some similarity between his character and that of the high-souled Cavalier whom Clarendon depicted, with his 'inimitable sweetness and delight in conversation,' his flowing and obliging humanity and goodness to mankind,' and his 'primitive simplicity and integrity of life.' Now, knowing Lord Halifax's intense convictions on this subject of Reunion, I desire, even when I am constrained to differ from him, to treat his views with the utmost sympathy and consideration. I begin therefore by saying that I entirely concur in his sense of the immense value of Unity among Christian people, and the sacred duty of promoting it. No one who really believes that our Lord uttered the words recorded in St. John xvii. 20, 21, can feel otherwise. But what is Christian Unity?

It will, I suppose, be admitted on all hands that the first condition of the Unity which our Lord desired for His disciples is that union with Himself by which alone our fallen humanity can be restored and saved. A common Union with the Head is the most potent element of Unity among the members. But is this enough to secure the absolute Unity for which our Lord prayed?

What saith the Scripture?

6

To the one God and Father,' and 'one Lord,' and 'one faith,' the Apostle adds 'one Baptism,' and, in another place, 'one Bread.' In other words, the Creed and the Sacraments are the signs and means of Unity among believers. And it would indeed be an enormous addition to the ideal completeness of the Christian Church as well as to her practical power, if all who hold the same creed could communicate together in the same Eucharist. Intercommunion between different Churches is indeed a consummation devoutly to be wished.

But to some it seems that even this would not be enough; and they say or imply, with greater or less distinctness, that in order to realise Christian Unity after our Lord's own Mind, all Christians must be visibly united in one organisation, governed by one earthly Head, and that Head the Pope. Now, I do not deny the theoretical attractiveness of this ideal of the Christian Church; but has it any warrant in Scripture? And how does it tally with the facts? Do we find after our Lord's Ascension the slightest trace of a visible Head of the infant Church on earth? Do we not find, even in Apostolic days, Christian Churches springing up in different localities, each with its independent life, and governed by no central authority? Do we not see distinct differences of teaching even between one Apostle and another, on matters less than vital? And the Apostles, by mutual consent, taking different departments of the human family under their respective charge? In the Council of Jerusalem we certainly see an instance of appeal, not to an individual, but to a central body; but it is noteworthy that this appeal is made, not on a question of vital doctrine, but on a ceremonial observance of

secondary importance. And even if we infer from this instance. (what, I think, we have no right to infer) that it is a condition of Christian Unity that all Christians should be ready to refer their disputes to the judgment of one and the same assembly, what becomes of the Papal claim?

It might be conceivably, though fantastically, argued from the precedent of the Council of Jerusalem, that the visible head of the Church, and the presiding officer at her Councils, must be the successor of St. James in the See of Jerusalem; but where does the Pope come in? For my own part, I am unable to recognise that Primacy of Peter which even moderate Anglicans are sometimes ready to concede. St. Peter was indeed a conspicuous figure in the narrative of the New Testament, but conspicuous, alas! as much by shame as by honour. I believe, with Chrysostom and Augustine and Cyril and Leo, that the Rock on which the Church is built is the fundamental truth of our Lord's Godhead, and that Peter's outspoken testimony to this truth is the great glory of his life, as it is the origin of his name. And, of the two other so-called Petrine texts, I believe that the one merely warned him of his fall, and the other announced his restoration.

I know no proof that Peter had any headship over the other Apostles (certainly he had none over St. Paul, who resisted him to the face because he stood condemned'); or that he ever was Bishop of Rome; or that he ever was at Rome; or that, if ever he had been Bishop there and had enjoyed any headship over the rest of the Apostles, he transmitted that headship, or had the power to transmit it, to his successors in the Roman See.

Something may, of course, be said for every one of these notions; but in the vital matters of Christian faith, and the conditions of our spiritual life, we require something more substantial than an ingeniously constructed system of assumptions and conjectures.

And, turning from history to the actual state of the present world, the Papal theory seems fatally at issue with the facts.

When we look through or over the wall of the Western Church, into the precincts of the Eastern, we seem to find a living confutation of it. For there a vast body, nearly a fourth of Christendom, has subsisted from the great Day of Pentecost to our day, which not only does not enjoy, but which denounces and condemns, the whole doctrine of supremacy; and which, under the old Patriarchal Constitution of the Church, retains the Christian Faith entire, by the acknowledgment of Rome herself, who invites, and invites in vain, to her councils those unyielding Patriarchs of the East. ..

The score of millions of those Christians who inhabit the Turkish Empire have for almost a corresponding tale of generations enjoyed the highest of all honours: they have been sufferers for their faith. They have been its martyrs. They alone have continuously filled that character. . . Ever since the Turkish hoof began to lay waste the Levant, those twenty millions have had before them, on the one side peace and freedom, on the other side the Gospel. They have chosen the Gospel; and have paid the forfeit, And, whatever be their faults and errors, it is

not for us of the West, amidst our ease and prosperity, our abundant sins and scandals, to stigmatise them as professors of a dead or dying Christianity, and thus to disparage the most splendid and irrefragable perhaps of all the testimonies which man can render to the Religion of the Cross.3

No, assuredly the testimony of Eastern Christendom is valid, and it is emphatic against the Papal claims.

But we have among us some who say: 'We do not concern ourselves about the Easterns. We admit that they have strong ground. They stand where they did before the great schism; and we Westerns, who profess the Filioque, stand on new ground. But there is no need for further subdivision. Let us leave the East alone; recognise the Pope as Head of the West, and unite ourselves to him.'

But what would be the conditions of such a surrender, and what the resulting gain? First, we should have to admit that the Pope is infallible in matters of faith and morals; and I, for one, no more believe it than I believe that the earth is square. We must abandon our secure foothold on the creeds and the Bible for the varying and perhaps inconsistent decisions of successive Popes. We must exchange the characteristic virtues of the Church of England-an open Bible, a vernacular liturgy, Communion in both kinds, freedom of marriage for the clergy, freedom of Communion for the laity-for the opposite evils of the Roman system. And, in the region of practical effort, we should renounce our passport to the sympathies of the great AngloSaxon race, which has, to all appearance, broken finally with Rome and all that savours of her.

We come then to this. The headship of the Pope is unsupported by Scripture or History, is vehemently repudiated by a great part of modern Christendom; and could not be accepted by us without grievous loss to our spiritual privileges and opportunities. Is then the cause of Unity,' as between the Church of England and the Church of Rome, hopeless?

If by Unity' is meant Reunion, I neither expect nor desire it. But Lord Halifax and his friends seem to see another chance of Unity in a form which would involve no compromising declarations by us. In plain words, they think it conceivable that the Pope may recognise the validity of English Orders, and all that such validity implies. Recognition,' then, rather than 'Reunion,' is their immediate object. Now on this I would briefly remark:

1. Lord Halifax, having discussed the matter in confidential conversations with the Pope and other high Roman authorities, is much better able than I am to judge of the likelihood of this recognition; but, for my own part, I do not believe in it. We know that human nature is very strong even in Cardinals; it is part of human nature to dislike being proved to be in the wrong; and this would be most conspicuously the case with the Anglo-Roman body if

• "The Sixteenth Century arraigned before the Nineteenth.'

Anglican orders were pronounced valid. My own belief, therefore, is that, whatever may be the Pope's own sympathies, the Roman authorities in England will fight tooth and nail against Recognition, and will prevail. We have learned from Cardinal Manning's Life that diplomacy and intrigue are not unknown at the Vatican, and that Infallibility is often subjected to a little judicious wire-pulling in order to make its decisions conform with the prepossessions of its environment. We must wait and see.

2. I entirely deny that the Pope and his Commission of Cardinals, whether well or ill affected towards us, have any power to decide for us whether our Orders are valid or not. We are not believers in the Infallibility, and on no other ground could the Pope's decision have binding force. We can judge as well as he of the historical facts of the case, and not less so of the question whether the words and acts of the English Ordinal comply with the requirements of our Lord.

3. Supposing, for argument's sake, that the Pope decides that English Orders are valid, what is the gain? Some weak-kneed Anglicans might be comforted, but people who need the Pope's comfort are better at Rome. Romans could not communicate with us, nor admit us to their altars, for we should still be, ex hypothesi Romana, in a state of schism. Rome would regard the Church of England as she now regards the Oriental Churches, and I see no great gain in that. I am told that there is a certain section of Anglicans who long to submit to Rome, but cannot bring themselves to repudiate Anglican Orders and the Sacraments by which they have lived. Well, certainly, if Rome were to recognise our Orders, people of this class would be able to betake themselves to Romanism without disavowing their whole spiritual history. But this, though it might be no great loss, can hardly be reckoned as a gain. Although I do not expect the Pope to pronounce in favour of our Orders, I still sincerely wish that Lord Halifax's aspiration might be fulfilled. It would, at any rate, be an admission by Rome of what we believe to be the truth; it would tend to the increase of Christian charity between two great Communions; and it might, in God's good Providence, do something to accelerate the time when the separated branches of the one great Christian family shall be able, without surrendering their distinctive views of truth, to co-operate for Christian ends.

More than this in the way of Unity I do not expect to see; and even this would be glaringly incomplete if it did not include the great bodies of orthodox Nonconformists. On that word orthodox I lay all possible stress, for the great dividing line between religious truth and error is the doctrine of our Lord's Godhead. Between all who accept it there must be a vital union of heart and hope and worship, which those who reject it, alas! cannot share.

Henry Drummond, the Irvingite apostle, used to say that religious people are commonly right in what they affirm and wrong in what

they deny. This saying affords a good guide for our dealings with Nonconformist Christians. They affirm the doctrines of the Holy Trinity, the Incarnation, and the Atonement; of sin, redemption, and grace; and they are right. They affirm that they administer a valid Baptism, and they are right. They do not claim the apostolic succession, with the power to consecrate the Eucharist and to absolve the penitent; so we have no controversy with them there. If they maintain that in their devout celebration of the Memorial Feast they are spiritually refreshed and strengthened, they speak that which they know, and who is it that dare gainsay them? If, yearning for the blessings of an authenticated rite, they present themselves for Communion at our altars, 'the English Church offers the Supernatural to all who choose to come. The way is open, it is barred by no confession, no human priest.' If, on the other hand, they choose to abide where they were placed by God's Providence in birth and education, we, while devoutly thankful for our different lot, can surely walk with them in charity and mutual tolerance, and joint efforts for the objects of the Christian Kingdom. After all, we must remember that the Master promised not one fold' but one flock' under One Shepherd,' even Himself.

GEORGE W. E. RUSSELL.