Church of England is peculiarly strong. In her holy jealousy for the two divine ordinances of Baptism and the Supper of the Lord, she withholds the title of Sacrament, in the sense she applies it to them, from all other religious rites, however sacred, however apostolical in their institution, however much the subordinate means of grace. She declares the Sacraments to be generally necessary to salvation, and she defines a Sacrament thus necessary to salvation, as "an outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace given unto us, ordained by Christ himself, as a means whereby we receive the same, and a pledge to assure us thereof"-a means to convey grace, a pledge to assure the worthy recipient of its illation. Of Baptism she states the inward grace, of which it is the means, to be "a death unto sin and a new birth unto righteousness."* She quotes the 3rd chapter of St. John,† in which the necessity of * There is a very strong single proof of the doctrine of the Church of England on Baptism, pointed out by the present learned and pious Bishop of Bangor, that in Article IX. where the English is, "there is no condemnation to them that believe and are baptized," the Latin runs, "renatis et credentibus." + Bishop Kaye, in his Tertullian, p. 483, observes that the ancients uniformly interpreted our Lord's address, in this chapter, to Nicodemus, as relating to Baptism. This is also shewn by Wall, in his History of Infant Baptism. Bishop Beveridge, as quoted by Bishop Mant, observes, "What Christ means of being born of Water and of the Spirit, is now made a question: I say now, for it was never made so till of late years. For many ages together none ever doubted it, but the whole Christian world took it for granted that our Saviour meant only by these words, that except a man be baptized according to his institution, he cannot enter the kingdom of God: this being the most plain and obvious sense of the words, forasmuch as there is none other way of being born again of Water as well as of the Spirit, but only in the Sacrament of Baptism."- Bishop Beveridge's Works, i. 304. a new birth is asserted, as a chapter implying, on that account, "the great necessity of Baptism where it can be had;"* in the Baptismal offices she expressly connects the regeneration of infants always, and of adults duly qualified, with Baptism; in the office for Confirmation she does the same; in the Homilies the Font is designated as "the Fountain of our Regeneration," while it is insinuated that by Baptism we are justified; and she teaches our children in the Catechism that they were at Baptism made members of Christ, children of God, and inheritors of the Kingdom of heaven. With reference to the other sacrament she asserts that the body of Christ is "given, taken, received, and eaten in the Supper";§ the Eucharist itself she styles the Communion, (that is, the communication), of the body and blood of Christ our Saviour. And we are told that those who are duly qualified spiritually eat therein the flesh of Christ and drink his blood. We are directed when we receive the Eucharist to pray God to grant that we may "so eat the flesh of his dear son Jesus Christ and drink his blood that our sinful bodies may be made clean by his body, and our souls washed through his most precious blood;"** and "that receiving the creatures of * Office for Adult Baptism. + Homily for Repairing and Keeping Clean of Churches. See also Homily on Fasting. "After that we are baptized or justified.”—3rd Part of Homily on Salvation. bread and wine we may be partakers of his most blessed body and blood."* And after communicating we thank God for that he doth "vouchsafe to feed us with the spiritual food of the most precious body and blood of his Son our Saviour Jesus Christ." In the catechism mention is made of the "outward and visible form” of a sacrament, and in the homilies we find an allusion to our "receiving our Lord's most blessed body and blood under the form of bread and wine" ;‡ and in the homilies we are also exhorted to hold that "in the Supper of the Lord there is no vain ceremony, no bare sign, no untrue figure of a thing absent"; § and we are told that the faithful "receive not only the outward sacrament, but the spiritual thing also, not the figure but the truth, not the shadow but the body";|| finally, our children are taught that the inward part of the Eucharist is, "the body and blood of Christ which are verily and indeed taken and received by the faithful in the Lord's Supper." Now these expressions are so strong that many pious and well-meaning men have regarded them as sufficient to justify their secession from our communion; while more violent controversialists have not hesitated to denounce the English Church for retaining them, as semipopish, if not absolutely papistical. They both censure our baptismal office, and affirm that our Consecration Prayer. + Post. Communion. doctrine of the Eucharist differs little, if at all, from the transubstantiation of the Romanist, or, at all events, from the consubstantiation of the Lutheran, -dogmas equally unphilosophical and unscriptural. The English Churchman, then, is here placed on the defensive, and the defence is conducted in two ways. Some persons admit (without questioning) the accuracy of our opponents in their notions of sacramental efficacy; and, seeing the manifest and glaring inconsistency between our services and those notions, regret that our reformers retained the expressions objected to, but at the same time contend that they do not of necessity bear the construction which is generally placed on them, but admit of a restricted meaning, more conformable with the view of the objector. Others there are who receive these expressions in all the simplicity and fulness of their meaning, and thinking that they are amply borne out by Scripture, maintain that the English reformers, in the retention of them, used a wise discretion, and acted consistently on those Catholic principles to which they professed to adhere. These assume the offensive against our common objectors, and shew that, in confounding, as do the foreign reformers, regeneration with renovation,-a change of spiritual state, circumstances, and relations, and an election to grace, with a subsequent change of disposition, heart, and temper,—the objectors are themselves in error; and are equally unscriptural in the very low notions they entertain of the grace conveyed to the faithful in the other sacrament. And thus, since no one but a man equally void of integrity, and regardless of the sanctity of an oath, would presume to alter our baptismal office or the Liturgy, to make them square with his private views; the only question among Churchmen is whether the words we use in common will, or will not, by fair construction, bear the interpretation which some persons put upon them. If, after fair discussion, it is found they cannot,-of course those who think that the expressions used in our offices are anti-scriptural will quit our communion, and the discussion will then be one relating to principle, and the debate will be as to the meaning of the words of scripture. Until it comes to this, our differences of opinion ought surely not to lead to disunion among ourselves. Come we now to the doctrine of the Apostolical Succession. On this subject no controversy existed at the time of the Reformation. It was, at that time, as it had been for 1500 years, taken for granted, that no man might presume to minister in sacred things, unless he were first appointed to the office by persons having authority to make the appointment by their regular succession from the apostles. Upon this point no one is more eloquent or more decided than our own reforming Archbishop, Dr. Cranmer.* Accordingly, when in the reign of Elizabeth the Thirty-nine Articles were agreed upon in a convocation of our clergy, the *Note M. |