moral tests. As to the first, the promotion of contentedness, it may sound like a mere truism to say, that it is best answered by that theory, which would cause each man to remain where he is. But different virtues are tried by different situations; and the position of an English Churchman of the Anglo-Catholic school, courted by the various claims and agencies of Rome, seems in many respects peculiarly fitted to form and prove this part of the Christian character: much more so than the converse position, that of a Roman Catholic beginning to suspect that there may be a reality in the English Church.

This statement does but assume what opponents in general would be eager to grant: viz. that to a romantic imaginative mind at least, the Roman claims stand out in a very obvious manner, and the English deficiencies are quite confessed and palpable. "Yours," they will tell us, " undeniably is the poor, the homely, the unattractive side of the alternative. Who would wish, if he could choose, to be a member of a smaller and comparatively disunited body, instead of the largest and most compact of Christian communities; to be doubtful where others feel certain? Who would not have God's Saints, and their miracles, disclosed to Him, rather than regard them as so many unrevealed mysteries? Who would not possess rather than want an entire and definite system of doctrine, and a poetical ritual, extending through all parts of

life? Who, if he could help it, would acknowledge such as the Tudor monarchs and their favourites, as framers in any sense of the religious system he lives under?" In these and many more instances, which Roman Catholics are never tired of alleging, let it be granted that we stand, prima facie, in a position, more or less humiliating: I say, that to acquiesce in it, because it is providentially our own position, to be dutiful and loyal amid the full consciousness of it,-savours of the same kind of generous contentment, as the not being ashamed of lowly parentage, nor unloving towards a dull monotonous home.

Next, as to intellectual modesty: if in any case it is an appalling task to exercise private judgment on sacred things, this surely is such a case whether one considers the habits of thought in which a person should be trained and prepared for the inquiry, or the variety and extent of information required, or the infinite moment of the conclusions on either side, and the startling nature of some of them; or finally, the weight and number of conflicting authorities. Well may the judge in such a cause cry out with the Prophet of old, "How can I alone bear the cumbrance and the burthen and the strife?"

For see, first, what is involved in the conclusion, when a person trained in Greece or in England gives in his name to the Church of Rome. It is deciding on his own authority what are the limits

of the Kingdom of Christ, what the evangelical terms of salvation. He is pronouncing not only on the truth, but on the importance also, of the many and various propositions, which being in debate among those who call themselves Catholics, are settled under anathema by the Roman councils. He is consigning millions, who had no other thought than to live and die true subjects of the visible Catholic Church, to the comparatively forlorn hope of incurable ignorance and uncovenanted mercy. He is doing all this, I say, on his own. authority for although he may declare that he does but accept the Church's word for each doctrine, this will not make him the less responsible for taking on himself to determine, what is the Church, whose word he will accept. If a child go out of his way to choose a physician for himself, is he not accountable for each separate direction, otherwise than he would have been, had he trusted his parents to choose for him?

Imagine how a person would feel, were he challenged solemnly to sign, on his own private judgment, such a document as the Creed of St. Athanasius, or the Nicene Creed with its Anathema, and to venture his salvation upon it. In the infinitely varying contingencies of human duty, of the pastoral care, especially, such a step might possibly be needed, but who would not ask overwhelming proof of its necessity? Who would not shrink from it as an act of extreme

daring? And yet people can bring themselves to think and speak lightly of adhering to the Tridentine Creed on their own private judgment: a far bolder step, by how much the doctrines enforced are farther removed from the foundations of Christianity, the evidence of their universal and original reception less obvious, and the number greater of those whom they exclude from Christ's pale.

Further; supposing such a thing called for, one would rather expect the call to be something single, loud, and irresistible: such as might justify a private citizen in taking on himself to pull down half a city, in extremity of fire or siege. But the call here is the sum and result of at least two long and intricate discussions: the one abstract, on the nature and proper force of theological development; the other historical, whether the truths taught from the beginning have been duly developed in the Roman Church alone: discussions demanding great ingenuity and learning, and faculties trained or gifted for the most subtle and patient inquiry.

And as if on purpose to bring home to the conscience still more the boldness of the proceeding, Providence has caused to be gathered on both sides a host of great and holy names, the mere enumeration of which, one would think, might and must put down every thought of making one's self" a judge and divider over them."

Thirdly whereas special circumspection is required in dealing with any rule or statement, which

may possibly lessen penitential shame for sins passed: we may well dread the Roman claims, so far as they withhold sacramental grace from our Church, were it only that they suggest such a ready plea to a conscience bent on extenuating its own sinfulness. To deny or doubt a man's baptism, is to help him to assuage his self-reproaching thoughts, with the notion that after all he has not grieved nor vexed the Holy Spirit: that his state has hitherto been that of a heathen; and his ill conduct comparatively excusable. It is a miserable fear, and a miserable consciousness which in part prompts it, yet unquestionably there is ground to fear, lest some of us be some day tempted to renounce our privileges, in the secret hope of lightening our account, or our penance. If the Enemy can once persuade us that our Baptism was but a shadow; that hitherto, being servants of sin, we were free from righteousness,-less expected of us in the way of obedience, and our faults more or less venial,-what will become of our contrition? It is the same snare in another form, which is found so attractive in the popular Lutheran perversion of the doctrine of Justification by Faith. The bare possibility of such a thing is plainly one call more for hesitation, in admitting a statement which involves that peril.

Again; the change of which I am speaking seems to put men in some especial danger of disparaging the fruits of the Holy Ghost, and of that which