rendering changes of that nature necessary and unavoidable: a conclusion equivalent to the well-known one that the Church hath power, within certain bounds, to decree rites and ceremonies. Heresy, Thorndike defines as consisting in the denial of something necessary to salvation; and schism to consist in a departure from the unity of the Church, whether from heresy, or from any other cause. Upon these principles--which he defends at great length, not without many discursions, and sometimes in a manner which it is difficult to follow--Thorndike declares the Church of England to have laid her deep foundations; and her main position is by him asserted to be, that, repudiating all pretensions to infallibility, she owns tradition to be her guide, and requires that “no interpretation of the Scriptures be alleged contrary to the consent of the Fathers.”[380] [Sidenote: ANGLICANS.--THORNDIKE.] The covenant of grace is examined by this Divine at great length; and, if I may be allowed the attempt, I would give an outline of his method somewhat as follows:-- I. The _condition_ of that covenant is the contract of baptism, and that contract is identical with justifying faith. Such faith is not simply credence, or trust, or persuasion--it is not merely the belief of a Divine testimony, or a reliance upon a Divine person--nor is it a conviction that one is already justified and predestinated to life; but is an acceptation of Christianity, “embracing and professing it” as a whole. Faith, as enjoined by St. Paul and St. James, and as exemplified in the lives of the Hebrew patriarchs, is essentially practical; and when the former Apostle puts faith in opposition to works, he means the works of Jewish law, and not the works of Gospel precept. Faith is rooted “in the affection of the will, not in the perfection of the understanding.” Yet good works are entirely the production of Divine grace.[381] Though the Fathers are free to acknowledge, with St. Paul, the doctrine of justification by faith alone, they are, on the other side, so copious in attributing the promises of the Gospel to Christian obedience, that it may be truly said, there is not one of them from whom sufficient authority may not be drawn in favour of it: a concurrence which amounts to a tradition of the whole Church upon this important point. [Sidenote: ANGLICANS.--THORNDIKE.] II. The _necessity_ of the covenant of grace arises out of original sin, which is confessed by David and St. Paul, which consists in concupiscence, and which cleaves to every man by his first birth, the birth of a carnal nature.[382]