the shadow of death I will fear no evil; for thou art with me, thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me.”

"The ground assumed throughout (by Mr. Litton) is that of Evangelical Protestantism, the Protestantism of Luther, Calvin, and our own Reformers, as distinguished from the political, eclectic, and rationalistic systems which, at different times, have taken its place...... But while the writer has been at no pains to conceal the side which he takes, it has been his aim to avoid those one-sided representations of the opposite system which only repel the candid mind, and by the re-action of sentiment which they occasion do more injury than good to the cause of truth. To maintain that Romanism is not even a form of Christianity can serve no good purpose, and is to overlook the essential distinction between faith, however imperfectly informed, and unbelief......... Indeed, the scientific character of the work would, of itself, have rendered any exaggerated statements or appeals to popular feeling out of place."

It is also necessary to determine what this Protestantism is, as well as the difference between it and Rome; and to show that it is not merely a denial and rejection of error, but that it is also an assertion of truth-primitive truth-truth as old as Christianity itself, and which has been maintained by some in all ages of the Church, though these witnesses were often driven into the wilderness, and hated and persecuted, as our Lord told them would be the case. There is no allegation which has less foundation in fact than that commonly made by Romanists, and frequently repeated by Mr. Newman since he has apostatised, that Protestantism can find no trace of itself in ancient Christianity ("Essay on Development," p. 6). For, though it is quite true that there was no separate communion of Protestants in the first ages, there are ample traces of Protestant principles in the writings of the fathers; and the reason why there was no separate communion is to be found in the fact that the Church was not then intolerant as Rome has since become, and did not excommunicate those who held such principles as Luther and Melancthon and Calvin maintained. Had Augustin lived in the seventeenth century, he would unquestionably have been condemned as a disciple of Luther and Calvin; and there are numerous passages in the writings of Tertullian, Jerome, and Ambrose, which, if written by a modern, would be inserted in the "Index Expurgatorius," and would probably have subjected the writer to the dealings of the inquisition:

"In saying that the controversy on the subject of the Church is the product of the Reformation, we must be understood as only affirming that it then assumed a formal shape, and became one of the leading points around which the differences of the two systems ranged themselves. Before that era, the opposite tendencies, though clearly trace

able up to the very age of the apostles, had not yet worked themselves out to their respective results; nor had the dominant body calling itself the Church become fully alive to their essential incompatibility. No formal decision having as yet abridged the sphere of discursive thought, the theologians, according as they inclined more (to what afterwards was called) the Protestant or the Romish version of Christianity, took different sides, and were permitted a considerable degree of latitude in their teaching" (2).

Luther himself did not foresee that the consequence of his exposure of the corruptions of the Papacy would be a separation from the Church of Rome. He appealed to a general council, supposing that, in such an assembly, the abuses of which he complained would at once be rectified and the Church itself become more closely united by the reform. But discussion was not by any means agreeable to the Papal party, and they chose rather to throw the shield of Papal infallibility over the corruptions. And touching the most prominent abuse-that of indulgences-they averred that, having been instituted by the Pope, in accordance with the teaching of the Church, this doctrine must now be received as an article of faith and without any question.

This at once brought in a new element-namely, by what standard the doctrine was to be tried and determined? Luther acknowledged no other standard of doctrine than holy Scripture and the practice of the apostles, which was striking at the root of the Romish dogmas concerning the authority of the Church and Papal infallibility. And hence it was that in the creed of Pius IV., drawn up immediately after the Council of Trent, the first article asserts that the apostolical and ecclesiastical traditions, and practices and constitutions of the Church, are steadfastly to be held and maintained; and places holy Scripture in the second article of the creed as of inferior authority, asserting, moreover, that it is only to be understood in that sense which the Church puts upon it; since the Church alone is competent to determine the true sense and interpretation of Scripture, and it is only to be received according to the unanimous consent of the fathers :

"When once the principle had been enunciated, that Scripture is the supreme authority in controversies of faith, the breach between the Papal and the Protesting party became irreparable; for it was no longer a contest about this or that doctrine, but about the authoritative source of all doctrine; and from this time forward Protestantism began to assume the appearance of an independent system of doctrine in opposition to that of Rome. The interior links which connect one truth with another became the subject of investigation theological statements were so shaped as to square with the leading doctrine

of the system; and, one by one, the chief topics in controversy assumed, under the guidance of Scripture, that scientific form in which they appear in the Reformed Confessions" (8).

The first confession of Augsburg was drawn up in 1531, after the discussion of Protestant doctrine during ten preceding years; and the other Protestant confessions extend over a period of more than thirty years later than the confession of Augsburg, and the Council of Trent sat for the unusually long period of nearly twenty years-1545-1563-for such long periods of time were the chief points at issue kept constantly before the minds of the antagonist parties in this great Christian controversy:-

"It will be easily conceived that the gradual consolidation of Protestantism, both as a theological system and as a dissident Church, could not take place without producing important effects on the opposite side. In truth, the Lutheran Reformation gave rise, not only to a counter-reformation of a most extensive character in the practical system of the Romish Church, but to a fixing of those dogmatical foundations of the edifice which had hitherto existed as disjecta membra, and had been tacitly assumed rather than distinctly propounded. Tridentine Romanism no more resembles the popular working of the system in the sixteenth century than the Romanism of England is a fair specimen of that which prevails in less favoured countries. In one point of view, the council conferred a real and lasting benefit upon the Church, while in another it must be regarded as the grand impediment to her return to apostolic Christianity: it reformed innumerable abuses, and aimed, not without success, at introducing among clergy and laity a much higher tone of Christian practice than had previously prevailed; but at the same time, by transforming, in avowed opposition to the Protestant statements, doctrinal opinions which had not hitherto received a formal sanction into authoritative decisions of the Church, it placed an insuperable barrier between the two great divisions of Christendom, and stereotyped, so to speak, the errors of the Church system.

"But while the Romanism of Trent is as much the product of the Reformation as Protestantism itself, the questions concerning the Church hold a different place in the two systems as regards the historical formation of each respectively. While in Protestantism it is the inward aspect of Christianity as consisting of certain relations between the individual Christian and God, expressed in the formula, justification by faith,' that pervades the system, and is the key to the understanding of it, in Romanism this governing formative influence belongs to its idea of the Church. Protestantism first seized hold of the doctrine which expresses the method in which the sinner, viewed as an individual, becomes reconciled to God; and therefrom, as a fixed point, proceeded to modify or reject the current notions respecting the nature and authority of the Christian community. Romanism, on the contrary, assuming the received doctrines on the sub

ject of the Church as a first principle, aimed at giving those connected with the spiritual life of the individual such a form as should make them harmonise with the former. Hence, possibly, it is that the Council of Trent has no distinct section upon the Church; but, however this may be, it is certain that the views peculiar to Romanism on original sin, regeneration, and justification, are not the antecedents, but the consequences, of the doctrine which it maintains upon the constitution of the Church, the latter being the organising principle of the whole system. Not only does this appear from a critical examination of the Romish formularies in their present shape, but from the historical facts connected with the rise and progress of the Papal system.........We may say, then, that in Romanism the doctrine of the Church holds the same place which the doctrine of justification by faith does in Protestantism: each constitutes the heart of its own system: each is the fundamental principle, with a continual reference to which the work of theological reflection and analysis has on either side proceeded" (11-13).

Moehler, who is one of the best modern authorities on the Romanist side, put the distinction between us on the same ground, saying:

"The difference between the Protestant and the Romanist view of the Church may be briefly stated as follows:-The Romanist teaches that the visible Church is first in the order of time, afterwards the invisible; the relation of the former to the latter being that of cause and effect. The Lutherans, on the contrary, affirm that the visible Church owes its existence to the invisible, the latter being the true basis of the former" (Symbolik, 426).

But the real difference lies even deeper than this, and depends upon a true appreciation of the nature of the Church itself, which derives all its grace, all its saving efficacy, from the presence of the Holy Spirit, who is not at the command of the priest, to be invoked or bestowed at the will of man; but is only to be received by such as walk in obedience to the commands of our Lord and ask in faith of our heavenly Father (Luke xi. 13).

The Romanists would not, in the letter, deny this; but they make it void in practice and in fact: for this is the meaning of making the visible Church first in order of time and the cause of the invisible. If it be reckoned first in order of time now, it must have been first at the beginning; but we know that this was not the case. A true Church was first formed by an effusion of the Holy Ghost on the day of Pentecost of such as were all of one accord in one place, waiting for this promise of the Father; and the Lord added to the Church daily such as should be saved (Acts ii. 47). The spiritual company thus endowed became the germ and nucleus of the visible Church,

out of which all its orders and institutions were evolved. And in all succeeding instances the true Church has its commencement in the heart of the believer, as in the case of Lydia; whose heart the Lord opened (Acts xvi. 14); which is, in fact, the special characteristic of the Gospel as a new covenant, and as contradistinguished from the law (Heb. viii. 6):

"This (says Bellarmin) is the distinction between our view and that of the Protestants, that they, to constitute any one a member of the Church, require internal virtues-(ie., the work of the Spirit in the heart)—and, consequently, make the true Church invisible: we, on the contrary, believe indeed that all internal graces, faith, hope, charity, &c., will be found in the Church; but we deny that to constitute a member of the true Church any internal virtue is requisite, but only an external profession of the faith and that participation of the sacraments which is perceptible by the senses— -(ie., which is merely outward). Non putamus requiri ullam internam virtutem, sed tantum externam professionem fidei, et sacramentorum communionem quæ sensu ipso percipitur" (" De Ecc. Mil.," c. ii).

Here lies open to our view the fruitful source of all the corruption and vice which abounds in Papal countries, and of the wretched expedients to which men have recourse in order to escape the future punishment apprehended even by the most callous: they get rid of all personal responsibility by casting it upon an abstraction called "the Church." If they are not virtuous they belong to a virtuous body, in which all internal graces are presumed to exist though they are invisible. And though every one they may know should be as bad as themselves, and they may not know a single virtuous person, they are taught to believe that such a community is still the true Church in which all internal graces will be found; and, if any doubt should still remain, they are thrown back upon the departed saints of the same Church, whose supererogatory merits are asserted as being still available to cover the sins and delinquences of the living members of the same body, to be employed at the discretion of the priest, for this end.

The Romanist, under such training, ceases to regard himself as a person: he becomes mixed up with an abstraction; and, instead of repenting of his sins and looking to Christ, he either forgets his sins or looks merely to the Church. Sin is never seen in its enormity, as God regards it is never brought home to the sinner, as individually amenable to the bar of God; and, when it does force itself upon the conscience so as to become a trouble, the true balm is never applied-the sin is not eradicated-but opiates are employed to quiet the conscience and the attention is distracted to other objects.