may seem unfair to the High Church party that they are not to have the liberty in ritual which is given to the other parties in doctrine. It is now understood by all that ritual represents doctrine, that the vestments and posture bespeak a certain belief. The prohibition of them is, therefore, a denial that their doctrine is that of the Church of England. The inequality of freedom is not, however, so great as it appears at first sight. High Churchmen are still at liberty by the license of law to hold their views of the Eucharist. They are only forbidden to be too obtrusive, to disturb the peace of parishes, or by extravagance to provoke a prosecution. It is not to be regretted that this judgment sweeps far beyond mere ritualism. It justly embraces the whole High Church party whose innovations in the Reformed Church of England are distinctly traceable in history. It has been a custom with this party from its earliest beginnings, which were towards the end of the reign of James I., to maintain that it represented the true Church of England. Its first movement was to deny the Calvinism of the Articles of Religion, and to invent a theory unknown to the Reformers, that they were articles of peace intended to comprehend both parties. It then, as we have already seen, put the communion-tables out of their place, and on this followed, for the most part in our own day, the position of the clergyman out of his place also. But the law has met the transgressor, and determined that the High Church party, with its doctrines and customs, has never been more than a party tolerated in the Church. We have to be thankful for these judgments, because they determine that we shall not go back to the theology of Rome, which has been already rejected, and because they leave room for progress under normal conditions. A relaxed subscription to the Articles, on the whole, both generous and prudent, is yet not what we should have recommended. The Vicar of St. Ives had introduced some novelties, and persisted in some of the practices condemned in the recent judgments. The parish churchwarden, Mr. Read Adams, presented the vicar at the bishop's visitation, and afterwards called upon the bishop to take action in the case. His lordship declined. The churchwarden again wrote to the bishop, enclosing the following quotation from a letter by the Archbishop of Canterbury: "Can a bishop's authority stand still while the affections of the people are being alienated by practices intended to undo all the benefits which the Reformation has conferred upon this country. If the bishop is called upon by a proper authority, it is evident that he must act, and it may be that he may find it necessary to act of his own accord. In judging what is lawful in the Church, he must remember that he is a bishop of the Church of England and not that of Rome." The Bishop of Ely answered that he had resolved not to prosecute any of his clergy for small deflections from the rubric, and he was sure that the same course would be adopted by the archbishop. It cannot fairly be expected that the bishops should be involved in the expense of a legal prosecution, yet it is due to the people that they admonish offending vicars, and warn them of their danger in departing from the laws of the Church. If the last vestige of a bishop's authority is not entirely gone, he ought to be able to compel his clergy to a strict observance of the rubrics, when any parishioners, much more a parish churchwarden, complains of their violation. This could be no hardship to the High Churchmen if the same conformity were exacted from every clergyman of whatever party when novelties were introduced into the service that alienated or divided the parishioners.. but still a subscription, combines a basis with freedom. Doubtless were the Articles to be written again, they would take another shape; but this is scarcely to be expected. The alternatives are either to subscribe them or to set them aside. The latter, in some respects, would be the better if it were really practicable; but this is doubtful. To subscribe them is not so great a hardship as to some men it appears. They embody substantially the doctrine which we still believe; but under forms which the enlightened Christian consciousness has outgrown. It has often been proposed to reduce subscription simply to the canonical Scriptures; but here we encounter the same difficulties. The senses in which the Scriptures are believed are as varied as the senses put on the Articles of Religion. The canon itself has to be settled, besides the genuineness, authenticity, authority, and inspiration of the different books. It is indeed an anomaly to subscribe to doctrines as if they were settled, and yet claim the freedom to regard them as open questions; but it is an anomaly from which at present there is no escape. Last of all, but not least, we have cause to be thankful for the judgments that they furnish a basis for the union and comprehension of all Christians within fixed yet wide boundaries. The judgments in the cases of the Ritualists declare distinctly with legal and historical evidence that sacerdotalism is simply tolerated in the Church of England, but that its vagaries and eccentricities are not to be endured. It is a great matter to have it distinctly proclaimed that the pretensions of a priesthood have no true home in the Church of England. We have borne with them hitherto because we knew that they had no real foundation, and were sometimes to be overlooked because of the sincerity of those who held them. Their only alarming feature was their claim to be essentially of the Church of England; but this is now removed. The sacerdotal principle is incompatible with progress. It represents a view of revelation men. different from that which we must now embrace, and in which rests our only hope of an enlightened conception of Christianity, and a proper understanding between differing communities of Christian Sacerdotalism must ever be in sharp opposition to all which differs from it. In accordance with this, it now claims independence of the State, and refuses obedience to the law. It wishes to be a law to itself, on the ground of its supposed Divine appointment to be the channel of truth to the world. This claim is consistently made only by the Roman Catholic, who holds with it belief in an infallible Church. But the Church of England as interpreted by the law of England is found to rest on another basis. It acknowledges no priesthood and no infallibility; but submits to the same law of progress which rules alike the Church and the world. JOHN HUNT. THE FOURTH GOSPEL. WHEN the Gospel of St. John was first given to the world, it appeared as a small separate publication. Any reader who might glance over its pages would see at once that it was a religious work respecting Jesus Christ, to whom some new revelation was attributed; and that the writer's aim was to communicate a knowledge of facts and doctrines, which he regarded as both certain and important. If the reader was acquainted with the other Gospels, a cursory perusal of this one would show remarkable agreements and differences. Like them, it is chiefly occupied with the last days of our Lord's history; but the preceding portion is very unlike. Less than the others has it the character of a complete biography; nor does it profess to be an account of the public ministry of Jesus. The plan is simple, but peculiar. After an introduction which connects the new revelation with the old, and a statement of the first testimonies to Jesus, as the Messiah, the Son of God, the writer gives his own account of what he describes as a Divine manifestation.* series of events are related, some miraculous and some not, but all symbolical as well as real; and with these a series of conversations and discourses, addressed to inquirers or to opponents. The wedding at Cana, and the purification of the Temple, are the first of these events, and they are followed by the conversations with the Jewish * i. 14; ii. 11; xii. 45. A teacher and the Samaritan woman, both referring to the new life which comes from the knowledge of God. In the early chapters the favourable acceptance of the ministry of our Lord in Jerusalem, Judæa, and Samaria, is recorded; but the hostility of the rulers is noticed in connection with his first public act, and this, ere long, led to his departure for Galilee.* From the fifth to the tenth chapters the opposition of the rulers is more fully related in connection with four Jewish festivals. At one of these he stayed in Galilee because the Judæans sought to kill Him, and on the three other occasions when He appeared in Jerusalem and taught, He was driven away by the violence of his enemies. From the eleventh chapter to the seventeenth, events and discourses are related which continue the account of the manifestation of Christ, and conduct to the close. The raising of Lazarus is recorded, with the lessons then repeated respecting the eternal life, seen in Jesus and received from Him; and the determination of the rulers no longer to defer the execution of the hostile designs which they had cherished from the beginning. The supper at Bethany, and the entry to the Holy City, are two events, followed by the last public discourses of our Lord, declaring that his death would be for the life of the world. After this the writer gives his own reflections, accounting for the rejection of Jesus, notwithstanding his wonderful works; and adding a summary of the words of Jesus respecting his relation to the Father. Two other symbolical actions, the washing the Apostles' feet, and the Last Supper, precede the full account of the last conversations of Jesus. After this there is the narrative of his apprehension, trial, death, and resurrection, as in the other Gospels. Though the references to times and places are peculiarly distinct, the work has not at all the character of a consecutive history. It does not profess to be anything of the kind. The writer shows how words and works, which afforded progressively the knowledge of Jesus Christ, were accepted by some as a message from heaven, and rejected by others with increasing enmity. What the manifestation of Christ was in its chief characteristics, how it was received and resisted, and how it triumphed, are here seen in a selection of events and discourses. The statements of the introduction respecting the previous revelations of God are shown to be true of the revelation now given in Jesus Christ. "The light shines in the darkness." "He came to his own people, and they accepted Him not." "But such as received Him," of every race, they became "children of God." Who wrote these things? is an inquiry, certainly important, though not indispensable. In seeking an answer to this question, it is natural and proper to begin with what is near and certain, not with * ii. 19; iv. 1. † xii. 44. ] Does what is distant and doubtful. We have the book before us. the writer show anything of himself? What is there in his work to confirm or contradict such indications of authorship? And, lastly, what may we learn from ancient testimony respecting its author? I. What does the writer show of himself? 1. It is manifest that, whatever his name and station, and whenever he wrote, the writer was a Christian, possessing the faith in Jesus which he sought to promote. It is equally evident that the features of our Lord's character to which he gives most prominence are truthfulness and love. These, as springing from faith in God, and as exercised for the good of men, are the chief points illustrated by the narratives, and inculcated by the discourses. All that is said and done is described as testimony to the truth. God is to be honoured by the truth; men are to be benefited by the truth; opposition must be expected on account of the truth; but for the truth one should wish to live, and for the truth one should be willing to die. The writer states these things of the Master, and with evident sympathy, showing the same spirit. The character, then, of the writer, as shown in his work, is a sufficient ground for confidence in his truthfulness. As we become acquainted with him, we feel that he could not be false on any subject, still less could he give false testimony respecting One whom he supremely loved and honoured. The awe which, on several occasions noticed by him, prevented the Apostles from questioning the Lord, the writer felt; and he could never think of adorning with human fictions what he revered as a Divine reality. It may be said that good men have not been always truthful, and that pious frauds have not been uncommon. This we must allow, but still maintain that there is nothing to shake our confidence in the writer of this Gospel. Christians have been false, when forgetting the truthfulness of their Lord, but not when commending this grace, and inspired by its influence. They have stooped to deception, when temporary dissimulation seemed to offer some great advantage, but not when there was no semblance of necessity, no apparent good to be gained by falsehood. Pious frauds have always come from the absence of faith in Christ, and are utterly incompatible with the loving, reverential trust which the writer manifests. They are as contrary as light and darkness. If the writer did not believe that Jesus changed water into wine, healed by a word the child in Capernaum, and the sick man at Bethesda; that He fed five thousand men with a few loaves and fishes, and walked on the lake of Galilee; that He gave sight to the blind man in |