Here, then, I may conclude. My object, let it be well remembered, has not been to discuss the subject from the Scriptures, but to ascertain the real teaching of the Church of England respecting it. Let it not be supposed for one moment that I have taken this position from any idea that there is any infallible rule of faith but God’s own Word as revealed in Scripture; but I have done so because the Church of England is at this present time sorely tried by internal difficulties, and it seems only due to her to ascertain with the utmost care what is the real character of her teaching. While some are loudly claiming her as teaching those very doctrines in opposition to which our Reformers went to the stake, and while others of a tender conscience are forsaking her because they partially believe those bold statements to be true, it is of the utmost possible importance that those who are faithful to the Church of England should take the trouble to make themselves acquainted with her true principles. If it is a fact that she is identical with Rome, and that the Reformers were martyrs for a merely imaginary metaphysical distinction of no importance whatever; then, indeed, we may stand aghast at the ignorance and folly of all the theologians of all schools and all countries who have been weak enough to suppose that in the Reformation there was a doctrinal separation from the Apostasy of Rome. But if, on the other hand, the Reformers knew what they were doing, and why they did it; if they drew up these documents with the utmost care, and these documents so provoked the doctrinal antipathies of Rome, that while their authors were sacrificed at the stake their principles were branded by the anathemas of the Council of Trent; if none of our most thoughtful students for the last three centuries ever for one moment doubted that there was direct antagonism between the Church of England and that of Rome; then it is too sad to be borne that devout men, dearly beloved in the Lord, staunch to the great principles of the Gospel of the Grace of God, should have their consciences wounded, and their allegiance shaken, by the unproved assertions of men who, without any appeal to the Church’s documents, claim to be the only expositors of its principles. It is moreover most deeply to be deplored that those who have a real, true, and faithful love for the Church of England should be led into error by the unproved assertion that the Church of England teaches that which she most emphatically denies. It is for the sake of both classes that I have been led to this investigation. If any are unsettled in their mind and disposed to distrust the Church of England, I shall rejoice if they are led to see how sound, how clear, and how perfectly Scriptural she is upon the subject. And if any have been led by mistaken ideas of the Church’s teaching to hold opinions at variance with the great principles of the