It is well known that Rome forbids to her clergy the holy state of matrimony; and, according to her custom, she pronounces in the Council of Trent her solemn anathema on all who may contradict her in this matter. It was therefore necessary for the Church of England, as a reformed church, to assert the ground on which she released her clergy from this bond. And this she has done in the Article now before us; laying down, first, a simple but sufficient premise; and then drawing from it a legitimate conclusion. The premise is this:

Bishops, Priests, and Deacons are not commanded by God's law, either to vow the estate of single life, or to abstain from marriage. That is to say, there is no requirement whatever in Holy Scripture to compel them, whether with a pledge, or without a pledge, to remain unmarried. Under the Old Testament dispensation, indeed, so far from marriage being viewed as inconsistent with sacerdotal functions, the simple fact that those functions were made hereditary in one tribe, necessitated in that tribe the maintenance of marriage, in order to the continuance of the priestly order. And under the New Testament, we know that our Lord did not think the circumstance of Peter being married (as we learn that he was from Matt. viii. 14), a disqualification for the apostleship; and although St. Paul was unmarried, yet did he claim the same liberty as St. Peter and the other apostles had, to "lead about with him a wife," if he thought good, 1 Cor. ix. 5; moreover, in his epistles to Timothy and Titus, when discoursing on the obligations of the Christian ministry, instead of intimating anything against matrimony, the apostle assumes that Christian ministers, both presbyters and deacons, would as a general rule, be married persons: see 1 Tim. iii. 2, 4, 12; Titus i. 5, 6. Nothing can be clearer then than the warrant which our Article has for laying down the premise, that by God's law, the clergy of the Christian Church are under no command to lead a single life. The conclusion consequently follows:—

Therefore it is lawful for them, as well as for all Christian men, to marry at their own discretion, as they shall judge the same to serve better unto godliness. This second part of the Article however, is not merely a conclusion touching the liberty of the clergy. Had this been all, nothing would have been necessary to be said upon it, after the Scriptures already adduced. But it will be observed that in drawing its inference touching the clergy, the Article makes an assertion respecting matrimony very contradictory to the teaching of Rome, not in reference to the clergy only, but all Christian men. The assertion is this, that matrimony may serve better unto godliness than celibacy would. Now the Council of Trent pronounces its. anathema on any who shall say that it is not better and more blessed

to remain unmarried than to marry. Here therefore, another difference between us and Rome arises. Our Article in fact denies that celibacy is necessarily a holier state than matrimony. It contends that every man must be left to judge for himself in the matter, and thereby repudiates the stigma which Rome casts upon matrimony, as a state of inferior sanctity. To justify our Article in this, it is needless to do more than to trace in Sacred Scripture, the honour which God has been pleased to put upon holy matrimony; that He should have instituted it, as He did, in the time of man's innocency, Gen. i. 27, 28; ii. 18, 21-24; that its blessings should be promised to the godly under the Old Testament, as special tokens of his favour, Ps. cxxviii.; that the Messiah's first miracle should have graced a marriage feast, John ii. 1-11; that one of his chief apostles should be, as has been noticed already, a married man; that marriage should be distinctly commended and advised to Christian people by another apostle, as in Hebrews xiii. 4; 1 Tim. v. 14; and that the mutual obligations of a husband and wife should be made to find their pattern and sanction in the relations subsisting between Christ and his Church, Ephes. v. 22-32; all this surely indicates with sufficient emphasis the mind of God, as to the sanctity of the estate of matrimony; and if in one passage (1 Cor. vii.) St. Paul counsels. celibacy to some, let it be observed that he wrote it, as he himself states, specially with an eye to the then circumstances of the Christian Church, and the trials and distresses which were gathering around her, see verses 26, 29-35; so that the case which he then dealt with was peculiar and exceptional. As a general rule, the Scripture always leads us to think of marriage as an ordinance of God for the welfare of man; and in that light it can be only conducive, if rightly used, to a life approved of God. Infiniteholiness can never originate that which is contrary to itself; and we may be sure therefore, that no one using matrimony "reverently and in the fear of God," shall find it other than a blessing.

ARTICLE XXXIII.

Of excommunicate persons, how are they to be avoided.

That person which by open denunciation of the Church is rightly cut off from the unity of the Church, ought to be taken of the whole multitude of the faithful, as an Heathen and Publican, until he be openly reconciled by penance, and received into the Church by a Judge that hath authority thereunto.

At the first beginning of the Christian Church the administration of its discipline was simple and effective. Persons who obstinately offended against the truth of the Divine Word, or the commands of

the Divine Law, were by open denunciation separated from the body of the faithful. This was done under apostolic authority; we have examples of it in 1 Cor. v. 1-5; 1 Tim. i. 20. After the apostolic age, the various churches adopted their own rules for the preservation of the true faith, and godliness of living. But as time went on, these rules became liable to much alteration for the worse. And for a long while before the Reformation, the power of Rome prevailed to make church censures subservient, not to the preservation of truth and holiness, but rather the reverse. Of this the Council of Trent is a witness even to the present day, continuing as it does to pronounce anathemas upon all who do not accept its decrees, however unscriptural they may be. Moreover, the methods for administering church discipline, became from various causes exceedingly cumbrous; and the Ecclesiastical Courts were, even for good purposes a most unwieldy machinery. This was strongly felt by our Reformers, and a proposal was made for rendering the Canon Law more simple, and practically useful. But this was never done, and in consequence the Article before us has as yet little real force or meaning. We hear indeed occasionally of cases in which persons are, for moral and canonical offences, laid under the denunciation of the Church, and are sentenced to perform a so-called penance, by making confession of their fault and by submitting to penalties in consequence. But this is in real truth no spiritual correction whatever; neither does such penance reconcile any offender to the multitude of the faithful, the Christian community knowing nothing in fact of his restoration by the judge. Our Article fails therefore of any application to our times, through lack of proper means to carry out what it contemplates. Without doubt the Church, that is to say, the whole body of the faithful, ought to be able, in some open and satisfactory manner, to put out from communion notorious transgressors and to keep them excluded from Christian fellowship, as though heathen men and publicans, (to use our Lord's terms in Matt. xviii. 17), until they repent. In the opening of the "Commination, or denunciation of God's anger and judgments against sinners, to be used on the first day of Lent," our Church regrets the absence of such discipline, and expresses much desire for its restoration as in the primitive times. But whether this shall ever be accomplished is more than we can foresee. Meanwhile however, let every Christian individually, bear in mind that to a certain extent there is a remedy for this defect in their own hands. Let them follow to the utmost of their power the injunctions of Holy Scripture in such places as Rom. xvi. 17; 1 Cor. v. 11; 2 Thess. iii. 6, 14; 2 John ver. 10; and they will do much to supply what is wanting in the Church for the suppression of "error in religion, and viciousness in life."

We are reluctant to quit this apostolic usage till we have employed it to throw light, by God's blessing, on a few more obscurities of sacred phraseology, by way of further example

HEB. II. 11.

sanctified." HEB. X. 10.

"For both He that sanctifieth, and they who are

"By the which will we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Christ."

HEB. X. 29. "The blood of the covenant wherewith He was sanctifled." (et al: freq.)

Every Christian is familiar with the common use of the word sanctified, as signifying the work of the Holy Spirit on our sinful hearts; and can distinguish between justification and sanctification according to the usual definitions.

But it must have struck all close readers of the Epistle to the Hebrews in particular, that the word sanctify in its several forms is there used in a peculiar sense. It seems as if it there meant justify rather; for Christ, and not the Holy Spirit, is there called the sanctifier, and his " offering" and " blood of the covenant," are said to be employed by Christ to effect this change. Now to his offering as an atonement, we attribute our justification from the guilt of sin; and to his blood, as a fountain open," we impute our sense and experier.ce of salvation; for as to our believing "unto justification of life" before God by the blood of Christ, without being conscious of the relief, the thing is ordinarily impossible; the state of conviction of sin is a state approaching to despair.

Now, how may we best account for, and explain this particular use of the word sanctify in the Epistle above cited; and elsewhere, perhaps, where it is made to precede justification, as in 1 Cor. vi. 11 ? Why thus; it is in these places used as a LEVITICAL METAPHOR, a word borrowed from the Mosaic rites; wherein, however, it is employed in an external, and what the Apostle calls, a "carnal" and we there find the word used, not only of men, but of things: holy places, holy days, holy offerings, are constantly mentioned, with the prescribed modes of sanctifying them. Now, all this we are taught, Heb. viii. 5, was figurative; and, indeed, it must have been so, for it is evident that no inanimate substance is capable

sense;

of sanctification; there can be really no such things as holy stones, holy wood, holy cups, and holy animals.

But it is also plain that the Apostle uses this word in this Epistle with application to believers; for he is here setting forth the Gospel by the law; he is here the evangelical expositor of the Jewish services we understand, therefore, that he uses the word in a metaphorical sense.

:

All this our dear fellow-teachers will easily apprehend; but a question still remains. Although the word is used as a metaphor, yet, since the worshippers were ceremonially "sanctified to the purifying of the flesh" by the victim's blood, the metaphor answers to our justification, rather than our santification, in the modern sense. How is this? Why, this is the point we especially wish here to explain; and,

1st. We observe that to say the word sometimes means "to set apart," is a very cold and inadequate explanation, unless it be understood that when God sets apart a person to Himself, He does infinitely more for him than to effect an outward separation. Let us look a little deeper; there is always, -as experience has taught our hearts,—such an intimate blending of our justification with our sanctification, that though the one may appear to be in the order of it's nature before the other, yet, in the order of time they commence together; as the sun's existence may be conceived to precede its light, yet, to imagine its existence without it's light is impossible.

2nd. It may not be amiss to observe, that in the early Church, as Milner shows in his "Church History," (a book that it is indeed a treat to read), the distinction between justification and sanctification was not always so definitely made and kept up as it is among us. The writers of the earliest centuries contented themselves with stating that the sense of pardon, as well as the sense of purity, was all the result of grace through faith; all," CHRIST in you the hope of glory!" What is the conclusion then that we come to? Why, it is this; that there is a generic, as well as a specific use of the word sanctification; that sometimes it is used as including more than is meant to be included when it is used at other times; that sometimes it is employed to express as much really as was expressed typically in the ceremonial rites of the old covenant.

Now take this explanation to the passages before us,and they become quite plain. The rites used in sanctifying by the priest, included not only the use of water, but the use of blood; and it was the Priest who sanctified the people, who is a type of Christ, and not of the Holy Spirit; and so also is the victim. And as the operation freed the worshipper, not only from imputed guilt but also from