sanction of an anathema; but nothing can be pointed out in the English Church which is not true, as far as it goes, and even when it opposes Rome, with a truly Apostolical toleration, it utters no ban or condemnation against its adherents. On the other hand the omissions, such as they are, or rather obscurities of Anglican doctrine, may be supplied for the most part by each of us for himself, and thus do not interfere with the perfect development of the Christian temper in the hearts of individuals, which is the charge fairly adducible against Romanism. Such for instance is the phraseology used in speaking of the Holy Eucharist, which though on the whole protected safe through a dangerous time by the cautious Ridley, yet in one or two places was clouded by the interpolations of Bucer, through an anxiety in some quarters to unite all the reformed Churches under episcopal government against Rome. And such is the omission of any direct safeguard in the Articles, against disbelief of the doctrine of the Apostolical Succession.
And again, for specimens of the perverse reception by the nation, as above alluded to, of what was piously intended, I would refer to the popular sense put upon the eleventh article, which, though clearly and soundly explained in the Homily on Justification or Salvation, has been taken to countenance the wildest Antinomian doctrine, and is now so associated in the minds of many with this wrong interpretation, as to render almost hopeless the recovery of the true meaning.
And such again is the mischievous error, in which the Church in her formal documents certainly has no share, that we are but one among many Protestant bodies, and that the differences between Protestants are of little consequence; whereas the English Church, as such, is not Protestant, only politically, that is, externally, or so far as it has been made an establishment, and subjected to national and foreign influences. It claims to be merely Reformed, not Protestant, and it repudiates any fellowship with the mixed multitude which crowd together, whether at home or abroad, under a mere political banner. That this is no novel doctrine, is plain from the emphatic omission of the word Protestant in all our Services, even in that for
