each will be gathered in, like a shock of corn fully ripe, in his season. To none should the time be either too long or yet too short. "Be patient unto the coming of the Lord."

And once again, there is encouragement in the thought of the rain, the latter rain, where there may have been a declension, where watchlessness may have been allowed, or where trial and temptation may have chilled devotion and zeal. Rain sought again, shall fall to revive. Never forsaken by a covenant God, penitent Israel, idolatrous and prayerless no more, will receive the blessing of abundance of rain: shall grow as the lily" and "revive as the corn.”

"he

A. D. P.

MR. POYNDER ON THE TRUE CHARACTER OF THE
CHURCH OF ROME.

A GREAT difference of opinion exists among the clergy of the Church of England respecting the real character of the Church of Rome. Some of them affirm, like the Rev. Henry Melvill, that "she is a true and Apostolic Church, her bishops and priests deriving their authority in an unbroken line from Christ and His apostles. Accordingly, if a Roman Catholic priest renounces the errors of Popery, our Church immediately receives him as one of her ministers, requiring no fresh ordination before she allows him to officiate at her altars; and if his ordination be not valid, neither is ours. If we have derived our ordination from the Apostles, it has been through the Roman Catholic Church; so that to deny the transmission of the authority in the Papal priesthood, would be to deny it generally, and thus we should be left without ordination that could be traced back to the Apostles. There is no doubt, therefore, on the principles of an Episcopal Church, that the Roman Catholic is a true branch of Christ's Church. However corrupted and deformed, it is a true Church, inasmuch as its ministers have been duly invested with authority to preach the Word and dispense the Sacraments; and it is a true Church moreover, inasmuch as it has never ceased to hold the head, which is Christ, and the oneness of the truth, that Jesus died as a propitiation for the sins of the whole world."

Dr. Wordsworth, archdeacon of Westminster, holds somewhat similar views to Mr. Melvill. He speaks of the Church of Rome as a Christian Church, and says:- By reason of God's goodness to her, Rome received in the beginning His Word and Sacraments, and through His long-suffering they are

not yet utterly taken away from her, and by virtue of the remnants of divine truth and grace, which are yet spared to her, she is still a Church. But she has miserably marred and corrupted the gifts of God. She has been favoured by Him like Jerusalem, and like Jerusalem she has rebelled against Him. He would have healed her, but she is not healed. And, therefore, though on the one hand, by His love, she was, and has not yet wholly ceased to be, a Christian Sion; on the other hand, through her own sins, she is an antichristian Babylon." Again; "He has lifted the mask from her face, and with His Divine Hand He has written her true character in large letters, and has planted her title on her forehead, to be seen and read by all: MYSTERY, BABYLON THE GREAT, THE MOTHER OF THE ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH.'"-(Babylon: or, the question examined, "Is the Church of Rome the Babylon of the Apocalypse?" (pp. 100, 106.)

Dr. Wordsworth approves of the recognition of Romish Orders as valid, although there is no warrant whatever for this vicious practice. It is difficult to conceive how any clergyman of the Church of England, possessing a clear head and a wellbalanced mind, can believe the Church of Rome to be a Christian Church. In the Homily for Whitsunday, Part 2, our Church distinctly states, "The Church of Rome is so far wide from the nature of the true Church, that nothing can be more." And it is only necessary to compare the 19th and 28th Articles together, to see that she has no claim to the title of a visible Christian Church. It is thus clear that the Church of England nowhere recognizes the Church of Rome as a Christian Church. In the absence of such evidence, Dr. Wordsworth and Mr. Melvill draw an unjustifiable inference from an unwarrantable practice. The sin of recognizing as valid the Orders of an idolatrous, and therefore antichristian priesthood, lies at the door of those bishops who have permitted converted Romish priests to officiate in their dioceses without having ever been properly ordained. These cases, however, are very few and far between.

Dr. Wordsworth seems to make too light of idolatry, and to forget how utterly incompatible this sin is with Christianity. At p. 99, he says,-" Rome may be a Church, and yet Babylon.' By a Church, does he mean a Christian Church? Does he really believe that there can be such a thing as an idolatrous Christian Church? Professedly Christian she may be, but profession goes for very little. Dr. Wordsworth contends that many holy men have belonged to the Church of Rome who did not communicate in her errors. It is difficult to conceive how any one can belong to the Church of Rome without being guilty of idolatry. Romanists cannot partake of the Mass, or bow down

to the Virgin Mary, who is the great idol of the Church of Rome, without being guilty of this sin. Bishop Wilson, of Calcutta, says," For one knee bent to God, a thousand are bowed to the shrines of the Virgin and the Saints." This is not Christianity, but Mariolatry; and Mariolatry is Idolatry. It is inflicting a great injury upon poor deluded Romanists to tell them that the Church of Rome is a Christian Church, in which salvation is attainable. Away with such false and spurious charity! It is ruinous to the soul.

Dr. Wordsworth speaks of "the unanimous consent of the Christian Church." Where is this unanimous consent to be found? Certainly not in the tomes of the Fathers, which have been aptly called "the grand magazine of all opinions."

Those persons who believe that the Church of Rome is a Christian Church maintain that she holds the Head, and retains the fundamental doctrines of the Gospel. It may be desirable to ascertain the opinion of those who were most competent to give one on this subject.

Bishop Davenant thus bears his faithful testimony against the Church of Rome:-"Col. ii. 19. And not holding the Head,' &c. This is that capital crime of seducers; whilst they would have angels to be worshipped, they proceed to diminish the dignity of Christ; for they take away from Him the prerogative of the Head. They hold not the Head, because they themselves neither rightly judge of the virtue and sufficiency of this Head, nor preach it to others..... Hence we infer, the primary object of Satan is, by seducers, who are his ministers, to withdraw Christians from Christ the Head, and to persuade them to rest for salvation upon other aids, not upon Christ alone. ... To adhere to the Roman Pontiff as a visible head, does not constitute a true member of the Church; but to adhere to Christ, the Head. Therefore, hypocrites and the ungodly are not true members of the Catholic Church, to whatever visible Church they may join themselves, unless by the joints of the Spirit and of Faith they are united to Christ. . . . . The Papists err, who will have the Church to draw the doctrine of salvation, not alone from Christ the Head, but from human traditions." (Rev. J. Allport's Translation of Bishop Davenant on the Colossians, vol. i. p. 511.)

The following remarks of Bishop Newton's are much to the purpose:-"This is the very essence of Christian worship, to worship the One True God through the One True Christ; and to worship any other God or any other Mediator, is apostasy and rebellion against God and against Christ. It is as St. Paul saith, (Col. ii. 19,) not holding the Head, but depending upon other heads. It is as St. Peter expresseth it, denying the Lord that bought us,' and serving other lords; and the denial of

such an essential part may as properly be called apostasy, as if we were to renounce the whole Christian faith and worship. It is renouncing them in effect, and not treating and regarding God as God, or Christ as Christ." (Bishop Newton's Dissertation on the Prophecies, Dobson's edit. p. 418.)

"The Popish worship is more the worship of demons than of God or Christ." (Ibid. p. 452.)

That sound theologian, Joseph Milner, in his Church History, thus writes:-" The last-mentioned evil (profaneness) admits of no coalition with Christian holiness, but superstition, to a certain degree, may co-exist with the Spirit of the Gospel. When that degree is exceeded, and general idolatry takes place, the system then becomes too corrupt to deserve the name of the Church of Christ. I have marked this limit to the best of my judgment in the course-of this History, have exhibited the MAN OF SIN, matured in all his gigantic horrors, and from that epocha I despair of discovering the Church in the collective body of nominal Christians. Every reader will observe the various features of Antichrist described in this volume, and some may perhaps be enabled to form a more distinct and adequate conception of the nature of Popery than they had before acquired. Leaving, therefore, the general Church of Rome, after she had entirely ceased to hold the Head, I either travel with faithful missionaries into regions of heathenism, and describe the propagation of the Gospel in scenes altogether new, or dwell with circumstantial exactness on the lives and writings of some particular individuals in whom the Spirit of God maintained the power of godliness while they remained in Babylon." (Milner's Church History, vol. iii. Preface.)

Sophistry may evade, but it cannot confute. When men cease to hold the Head, and to be satisfied with Christ as their all, they fall into these or similar errors. The heart which feels not the want of the living God as its proper nutriment, will feed on the ashes of idolatry." (Ibid. p. 159.)

Abundance of evidence might be adduced to prove that the Church of Rome does not retain the fundamental doctrines of the Gospel. The exclusive Mediatorship of Christ is one of these doctrines which the Church of Rome distinctly denies. In fact, the whole system of Popery is constructed upon a denial of this all-important doctrine. Let it never be forgotten that Christ will be our only Mediator, or He will be no Mediator at all, for He will not share the glories of His mediatorial throne with any created being. If that throne is surrounded with a halo of subordinate mediators, He will be sought in vain. Bishop Burgess, in his letter to Lord Melbourne in 1835, says:-"My Lord, if the public prints have faithfully reported your speech, in moving the second reading of the Irish Church

....

Bill, your Lordship is represented to have said, that the doctrines of the Roman Catholic Church are fundamentally the same with the Church of England. . . . . But, my Lord, the doctrines of the Roman Church are so far from being fundamentally the same with those of our Church, that they are fundamentally and essentially opposed to them."

Dr. Howley, archbishop of Canterbury, was addressed by the Church of Geneva, at its Jubilee of the Reformation, to send representatives from the English Church to the solemn festival. In his reply, his Grace prays that the Church of Geneva may be "united by the Spirit of Christ in the profession of pure evangelical faith, and be for ever preserved from that antichristian despotism (Popery) which is equally hostile to intellectual improvement, to civil and religious liberty, and to the fundamental principles of the Gospel." (Christian Observer, 1837, p. 260.)

Archbishop Sandys says,-"Beware of this merchant (the Pope), lose not your labour, cast not away your money; it is not meat, but poison, which he offereth you. His physic cannot heal your diseases; his holy water cannot wash away the spots of a sullied and defiled soul, as he untruly would bear you in hand; his blasphemous masses do not appease, but provoke, God's wrath: they cannot benefit the quick, much less the dead; . . . his rotten relics cannot comfort you; his blind, dumb, and worm-eaten idols can do you no good. . . . . By his Latin service ye cannot be edified or made wiser. Yet this trumpery they sell for money. . . . . Thus you see a manifest difference between Christ and Antichrist, true teachers and false, sound and counterfeit religion. . . . . We disagree in the very foundation. They lay one ground and we another." (Abp. Sandys' Sermons, Parker Society Edition, p. 11.)

"The Church of Rome may arrogate to herself the title of the Catholic Church, but as she teaches doctrines fundamentally erroneous, she has no right whatever to the sacred designation. She may be termed the Church of the Pope, or the Synagogue of Satan, since she teaches doctrines which originated in the father of lies; but the Church of Christ she cannot be." (Protestantism the Old Religion; Popery the New. By the Rev. T. Lathbury, p. 21.)

It thus appears evident that the Church of Rome is not a Christian Church, but a blasphemous, idolatrous, antichristian community, neither holding the Head, nor retaining the fundamental doctrines of the Gospel. Now, what is the conduct of the Tractarian clergy in reference to this Church? Many of them are using their best efforts to unprotestantize the Church of England, and assimilate her to that of Rome. The infection has spread even to some of the heads of our Church. When did we