authority of the Church, which was thus identified with them, and as they were everywhere extra-national, it came to be considered as an extra-national power. No doubt the cause of the Reformation derived great strength from this fact; which arrayed all the patriotism of Europe on its side. Wherever it prevailed the ecclesiastical power of the temporal sovereign, or of the State, was established on the ruins of that of the popes.

It followed that, on that side, the Reformation went too far. The authority, not merely of the pope, but of the Church, was overthrown, and an extra-ecclesiastical power substituted for an extra-national one.* The new power does not seem in itself better than the old. It is only more tolerable because it accepts a purer doctrine. Yet its doctrines are nowhere unobjectionable; for it is very clear that the doctrines of the Church of England, and those of the English government, are by no means identical. The English government and the governments of all Protestant countries have been the victors in a long contest with the popes, and are now enjoying the fruits of their victory. Of those fruits they are naturally disposed to make the most. They are also inclined to guard them with care, and to watch the vanquished foe; who, as they well know, has still his eye upon the things of which he has been despoiled. The governments are, then, as they have always been, politically anti-papal, and in fact anti-ecclesiastical. Every movement which tends towards the independence of the Church is looked at with suspicion. Moreover, there is a constant tendency in the civil authorities to ally themselves with those theological schools which are farthest removed from all theologi• cal sympathy with Rome. For they expect to find in the members of those schools the most zealous, if not the most faithful, allies.

This is one cause, it is not the only cause, why there is a propensity to carry what are called the principles of the Reformation to an extent which truth will not warrant. In the heat and commotion of the Reformation itself, when men's

* The civil power is extra ecclesiastical, not because those who wield it are not members of the Church, but, because it is without the Constitution of the Church, and is not held by its possessors as members of the Church.

minds were excited, and their hearts inflamed with a zeal not always exempt from human infirmity, very strong assertions were made. These being taken to be true, and assumed as the basis of reasoning, not a few errors have been the consequence. The principle of the Reformation, in a doctrinal view, was the doctrine of Justification by Faith, as opposed to the notion of the opus operatum. But it is equally opposed to the notion of a change in the spiritual condition of a man wrought without his own concurrence. The doctrine of Justification by Faith has, and can have, no other basis than the free will of man. The true idea of Justification by Faith is that of man's coöperation, through Faith and with supernatural aid, in working out his own salvation. The idea of coöperating with the ALMIGHTY will exclude equally the ideas of independent human action and of irresistible Divine Grace. Justifying Faith is the gift of GOD; but it is only available for those persons, who willingly accept the precious blessing.

This doctrine is not reconcilable to the notion that GOD works out the salvation of man without his active concurrence, whether that notion be or be not connected with the Church and the Sacraments. If the notion of this exercise of the Divine Omnipotence be connected with the Church and the Sacraments, it is the notion of the opus operatum. If it be not it is Calvinism, which is just as much a notion of an opus operatum as the other; only the work is worked altogether in secret and without the use of external means. But the doctrine of Justification by Faith is equally reconcilable to the idea of the exercise of the Divine power, subject to a self-imposed restriction, whether that exercise be with or without the use of external means.

What is called the Sacramental system, as held in our Church, is the union of the doctrine of Justification by Faith, with that of the communication of Divine Grace through the means of the Church and the Sacraments. There seems very little room for doubting that this is the doctrine of the Church. It stands opposed to both the notions of the opus operatum; as well to that of Geneva as to that of Rome. It also stands opposed to two other notions. One of these is that view of Justification by Faith, in which it is practically regarded as

a merely human faith excited by merely human means. The other notion is one which, rejecting altogether the ideas of Justification by Faith and of Divine aid, looks to justification by works as the means of salvation. According to this last view it is competent for a man so to live as to earn his own salvation. Of course he has no need of a SAVIOUR.

The idea of the Sacramental system is thus opposed, not only to doctrinal Romanism, but to the two great divisions of that popular religion which loves to call itself Protestantism. One of these divisions calls itself Evangelical. Its members vary their position; sometimes we find them on the ground of the Genevan opus operatum, and at other times they reject that system and adopt that of pure Justication by Faith without regard to the notion of predestination. Perhaps they would be satisfied to be described as holding the idea of a supernatural faith separated from the ideas of predestination and irresistible Grace. They thus differ from those of the Sacramental school only in denying the efficacy of the Sacraments and the Church. It is probable that those Evangelicals who are without the pale of the Church may be best described in the first mode. Those who are within that pale, in the second. In fact, a very large proportion of those Churchmen who call themselves Evangelical, differ from the members of the Sacramental school only in the degree of clearness with which they hold the Sacramental doctrine, and in the phraseology in which they are willing to clothe their ideas upon the subject.

The other school, of which mention has been made, is that which rejects altogether the notion of Justification by Faith, and looks to the works of the individual as the procuring cause of his salvation.

All these various schools, even those who approach nearest to the Sacramental doctrine, are united in confounding that doctrine with the Romish form of the notion of the opus operatum. It is not uncommon to find, among the extreme members of the Evangelical school, persons who add to that charge another. This is, in substance, that those who hold and teach the Sacramental doctrine belong to the school which looks to works as the means of justification. This is easily understood. When men have come to deny that there is a Divine Grace

annexed to the Sacraments, they have no ground upon which they can rest the observance of them, except that they are com manded duties, that is, works. They thus come to imagine that those who attach importance to the Sacraments as means of salvation, do so on the ground of merit in the obedience involved in receiving them; that is, in the notion of justification by works. When the explanation is given, that Sacraments conduce to salvation not as acts done by the recipient, but as Divinely instituted channels of Grace, they fall back on the notion of the Romish opus operatum.

It is above all things desirable, that the position of those who hold the Church doctrine of the Church and the Sacraments, should not be misunderstood. At the present time there is a manifest tendency in all the schools of the American Church, to treat each other with more forbearance than formerly. There is a very decided diminution of party spirit. This then is the time to state the true doctrine of those who, among us, hold what are not unaptly called sacramental views, in the hope that they may be better understood.

What is called the Sacramental doctrine, then, is the combination of the doctrine of Justification by Faith with that of the Divine Grace in the Sacraments. A Divine Grace which is not irresistible, but which depends, such is the Divine Will, upon the Faith of the recipient for its efficacy. Evangelicalism is sometimes described as the negation of this last idea. Sacramentalism is sometimes described as the negation of Justification by Faith. Both descriptions are erroneous, although both may be true of some extreme members of the schools to which they are applied. Let those to whom they are not applicable learn to understand one another, and make allowances for differences of phraseology, and for differences about minute points of doctrine, of which neither side can speak definitely or accurately. They will find themselves much nearer to an agreement than they suppose. The Sacramentalist, in nineteen cases out of twenty, holds the doctrine of Justification by Faith. The Evangelical does not intend to deny the Grace of the Sacraments. Neither can define the mode in which that Grace is connected with the material symbols; and therefore neither ought to make the attempt. These principles seem to

present a ground upon which the present pacific tendencies in the Church may be maintained, and even brought to a settled agreement; not a compromise, but an understanding in the best sense of that word.

H. D. E.

HISTORICAL SKETCHES OF THE CHURCH OF SCOTLAND SINCE THE REFORMATION.

No. 5.-THE REIGN OF MARY; PRACTICAL WORKING OF KNOX's SCHEME; THE TULCHAN EPISCOPATE.

Quis talia fando ...

Temperet a lacrymis ?

-En. II.

MARY STUART, Queen of Scotland and dowager of France (for her husband, Francis, had died in December previous), landed at Leith on the 20th August, 1561. "She returned," says Miss Strickland, "in the first flower of her youth and beauty, a widow in her nineteenth year, after passing through the ordeal of the most licentious and seductive court in Europe with unsullied fame." Her reception was unpromising. The day was lowering, wet, and gloomy; that charming national feature, a Scotch mist, veiled the landscape and drenched the spectators; and to the queen's dismay and disgust a few sorry hackneys had been prepared by her council, on which she and her suite might make their triumphal entry into the capital. Elizabeth had not only discourteously refused her permission to pass through England, but had treacherously stationed a fleet to intercept her passage. The fog enabled her to elude. their vigilance, and only one vessel was captured and carried into the Thames; but, unfortunately, it was that which contained her horses.

She had made it a condition of her return, that she should enjoy the free exercise of her religion in private. But on the morning of Sunday, the 24th August, the minds of the Knoxians were greviously exercised by seeing preparations made in the royal chapel for the celebration of mass; and Lord Lindsay, with other ruffians, made a tumultuous attack, maltreated