parish, by the hand of the National Church.

All this is, or should be, going on in England, and we have now to ask when and by whom the Catholic Church, established in the Upper Chamber on the Day of Pentecost, was established in our country.

(III) THE ESTABLISHED CHURCH.

The Catholic Church was established, or re-established,[5] in this realm in the year 597.[6] It was established by St. Augustine, afterwards the first Archbishop of Canterbury. How do we know this? By documentary evidence. This is the only evidence which, in such a case, is final. If it is asked when, and by whom, our great public schools were established, the answer can be proved or disproved by documents. If, for instance, it is asked when, and by whom, Winchester was established, documents, and documents only, can answer the question—-and documents definitely reply: in 1387, by William of Wykeham; if it is asked when, and by whom, Eton was established, documents answer: in 1441, by Henry VI; if it is asked when, and by whom, Harrow was established, documents respond: in 1571, by John Lyon; if it is asked when, and by whom, Charterhouse was established, documents again reply: in 1611, by Sir Thomas Sutton. It can all be proved by, and only by, documentary evidence. So with the sects. Documents can prove that the Congregationalists established themselves in England in 1568, under Robert Brown; Quakers in 1660, under George Fox; Unitarians in 1719, under Samuel Clarke; Wesleyans in 1799, under a Wesleyan Conference. Records exist proving that these various sects were established at these given dates, and no records exist proving that they were established at any other dates. So with the Church. Records exist proving that it was established by Augustine, in England, in 597, and no records exist even hinting that it was established at any other time by anybody else.

"As by Law Established."[7]

A not unnatural mistake has sometimes arisen from the phrase "as by law established". Where is this law? It does not exist. No law ever established the Church of England. The expression refers to the protection given by law to the Catholic Church in England, enabling it to do its duty in, and to, the country. It tells of the legal recognition of the Church in the country long before the State existed; it expresses the legal declaration that the Church of England is not a mere insular sect, but part of the Universal Church "throughout all the world". A State can, of course, if it chooses, establish and endow any religion—Mohammedan, Hindoo, Christian, in a country. It can establish Presbyterianism or Quakerism or Undenominationalism in England if it elects so to do; but none of these would be the Church of Jesus Christ established in the Upper Chamber on the Day of Pentecost. As a matter of history, no Church was ever established or endowed by State law in England.[8] If such a tremendous Act as the establishment of the Church of England by law had been passed, it is obvious that some document would attest it, as it does in the case of the establishment of the Scotch Presbyterian Church in the reign of William III. No such document exists. But an authentic record does exist proving the establishment of the Pentecostal Church in England in 597. It is this old Pentecostal Church that we speak of as the Church of England.

(IV) THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND.

Who gave it this name? The Pope.[9] It was given by Pope Gregory in a letter to Augustine. In this letter[10] Gregory speaks of three Churches—the Church of Rome, the Church of Gaul, and the Church of the English, and he bids Augustine compile a Liturgy from the different Churches for the "Use" of the Church of England.

We see, then, that the Church of England is the Catholic Church in England. As the Church of Ephesus is the Catholic Church in Ephesus, or the Church of Laodicea is the Catholic Church in Laodicea, or the Church of Thyatira the Catholic Church in Thyatira, so the Church of England is the Catholic Church in England. Just as St. Clement begins his Epistle to the Corinthians with, "The Church of God, which is at Rome, to the Church of God which is at Corinth," so might Archbishop Davidson write to the Italians, "The Church of God, which is at Canterbury, to the Church of God, which is at Rome". It is in each case, "the Church of God," "made visible," in the nation where it is planted.

But, being national (being, for example, in England), it is, obviously, subject to the dangers, as well as the privileges, of national character, national temperament—and, in our case, national insularity. The national presentment of the Catholic Church may err, and may err without losing its Catholicity. The Church of England, "as also the Church of Rome, hath erred";[11] it has needed, it needs, it will need, reforming. Hence we come to our fifth name:—

(V) THE REFORMED CHURCH.

The name is very suggestive. It suggests two things—life and continuity.

First, life. A reforming Church is a living Church. Reformation is a sign of animation, for a dead organism cannot reform itself. Then, continuity. The reformed man, must be the same man, or he would not be a reformed man but somebody else. So with the Church of England. It would have been quite possible, however ludicrous, to have established a new Church in the sixteenth century, but that would not have been a reformed Church, it would have been another Church—the very last thing the Reformers contemplated.

A Reformed Church, then, is not the formation of a new Church, but the re-formation of the old Church.

How did the old Church of England reform itself? Roughly speaking, the English Reformation did two things. It affirmed something, and it denied something.

First, it affirmed something. For instance, the Church of England affirmed that the Church in this country in the sixteenth century was one with the Church of the sixth century. It affirmed that it was the very same Church that had been established in Palestine on the Day of Pentecost, and in this realm by Augustine in 597. It reaffirmed its old national independence in things local just as it had