erates the soul, witnesses the believer's adoption into God's family, sanctifies his inner spiritual life, and finally, washed in the all-atoning blood, will bring him to the Lamb of God in glory, forever to "Praise FATHER, SON, and HOLY GHOST!"

Following our faith in the Holy Ghost, most creeds insert the article, The holy Catholic Church. The most ancient used only the words holy Church; Catholic was afterward added by the Greeks for explanation, from whom the Latins received it, and inserted in their creed as now read, the holy Catholic Church. At an early period the heretics and schismatics called their congregations Churches, and against their errors, as well as to preserve the unity of the apostolic, universal, and true Church, the term Catholic was inserted in the Creed. It was not confined, like others, within certain places or provinces, but, in the quaint, striking language of a very ancient writer, "enlarged by the splendor of one faith, from the rising of the sun to the going down thereof."

But what is the CHURCH? In the Episcopal Homily for Whitsunday we find this answer: "The true Church is a universal congregation of God's faithful and elect people, built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner-stone.' And it always hath these notes or marks whereby it is known: pure and sound doctrine, the sacraments administered according to Christ's holy institution, and the right use of ecclesiastical discipline." Ox. ed., p. 413. Our own excellent Confession of Faith declares: "The visible Church of Christ is a congregation of faithful men, in which the pure word of God is preached, and the sacraments duly administered, according to Christ's ordinance, in all things that of necessity are requisite to the same."

It is said that the word Church was taken from the Jews and applied to particular societies of believers, as in Acts viii, 1: The Church at Jerusalem." In its Scripture sense it doubtless means the whole body of believers redeemed in every nation, who are called the Church of Jesus Christ. It is called "visible" to distinguish it from the universal Church; its members may be seen, their assemblies and worship are open and public, and it embraces that part of the militant, invisible Church still on the earth. On the contrary the invisible Church embraces the whole family of God, on earth or triumphant in heaven, from the beginning to the end of time. The vital test and principle of the true Church of Christ is that "the pure WORD of GOD is preached;" and by this, and not the authority and decisions of the Church, are we to judge of her

purity and power. Romanists maintain exactly the reverse of this theory, vainly affirming that the authority of the Scriptures is derived from the Church. They declare that she has the only right to determine what is the pure word of God; and assuming this foolish absurdity, they have not only corrupted the pure word, but even maintain that of itself it is not sufficient for salvation! Therefore they boldly join the uncertain traditions of man to God's sure and unerring Scriptures. At a solemn Council of Trent, held A. D. 1416, they proceeded farther still, by placing the Apocryphal books on the same standing as the Bible. Protestant Christians claim that the Bible, without fables, tradition, or the Apocrypha, is the pure word of God, and makes this belief, with the two sacraments, the dividing line between themselves and the Papists.

In Christ's Church we recognize but two sacraments, baptism and the Lord's Supper; strongly resembling those of the Old Testament, circumcision and the passover, which represented Christ as to come. In the New the sacraments represent our Saviour as already come, and in both dispensations they were signs and seals of the righteousness of faith. To these sacraments of the Christian Church the Romanists have added five more, confirmation, penance, extreme unction, ordination, and marriage. With this wicked assumption they have united if possible a worse outrage, the perversion of the scriptural formula and nature of baptism with the bodily presence of Christ in the bread and wine of his last supper. Thus they pervert and annul his express words, by withholding the sacramental cup from the communicants. In the true Church we are invited to "Take, eat," and "drink ye all of it,” and "Do this in remembrance of me." Without these essentials no Christian sacrament of the Lord's Supper can be truly and properly administered, nor any Church pure and "catholic." By baptism. we are admitted into the Christian Church; and by the Lord's Supper the believer perpetually remembers the death of his Lord and Saviour, the world's Redeemer. In both sacraments the visible Church is distinguished from Pagans, Mohammedans, and Jews, Romanists and infidels. To this pure, peaceful, and holy Church, in opposition to all errors, by the grace of God, we will cleave and adhere!

The article, the communion of saints, in the Apostles' Creed did not originally form a part of the ante-Nicene, as was the case also with the descent into hell. Both of these articles have an equivocal meaning, and are liable to misapprehension, while that of the others is perspicuous and plain. It is an open question whether "the communion of saints" is a distinct, independent article of faith, or, as

some declare, an explanatory appendage to the preceding, the holy catholic Church. Hence, in some editions of the Book of Common Prayer it is separated from this the antecedent clause only by a comma, in others by a semicolon. Exegetically, the sense of

the entire article may be thus expressed: "The holy catholic (universal) Church, which is the community of saints." Thus understood, the visible Church is declared in the Creed to be that society or body embracing the community of pious persons who substantially acknowledge the same faith, holding fellowship with one another and with Jesus Christ, their common spiritual head. If the latter clause, the communion of saints, be considered a distinct and separate article of the Creed, then it dogmatically or positively asserts that there exists within the visible universal Church a spiritual as well as an outward union. This, then, is the communion and fellowship of saints-a communion of kindred souls, found only among real Christians.

men.

Of the next article, the forgiveness of sins, the terms are very plain and easily to be understood. "All have sinned and come short of the glory of God," and without the atonement of Christ all must be lost; so that sin is universal, and involves all This article inculcates the belief and truth that God, for the sake of Christ, will freely forgive all the sins of those who sincerely repent and believe in the Gospel. In the expositions of some early fathers upon this doctrine of the Creed, we read much about baptismal regeneration; but faith alone is the condition of a sinner's justification before God. If this is the only condition of pardon, it is certain that man cannot be justified by works; "knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ." Gal. ii, 16. More fully to enforce this doctrine, the apostle adds: "By the works of the law shall no flesh be justified."

The "resurrection of the body" from the very beginning of Christianity has been an article in the Apostles' Creed; the doctrine itself being a foundation stone upon which the whole system of Christianity rests. No truth of our holy religion is more important than this. If Christ did not rise from the grave the New Testament is a mere fable, and our sinful world still without hope. If He did rise, the Scriptures are true, and men may look to HIM and be saved. But Christ "was crucified, dead, and buried," and did truly arise again from the dead. When the apostles first went forth to convert the world, their method was to preach Jesus and the resurrection." If there should be no resurrection of the dead, this grand motive to believe the Gospel would be entirely destroyed. The apostles published this doctrine in the very place where our Saviour was

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tried and crucified, and among his enemies. So powerful was the important truth among the people, that while Peter was declaring it three thousand of the Jews were converted to God, and soon after five thousand. The Jewish Council were confounded, and commanded the apostles "not to speak at all, nor teach in the name of Jesus." Infidelity cannot resist these facts, and these facts place Christianity on an imperishable foundation.

This doctrine, so essential to Christianity, was violently attacked by heathens and heretics in the apostles' times, and hence they also so often defended the momentous truth. When St. Paul declared it at Athens, the seat of learning and the arts, the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers "encountered" and "mocked him," "because he preached unto them Jesus and the resurrection." The more profane and less considerate ridiculed it, and even false Christians, as Hymeneus and Philetus, erring concerning the truth, said that the resurrection was past already, and so overthrew the faith of

some.

Life everlasting, the last article of the Apostles' Creed, naturally follows the resurrection of the body. In the primitive creeds this was variously placed, as in St. Cyprian's "life everlasting through the Church," but the apostles properly expressed the doctrine at the conclusion. It is the end of our faith, the introduction of every man to his eternal place and state. The dead raised, the quick and dead having received their final sentence from the Supreme Judge, all men, good and bad, shall depart into their appointed place, there to remain during life everlasting. The godly shall live happy forever in eternal life, but the wicked miserably, without dying, in eternal death; or, in the impressive, solemn words of Scripture, "and they that have done good shall go into life everlasting; and they that have done evil into everlasting fire.”

Life everlasting! Blessed declaration and truth! To this joyful termination of our mortal life do the doctrines of the Apostles' Creed conduct us. How beautiful the gradation! A saving belief in God the Father Almighty-and in Jesus Christ his only Son, our Lord-was crucified, dead, and buried-He ascended into heaven-From thence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead-a belief in the Holy Ghost-the Holy Catholic Church -the communion of saints—the forgiveness of sins—the resurrection of the body—and the life everlasting. Amen.

ART. X.-FOREIGN RELIGIOUS INTELLIGENCE.