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if I put in my claim to your first thoughts and explanations; for Katherine is happy in her opinions, vague as they are, while I am looking forward to your arguments, as though you were to plead in a matter of life and death."

"Fear not that I shall forget you, dear girl, or that you are not ultimately concerned in every thing I may explain to your friend; for although in the arguments I propose holding with her, I shall have but little to do with Rome, yet, as the authority of our Church will be the question, this will interest and benefit you as well as Miss Graham. She calls in question the principle of Church authority: you seem anxious to establish the principle, but to question its appropriation by the Church of England. Now, you will own, that the first part of the argument lies with your independent friend here, to whom I shall be happy to devote myself to-morrow, after the breakfast to which I now invite myself every morning."

CHAPTER V.

As long as words a different sense will bear,
And each may be his own interpreter,
Our airy faith will no foundation find;
The word's a weather-cock for ev'ry mind.

DRYDEN.

"Good morning, my dear uncle," "Good morning, Warden," cried the two expectants in the bal cony of Geraldine's boudoir; overlooking the flower garden, whence the learned and reverend gentleman was seen slowly advancing on the following morning, with a folio volume beneath his arm. He returned the greeting, and ascending the steps to the favourite apartment, was soon seated between his fair antagonists, while a truce was agreed upon during the cheerful and friendly repast. Dr. Sinclair, however, seemed not unwilling to renew the discussions of the previous day; and after the servants had finished their attendance, and the ladies had fixed upon their employment for the morning, he threw out the challenge for attack to Katherine Graham, by saying, "Pray, Miss Graham, what is your notion of a Church?"

Katherine looked up and smiled: "why, Dr. Sinclair, I think, with my favourite Chalmers, that Scripture says marvellously little about a Church!"

"Ah! where does Chalmers say this?"

"I heard him preach at the Scotch Church in London, and I repeat his very words."

"Dr. Chalmers," said the Warden, "is a man of

learning, of wisdom, of piety, and of eloquence: but I never yet knew the Calvinist who could go to his Bible without a sturdy independent resolution to see nothing there but what should suit his own plan of doctrine. Hand me a Bible, Geraldine, and I will show Miss Graham that Scripture says ' marvellously much about a Church." "

I

"Stop, sir," said Katherine, "and first understand both Dr. Chalmers and myself. You will find the word 'church' often recurring in Scripture; no Bible reader thinks of denying that. But I attribute to it a far different signification from yours. conceive the Church of Christ to be wholly spiritual; for Christ says, the Kingdom of Heaven is within you.' I believe that, under whatsoever denomination, and belonging to whatever outward community, all those who have the spirit of Christ are Christians, and form his pure invisible Church."

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"Miss Graham, you believe a truth, but not the truth; or, in other words, you believe the truth, but not the whole truth. You should remark that, from the defective nature of all language, the word 'church' is employed in various significations. It means, primarily, the whole visible body of professing Christians; secondly, the heads or pastors of that body; thirdly, the spiritual or elected portion of the visible body; fourthly, the different congregations, separated, though in communion; and also, in modern acceptation, the buildings dedicated to the purposes of prayer and instruction. Our divine Redeemer often speaks, it is true, of his pure and elect Church, and, in this sense, it is wholly spiritual and invisible but again, he gives commands and promises totally incompatible with an invisible and merely spiritual Church. For instance, what are we to understand by the following texts:- Hear the Church. If he neglect to hear the Church, let him be to thee as a heathen and a publican.'

"

Then to the pastors themselves,- Feed the flock which is amongst you, taking the oversight thereof." -'And the things which thou hast heard of me among many witnesses, the same commit thou to faithful men, who shall be able to teach others also.' Ye are as a city set on a hill.' There is no necessity for me to multiply text upon text, I should suppose, Miss Graham, farther to prove the obvious necessity of Christians being a visible body, and that, if the Church is as a city set on a hill,' she must be not only visible, but conspicuous!"

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"I perceive, Dr. Sinclair," said Katherine smiling, ing," that you have endeavoured to make your few but weighty texts serve you the double purpose of proving the authority as well as the visibility of the Church. Certainly, those who command and those who obey, as well as those who speak and those who listen, must be visible living men and women; but as to any authority of one Christian over another, excepting the necessary influence of piety and learning, I own I cannot yet admit it either in theory or practice."

6

"Yet you read of Churches being established' or confirmed,' "replied Dr. Sinclair; "which denotes the settlement of such rules and regulations as were called for by the increasing number of the Christians and as the Apostles themselves could not always be present, it was necessary that some one having authority should be with each community, to set things in order. This one person must have been appointed by the Apostles; for there is no evidence of a deacon or elder taking upon himself such an office in these early times, unless appointed by an Apostle, or by some one who had himself received his commission from an Apostle. This appointment was made by the laying on of hands, and has continued in the Church down to this day. Now, respecting the Church,' as signifying those

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in spiritual authority, you will perceive that our Lord did not grant ministerial authority to his disciples in general, but first to twelve, and then to seventy; that of those twelve, one was among the most wicked of mankind, and that our Lord well knew his character when he appointed him; that possibly some of those seventy might be unworthy persons; that our Lord, just before his departure, gave what may be called a fresh commission to his Apostles, which they should act upon after his ascension; that after that event, the twelve Apostles were the leading persons in the Christian Church, having under them two orders or degrees, viz. bishops (sometimes called elders) and deacons ; and that this three-fold division of ministers in the Church lasted as far as the New Testament history reaches, the Apostles having set men over different Churches with apostolical authority, to preside during their absence, and to succeed them after their decease. This sufficiently appears from passages in St. Paul's Epistles to Timothy and Titus. It farther appears, that to those immediate successors of the Apostles, who were of rank and authority above the bishops for a time, was given the title of 'Angel,' (see the prophecy in Revelations to the Seven Churches ;) and at a subsequent date, you find still the three degrees of Church authority, the highest title being called bishop, the next priest, and lastly, the deacon. But, I will give my farther reasoning on this point," continued the Warden, laying his hand upon the open folio volume beside him, "in the words of that bright ornament of the English Church, the holy Bishop of Down and Dromer: 'All obedience to man is for God's sake; for God, imprinting his authority upon the sons of men, like the sun reflecting upon a cloud, produces a parhelion, or a representation of his own glory, though in great distances and imperfection. It is

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