, 1st, a Definition of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States, we shall develop the fundamental principles of its organization, under the several following sections: 2. Members. 3. Territorial Divisions. 4. Laws. 5. Government. 6. Ordination and Duties of Ministers. 7. Rights of the Bishops and Clergy. 8. Admission to the Sacraments. 9. Creeds. 10. Doctrine. 11. Discipline. 12. Public Worship. 13. Rights of the Laity. 14. Baptism. 15. Confirmation, the sequel or complement of Infant Baptism. 16. The Supper of the Lord. 17. Literary, Educational, Benevolent, and Missionary Associations. 18. Liberty. 19. Adaptiveness. 20. Religious Devotion and Action. 21. Comprehensive Traits.

SECTION I.

DEFINITION OF THE PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH IN THE UNITED STATES.

It is not the Church of Rome-it is not the Church of England—it is a Christian and Protestant American Church-at unity with the ancient and universal Church of Christ.

WHAT is the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States?

I. It is not the Church of Rome, nor does it hold any connection or communion with that Church. Its standards of prayer and of doctrine all contain, some designedly and more undesignedly, a protest against the errors and anti-catholic claims of the Church of Rome.

For our educated readers, and others who have been at all acquainted with the Protestant Episcopal Church, the above assertion is sufficient; but as many persons, otherwise intelligent, who have never been familiar with the Protestant Episcopal Church, have a vague idea of something papistical about it, we are induced, for the benefit of such, to explain a little further.

The 19th Article of Religion of the Protestant Episcopal Church reads, in its latter clause, thus: "As the Church of Jerusalem, Alexandria, and Antioch have erred, so also the Church of Rome hath erred, not only in their living and manner of ceremonies, but also in matters of faith."

The name of "the Protestant Episcopal Church" should be sufficient to absolve it from all suspicions of

being inclined to the peculiarities of the Church of Rome.

In the Homilies, which by the 35th Article are "declared to be an explication of Christian doctrine, and instructive in piety and morals," there are frequent rebukes of the various errors of the Church of Rome, and sometimes in terms which the "ears polite" of a modern audience could not tolerate.*

*To select a passage not so harsh as some others, yet decisive upon the point, we quote from the 28th Homily-the 16th of the 2d Book:

"It is needful to teach you, first, what the true Church of Christ is ; and then confer the Church of Rome therewith, to discern how well they agree together.

66 'The true Church is a universal congregation or fellowship of God's faithful and elect people, built upon the foundation of the Apostles and Prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the Head Corner Stone. And it hath always three notes or marks, whereby it is known: Pure and sound doctrine; the sacraments administered according to Christ's holy institution; and the right use of ccclesiastical discipline. This description of the Church is agreeable both to the Scriptures of God, and also to the doctrine of the ancient Fathers; so that none may justly find fault therewith.

more.

"Now if you will compare this with the Church of Rome-not as it was in the beginning, but as it is at present, and hath been for the space of nine hundred years and odd—you shall well perceive the state thereof to be so far wide from the nature of the true Church that nothing can be For neither are they built upon the foundation of the Apostles and Prophets, retaining the sound and pure doctrine of Christ Jesus; neither yet do they order the sacraments, or else the ecclesiastical keys (discipline), in such sort as he did first institute and ordain them. (Proofs of the three charges are urged.). . . . Which thing being true, as all they which have any light of God's word must needs confess, we may well conclude, according to the rule of Augustine (Contra Petilian. Donatist. Ep. Cap. 4), that the Bishops of Rome and their adherents are not the true Church of Christ, much less then to be taken as chief heads and rulers of the same. Whosoever, saith he, do dissent from the Scriptures concerning the head, although they be found in all places where the Church