He seems to win his cause, while he most thoroughly loses it; for if a man be indeed out of the ark of Christ's Church, what benefit can one possibly render him equal to that of bringing him within it? I write, then, with the strongest sense of responsibility on this subject, and shall not be deterred from making admissions, if truth require them, which seem to tell on the other side, and which have accordingly been shrunk from, or slurred over, by our defenders in former times. And this leads to another consideration. The charge of Schism against the Church of England is, that by rejecting the Papal authority in the sixteenth century, she lost the blessing of Catholic communion, and ceased to belong to that One Body to which salvation is promised. Now, in such a matter, the Church of England must be judged by principles which have been, from the first, and are still, recognised by all Christendom. Whatever obedience we may owe, in virtue of our personal subscription, to articles or other formularies, drawn up in the sixteenth century, it is obvious they can decide nothing here. What I mean will be best shown by an example. Suppose a person were to take the 6th Article, and set upon it a meaning, not at all uncommon in these days, viz. that the Church of England therein declares, that Holy Scripture is the sole standard of faith; and that every man must decide for himself, what is, or is not, contained in Holy Scripture; and that he, searching Holy Scripture for the purpose, can find nothing whatever said about the Papal authority;--it is obvious, that such a mode of arguing would be utterly inadequate either to terminate controversy, or, one would think, to quiet any troubled conscience: for whether or no this be the meaning of the 6th Article, the whole Greek and Latin Church would reject with horror such propositions as the first two put together, as being subversive of the very existence of a Church, and of all dogmatic authority. It is a valid argument enough to an individual to say, You have signed such and such documents, and are bound by them: but if he is in doubt whether the documents themselves be tenable, they cannot be taken to prove themselves. The decision of a province of the Church in the sixteenth century cannot be quoted to prove that that decision is right, for it is the very thing called in question. It is the Reformation itself which is put on trial; it cannot appeal to itself as a witness; it must be content to bring its cause before a judge, whose authority all will admit,--and that judge, need we say, must be antiquity, and the consent of the undivided Church. And the Church of England, it must be admitted, has not shrunk from this appeal. Her often-quoted canon enjoins her ministers, in that part of their duty wherein most is left to their private judgment, "to teach nothing which they wish to be held and believed religiously by the people, save what is agreeable to the doctrine of the Old or New