Reformation and Restoration. By Prof. W. M. Blackburn, D. D. [pp. 348-369]

Reformation and Restoration.
We must continue the line of the episcopate, and hand it on
unbroken to our descendants; we must provide a priesthood
the same in every respect as has been hitherto provided; we
mnust guard the ancient sacraments of the Church, and take
care that no essentials shall be wanting to their due administration, rect6 and rite as to principles and ritual; we must see
that whatever changes may be expedient in our Liturgy and
other services, nothing is taken away, nothing added, which
shall cut them off from the fellowship of primitive offices;
we must maintain the creeds intact; and whatever special
formularies may be needed for our special position, we must
in all things be sure that the Catholic faith is still held by the
Church of England" (pp. 5, 523). Now Wolsey and Warhain
may have talked in that way, but the genuine reformers, such
as Frith and Tyndale, Latimer, Bradford, and Jewell, were
too intent upon restoring Christ and a vigorous Christianity
to the Church to waste breath in such sentimental speeches.
Other writers indulge in the same glorying. "We have
never cut ourselves off from the past: we still recite the same
creeds and many of the same prayers, that our forefathers did
from the very beginning of the English Church." (IHardly, if
the said Church began before the Nicene age, or was founded
by an apostle or his contemporary!) "Bishops and deans
and canons occupy the same thrones and stalls in the same
cathedrals as of old; the clergy throughout the land are instituted to the old benefices," and we suspect that Tractarian
monks and Puseyite nuns would like it if they could snugly
retire into those same old convents which Wolsey and his
King so rashly turned to practical account! Thus the monastic continuity would add to the glory. "We may almost
say that, ill strictness of speech, in England alone was there a
true' Reform' of existing institutions; the continental Evangelizers were compelled, either, as in Luther's case, by force
of circumstances, or, as in Calvin's, by deliberate preference,
to destroy and re-constitute: there was a break of continuity:
consistories and presbyteries came in place of the time-honored church organization, and the societies so constituted
have never gained the prestige of the old churches. It has
been, in some respects, a blessing for England that there was
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