I have not the slightest intention of taking upon myself the attempt to show that they were right in doing so. The grounds of their action are fully set forth and defended with undeniable vigour and ability by Robert Barclay, in his famous “Apology.” My humbler endeavour will be to describe the perplexities which prepared my own mind thankfully to accept what to myself appears to be a thoroughly satisfactory disentanglement of essential Christianity from whatever can be honestly regarded as unintelligible, and unworthy of its lofty and spiritual character. I must own at the outset that I have never been able clearly to understand the grounds upon which the “ordinances” in question are regarded as essential parts of Christianity, nor have I ever found it possible to arrive at a thoroughly satisfactory explanation of their precise (supposed) effects. I am, of course, not ignorant of the general nature of those grounds or supposed results. But a broad space of obscurity seems to separate the actual transactions out of which the “ordinances” arose from the earliest known records of the institutions themselves; and it is notorious that theologians differ very widely in their views of the spiritual results produced either by ordination or by a due participation in the sacraments, and also of the conditions necessary to their “validity.” It is here that the practical pinch of the system is felt. Were the matter one of purely speculative interest, how gladly would I and other unlearned people have left it in the hands of those better qualified to deal with it! But it is a question of urgent practical importance, which, as regards at least one of the sacraments, no devout person can escape. Every adult member of the Church of England (every one, that is, who is so in a religious sense) is confronted with a solemn challenge to do, or to leave undone at his peril, an act involving vast and mysterious consequences for good or for evil to his spiritual welfare. No middle course is possible, and the Church Prayer-book promises no safety either in its performance or omission. To “partake unworthily” is represented as involving vague and awful dangers—dangers possibly, though not clearly, greater than those which would be incurred by omitting an act “generally necessary to salvation.” But how to be sure of partaking worthily? “A true penitent heart and lively faith ... a lively and steadfast faith in Christ our Saviour ... and perfect charity with all men,”—if these are the necessary _preparations_ for being “meet partakers of these holy mysteries,” failing in which we do but “eat and drink our own damnation” by venturing to partake of them, is it any wonder if the troubled heart is held in a state of continual uneasiness, and shrinks almost equally from the act and from its omission?