As the Church of Jerusalem, Alexandria, and Antioch, have erred. As these were the three Patriarchates of the Eastern Church, it seems likely that the whole Eastern Church is intended; and if so, the error spoken of is probably that error which divided them, and still divides them, from the Western Church, namely, the denial of the Holy Spirit's procession from the Son. As the Roman Church attributed error to the Eastern Church, without denying that it was a branch of the Church; so we attribute error to the Roman Church, without denying that it is a branch of the Church. We deny the infallibility of the Roman Church, just as the Roman Church denies the infallibility of the Eastern. This is the meaning of the latter part of the Article.

It will be seen that three points are insisted on as essential to the idea of the Church of Christ; and it will be further seen, as we proceed, that these three imply a fourth and a fifth point.

1. That the Church is a visible body of believers. 2. That the pure Word of God is preached in it.

3. That the Sacraments are duly ministered according to Christ's ordinance. The two latter points will be seen to require a Ministry; and the third point will be seen to involve discipline, making thus five points in all,-five notes of the Church.

I. A visible body of believers.

It must be abundantly plain to every candid reader of the New Testament that Christ intended not only to save individual souls, but also to establish a society

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upon the earth. Our Lord's word is kingdom." The Jews were expecting that the Messiah would estab

lish a kingdom, but their notion of this kingdom was an erroneous one; they thought it would be of like kind with the great empires which the world had already seen. Christ, therefore, is ever at pains to correct this notion; His kingdom is to be not an earthly but a Heavenly kingdom, a "Kingdom of Heaven,”— that is, a kingdom whose King shall be in Heaven, though His subjects be on earth. But though the kingdom is to be of this Heavenly, spiritual nature, not coming" with observation," but growing silently like a plant, yet clearly it is to be an easily-recognized visible Society; it was to be like a city set on a hill, that cannot be hid; Christ's prayer was that it might have unity (John xvii. 21, 23), meaning evidently a visible unity, for He goes on to speak of the effect of this on the world," that the world may know" the truth of His mission. So St. Paul, speaking of the unity of the Church, says there is one Body as well as one spirit,--clearly implying an outward visible organization (Eph. iv. 4). Throughout the Acts of the Apostles the Churches which the Apostles established are spoken of as public institutions, with their officers and places of meeting known to all, never as secret societies. It is a mixed society: The Kingdom of Heaven (i.e. the Church) was to be like a net cast into the sea, gathering of all sorts, good and bad; it was to be like a field in which both tares and wheat were sown :-were the tares to be gathered out? no; both were to grow together till the harvest; so the Church was to be a mixed society till the Day of Judgment. Such was clearly Christ's intention. And yet no less clearly is it a Heavenly kingdom, mystically united to Christ, the Spouse of Christ, the Body of Christ, the Temple of the Holy Ghost. All

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these glorious phrases may be true, and yet numbers may be suffered to belong to it now, and partake of its high privileges, who will fall away and be weeded out at the great purging of the Church at the Day of Judgment. Then at last Christ will present the Church to Himself a glorious Church, without spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; holy and without blemish (Eph. v. 27).

II. The Church being such, how is it to be known? How are we to recognize the true branches? For the word Churches in the plural is sanctioned in Scripture, meaning branches of the One Church Catholic. So Hooker: "As the main body of the sea being one, yet within divers precincts hath divers names; so the Catholic Church is, in like sort, divided into a number of distinct societies, every of which is termed a Church within itself" (Ecc. Pol. iii. i. 14). The question then is, how are we to be sure of any such distinct Society or Community that it is a true branch of the One Church Catholic? What must be its notes or marks?

The pure Word of God must be preached in it. This is one of the two notes insisted on in this Article. By "Word of God" here, it need hardly be said, the Article does not intend the written word merely, but the doctrine held and sanctioned in all fundamental matters of faith. The Church was to be the pillar and ground of the truth (1 Tim. iii. 15). It hath the promise that the Spirit shall guide her into all truth (John xvi. 13). St. Paul speaks of "the faith" as "One" (Eph. iv. 5), and St. Jude of "the faith once delivered to the Saints" (Jude 3). St. Paul says, "If any man preach any other gospel unto you than that ye have received, let him be anathema" (Gal. i. 9).

Thus from Holy Scripture we learn that any so-called Church which teaches vital error cannot be a branch of the true Church.

The question here at once arises, what is vital error? in other words, what are the fundamental doctrines of Christianity in which all true branches of the Church must be agreed? How does our Church answer this question? The question addressed to those who seek admission to Baptism, and again in sickness, whether they accept the Creed,-the public repetition of all the three Creeds in our Services, the adhesion of the Reformers to the decrees of the first four General Councils which sanctioned these Creeds,-all this makes it (us Bishop Harold Browne says) almost certain that our Church allows all Communities that truly hold the three Creeds to be branches of the Church of Christ, provided they also fulfil the further condition which follows.

nance.

III. This other note of a Church is that the Sacraments be duly administered according to Christ's ordiWe have direct authority for adding stedfastness in the Sacraments to stedfastness in doctrine. For, in Acts ii. 42, we read of the primitive Church that it "continued stedfast in the breaking of bread" as well as in "the Apostles' doctrine." And that Baptism is also necessary we know from Christ's words to Nicodemus, that a man could only enter the Kingdom by being born of Water and of the Spirit; and St. Paul's notes of the Church, One Lord, One faith, One Baptism (Eph. iv. 5).

These two Sacraments, therefore, are regarded as essential to any community claiming to be a branch of the true Church.

IV. But we may go further: God's Word is to be preached as well as held. "How shall they hear without a preacher? and how shall they preach except they be sent ?" And again, the Sacraments are to be duly ministered, implying a ministry. Thus an authorized miniştry is clearly an essential note of a Christian Church.

V. And lastly, the due ministration of the Sacraments clearly implies discipline. The Sacraments cannot be duly ministered, unless there reside somewhere in the Church that power of admission and rejection, with which Christ so expressly invested His Apostles and the Church of the first age, and which He clearly intended to be transmitted to the Church of subsequent ages.

To conclude: this Article would seem to allow the claim to be a branch of the Church of Christ to every community of Christians, among whom the doctrine of the three Creeds is upheld and preached, and among whom the Sacraments of Baptism and Holy Communion are duly ministered by an ordained ministry.

It is to be regretted that the Church's large and liberal definition, as given in this Article, has been so narrowed in the definition of the Established Church laid down from time to time in Acts of Parliament. The rigid requirements of uniformity enforced by Parliament in past times, drove numbers into Dissent whom the wise latitude of the Article would include among the members of the true Church of Christ.