cast out? What miracles attested their purification and mission? "Either make the tree good, and his fruit good, or else make the tree corrupt, and his fruit corrupt; for the tree is known by his fruits." If the Scottish Church, when the reform convulsions commenced, was a synagogue of Satan, a corrupt tree, its fruits must have been likewise corrupt. Its members could in no sense have been Christians, nor within the pale of salvation. Let us consider St Paul's argument respecting the Jews and Gentiles, in the eleventh chapter of his epistle to the Romans. The former he compares to a good olive tree, the latter to an olive tree wild by nature. The Apostle describes the good olive tree as broken down, because of unbelief, and in its place the Gentiles, or wild olive branches, were, contrary to nature, grafted in upon the good olive tree, or stock of Abraham; and by reason of that operation of engrafting derived nourishment and fatness from the parent root. The force of this argument is the more apparent when we consider the natural proceedings in the case of grafting one fruit upon another. According to this a pippin is grafted upon a crab, not a crab upon a pippin; and the sap which is in the crab stock does not deteriorate the fruit on the pippin scion. In some cases, such as roses, delicate varieties, when budded or grafted upon more hardy kinds, acquire a more robust constitution from the new stock. But in no case, it may safely be said, is the nature of wild fruit so entirely changed and improved by engrafting as St Paul represents that of the Gentile world to be by being engrafted upon the stock of Israel; and this, too, he specially notices as being contrary to nature but according to grace. The Scottish people were Gentiles, wild by nature, root and branch; by grace and mercy "they were saved by the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Ghost." (Titus.) Baptism was the instrument by which they were engrafted upon the stock of Israel, and thus admitted into covenant with God, and made partakers of the holy promises and privileges made to Abraham and his seed. Had the Scottish Church or people become the synagogue of Satan, been broken off from the stock on which they had been grafted, and through which alone spiritual life and the hope of heaven

were imparted to them, what had they to fall back upon? Their root being wild, and under a curse, was nought. They needed, then, some other operation to restore them to their former position of grace and spirituality. The Scottish Church had, as it is affirmed, become apostate (not separately, but as à branch of the Church Catholic). In the Confession of 1567 "of the right administration of the Sacraments," this is said to be requisite "That Sacraments be rightly ministrate, we judge two things are requisite: the one, that they be ministrate by lawful ministers, whom we affirm to be only they that are appointed to the preaching of the Word, into whose mouth God hath put some sermon of exhortation, they being men lawfully chosen there by some church; the other that they be ministrate in such elements, and in such sort, as God hath appointed: else we affirm that they cease to be the right sacraments of Christ Jesus. And therefore it is that we flee the doctrine of the Papistical Church" (of which the Scottish Church was believed to be a part) "in participation of their sacraments, first, because their ministers are no ministers of Jesus Christ; yea (which is more horrible), they suffer women, whom the Holy Ghost will not suffer to teach in the congregation, to baptize; and, secondly, because they had SO adulterated both the one sacrament and the other with their own inventions, that no part of Christ's action abides in the original purity, for oil, salt, spittle, and such like, in baptism, are but man's inventions. Adoration, veneration, bearing through streets and towns, and keeping of bread in boxes or buists, are profanation of Christ's sacraments, and no use of the same." (Art. xxii.) There certainly was no reason in saying that "no part of Christ's action abides in purity," because of certain additions. Had the notable authors of this article been most anxious to unchurch and unchristianize themselves, they could not have expressed their intentions in clearer language. If they had been baptized (as most probably they had), they must have been baptized by them whom they here declare to be "no ministers of Christ Jesus," and by a sacrament in which "no part of Christ's action abides." If in that sacra

ment water was used, which there is no proof that it was not, then surely one part of Christ's action did abide.

These, our reformers, thus being, by their own admission and confession, members of the synagogue of Satan, apostates from the Church of Christ, Gentiles, wild by nature, it is right that we should learn how it was that they were made members of Christ, children of God, and inheritors of the kingdom of heaven; how they were made Apostles and Evangelists of the true gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ.

When the apostles were ordained, our Lord said to them"Peace be unto you. As my Father hath sent me, even so send I you. And when He had said this He breathed on them, and saith unto them, Receive ye the Holy Ghost: whose soever sins ye remit, they are remitted unto them; and whose soever sins ye retain, they are retained." (St John xx.) On the day of Pentecost the same apostles were baptized with the Holy Ghost, and with fire. (Acts ii.) St Paul was called to be an apostle by our Lord Jesus Christ, but Ananias was expressly commanded to lay his hands upon him that he might receive his sight, and be filled with the Holy Ghost, and be baptized for the washing away of his sins. (Acts ix.) Timothy and Titus were both ordained by the laying on of St Paul's hands. By such rites as baptism and laying on of hands, the Scriptures inform us, were certain Jews made Christians and Apostles.

Perhaps your Grace will be pleased to inform the public whether the Scottish Reformers were ever set apart for the office and work of apostles in like manner as the eleven apostles, and Matthias and Saul of Tarsus were? But admitting the truth of the statement, that our Reformers were joint members of the synagogue of Satan, and baptized by that act which was no Christian baptism, but Satan's rather, let us see how certain Jews were added to the Church and Kingdom of Christ, and surely what was needful for Jews was needful for Satan's children. When St Peter delivered his famous sermon in Jerusalem, on the day of Pentecost, they of the Jews who were pricked in their hearts asked of St Peter and the rest of the apostles, "what shall we do?" The answer was, "repent, and

be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. For the promise is unto you, and to your children, and to all that are afar off, even as many as the Lord our God shall call. Then they that gladly received his word were baptized: and they" (the baptized)" continued stedfastly in the apostle's doctrine and fellowship, and in breaking of bread, and in prayers. And the Lord added to the Church daily such as should be saved." (Acts ii.) Here may be noted the marks of the true Church, faith, repentance, baptism, stedfastness as well in the doctrine as fellowship of the apostles, the Eucharist and prayers: such were the requisite qualifications, and such the mode of admitting Jews into the Christian Church. The requirements for the admission of the Gentiles were similar, as exemplified in the case of Cornelius, stated to be "a devout man, and one that feared God with all his house, which gave much alms to the people, and prayed to God alway." (Acts x.) This holy life, together with fasting, procured for Cornelius an angel's visit to inform him that his prayers and alms were had in remembrance in the sight of God. Him the angel told to send for Peter, to teach and baptize him.

What conclusion then, my Lord Duke, can be drawn from this inquiry? It is either, that the Scottish Church was in truth a synagogue of Satan-the Reformers members of that synagogue; and therefore, in order to their conversion, a Divine legation, an express revelation from heaven was required; or the assistance of some apostolical men, as in the case of that of St Peter to Cornelius. Or that the Scottish Church was really and truly, though in some parts corruptly, a branch of the one Catholic and Apostolic Church; its orders, and mission, and sacraments, valid, canonical and lawful, from which Church our Reformers having separated themselves, were therefore separated and cut off from the whole Church, body or kingdom of Christ; and, as they judged, condemned, and neglected to hear the Church, are to be looked upon and esteemed as heathen men and publicans.

Should some assert their right of private judgment to con

clude those so called Reformers to have had a lawful vocation, others have perfect liberty to adopt a contrary judgment.

There is one way of getting over the difficulty in defining the word Church, by what is called the "invisible Church," but this is absurd and contrary to Scripture. The very command "to hear the Church" implies visibility, for how can an appeal be laid before an invisible body? "Again," says our Lord, "the kingdom of heaven is like unto a net that was cast into the sea, and gathered of every kind: which, when it was full, they drew to shore, and sat down, and gathered the good into vessels, but cast the bad away." (St Matt. xiii.) But the whole theory of an invisible Church is manifestly absurd. True it is, as our Lord teaches, many who are members of the Church militant here on earth, shall not be members of the Church triumphant; many whom baptism doth even now save, shall nevertheless have their names blotted out from the Book of Life. The sweeping condemnation of all Christian Churches pronounced by the Confession of 1567, while evidently intended as an apology for the irregular and schismatical proceedings of the Reformers, carries within it a remarkable and most providential condemnation of themselves; for it cannot be denied that if that body, into which they were incorporated by baptism, was no Church, they could not be members of Christ's Church. If, says St Paul, the root be holy, so are the branches; and, therefore, if the root be unholy, so are the branches also unholy.

There is another way by which may be tested the assertion that the Churches of Christendom had become synagogues of Satan. When our Lord set up His kingdom instead of the elder Church, He caused the bloody sacrifices to cease, abolished the Aaronic priesthood, and destroyed the temple of Jerusalem, the only place where sacrifice could be offered. Had, then, the Churches of Christ every where resolved themselves into synagogues of Satan, and thus have ceased and determined to be Churches, God would not only, according to former precedent, have scattered and destroyed them, but would have, by a fresh dispensation, re-established His throne upon earth. But what a fearfully wicked thought is this, for it forces upon us the con