disagreement,” which in plain words is an arrangement to betray God’s revealed truth by an impious compromise with error. Before closing this rapid and imperfect notice of the present state of the Anglican Communion, a reflection suggests itself upon which we must say a few words. It may reasonably be asked, What is the authority which the ritualistic party professes to obey? They refuse the right of the state, to which their community owes its being, to rule them in matters ecclesiastical; they refuse obedience _practically_, whether professedly or not, to their bishops, for whom they appear to have neither affection, confidence, nor respect; and they not only refuse submission to her whom they themselves acknowledge to be the “Mother and Mistress of all churches,” but they openly express their sympathy and admiration for those who rebel against her authority, invariably taking the part of the revolted against the Catholic Church. “Is there, then, any authority upon earth to which they allow themselves responsible, and if so, where is it to be found?” We give the answer in the words of the able writer quoted above:(20) “Anglicans having destroyed, as far as their influence extends, the whole authority of the living church, they affect, since they must obey something, to reserve all their obedience for what they call the primitive church. The late Dean Mansel tells us that some of the worst enemies of revealed truth employed the same pretext. ‘The earlier deists,’ he says (naming five notorious ones), ‘carried on their attack under cover of a reverence for primitive Christianity;’ and he goes on to ask, ‘Has such a supposition ever been made, except by wicked men desirous to find an excuse for their transgression of the law?’ Now, this is exactly the attitude of Anglicans towards the authority of the church. They exalt her prerogatives, and admit that she is ‘infallible’; but they deny in the same breath that she has the power to teach or to ‘pass decrees,’ because that would imply the obligation of obedience, and they are resolved to obey nothing but themselves, and therefore they have invented the theory of the Christian Church which may be enunciated in the following terms: