and the Churches they founded with manifold gifts of grace, as the word of wisdom, the word of knowledge, healings, the working of miracles, prophecy, discerning of spirits, divers kinds of tongues, and the interpretation of tongues, dividing unto every man severally as he would (1 Cor. xii. 6—11).

7. The Spirit of Holiness. And not only is He called the Giver of Life, but also the "Holy Spirit," or the "Spirit of Holiness" (Rom. i. 4). And since we are in ourselves unholy and impure, and without holiness it is impossible to please God (Heb. xii. 14); He inspires us with holy desires, and prompts us to good counsels (Eph. v. 9); He creates in us the first dispositions towards truth and holiness (Gal. v. 22, 23); He prevents, i. e. goes before us, "that we may have a good will, and works with us when we have that good will"" (Rom. viii. 14); He renews us unto repentance (Heb. vi. 6); and if we thwart not His gracious influences by wilful sin, He sanctifieth us and all the elect2 people of God, i. e. all members of the Church of Christ.

8. The Comforter. But, lastly, as the Comforter or "Strengthener," it is His office to strengthen and sustain us in our doubts and difficulties, distresses and afflictions, to beget in us joy and peace in believing, to help our infirmities, and whereas we know not in memory of the gift of wisdom bestowed on the Apostles. See Procter On the Book of Common Prayer, pp. 290, 291 and notes. Cranmer's Catechism, Oxford Edition, p. 122. 2 As under the Old Covenant the whole Jewish nation were elected, or chosen, to be God's peculiar people, to have the covenant and the promises (Deut. vii. 6; xxvi. 18, 19; Amos iii. 1, 2), so the Apostles teach that the whole Church, composed of both converted Jews and Gentiles, is His elect, or chosen, people, under the New Covenant (Comp. Rom. i. 6, 7; 1 Cor. i. 24; Phil. i. 1; 1 Pet. ii. 9, 10, compared with Ex. xix. 5, 6). See Bp. Browne on the xviith Article.

1 Art. X.

what to pray for as we ought, to make, as our Advocate, intercession for us (Rom. viii. 26). And as Ho is ever ready to shed forth His gracious influences within us, it is our duty to yield them a ready entrance and a kind welcome into our hearts; to hearken attentively to His voice speaking to us through our consciences1; to beware of quenching the divine light He kindles within us (1 Thess. v. 19), of resisting Him when He prompts us to pure thoughts and holy acts, of grieving Him when He would take up His abode in the temples of our souls (Eph. iv. 30; 1 Cor. vi. 19); and by the steady use of every means of grace we ought to seek to foster His gracious work within us, that so He "may in all things direct and rule our hearts"."

CHAPTER X.

THE NINTH ARTICLE.

The Holy Catholic Church; the Communion of Saints.

PART I.

THE HOLY CATHOLIC CHURCH.

1. The Church. In the last Article we confessed our belief in the Holy Ghost, whose special office it is "to sanctify us and all the elect people of God." The "elect people of God," as we have seen above3, includes

1 Barrow's Sermon On the Divinity of the Holy Ghost; "It is through the whisperings of conscience that the Spirit speaks. If, then, men are willingly deaf to their consciences, they cannot hear the Spirit. If hearing, if being compelled to hear, the remonstrances of conscience, they nevertheless decide, and resolve, and determine to go against them; then they grieve, then they defy, then they do despite to the Spirit of God." Paley's Sermon On Spiritual Influence, Part III. 2 Collect for the Nineteenth Sunday after Trinity. See above, p. 52 note.

all members of the Church of Christ throughout the world. In the present Article, therefore, we naturally pass on to speak of the Church, the great sphere of the Spirit's operations, and which is here defined1 to be "Holy" and "Catholic."

2. Meaning of the Word. The word which we have rendered "Church," i. e. the Lord's House2, is in the Greek language Ecclesia3. This originally denoted an assembly of persons called out from among others by the voice of a herald, as e. g. at Athens, for the purpose of legislation. In the sense of an assembly or congregation it is often applied in the Old Testament to the Israelitish nation, which was "called out" by

1 And in the Nicene Creed, Εἰς μίαν καθολικὴν καὶ ἀποστολικὴν ̓Εκκλησίαν= And in One Catholic and Apostolic Church.

2 From the Greek κuρiaкh, a feminine adjective, from Kúpios, the Lord, and olxía, a house. The word Kupiakos occurs in 1 Cor. xi. 20, Rev. i. 10. From κupiaкn comes the German kirche, and the Scotch kirk. The presence of a Greek word in the vocabulary of our Anglo-Saxon forefathers has been thus explained. "While the Anglo-Saxons and other tribes of the Teutonic stock were almost universally converted through contact with the Latin Church in the Western provinces of the Roman empire, or by its missionaries, some Goths on the Lower Danube had been brought at an earlier date to the knowledge of Christ by Greek missionaries from Constantinople; in this kuplakh, or 'church,' did, with certain other words, pass over from the Greek to the Gothic tongue; and these Goths, the first converted, and the first therefore with a Christian vocabulary, lent the word in their turn to the other German tribes, among these to our Anglo-Saxon forefathers; and by this circuit it has come round from Constantinople to us." See Hooker, Eccl. Pol. v. xiii. 1. Wordsworth's Theophilus Anglicanus, p. 1 and note.

3 From ex out and κaλéw I call. Hence the French église.

4 Hence the expressions so often occurring, the congregation of Israel (Ex. xii. 6; Num. xvi. 9), the elders of the congregation (Lev. iv. 15; Num. xvi. 2), the Tabernacle of the

God from the rest of the world, to bear witness to His Unity, to preserve His laws, to keep alive the hope of Redemption, and to exhibit the pattern of a people living in righteousness and true godliness.

3. Foundation of the Church. Now, when our Lord declared His intention of building His Church (Mtt. xvi. 18; xviii. 17), He used this word Ecclesia1, or Congregation, and in His last command to His Apostles bade them call members into it, not from one nation only like the Jews, but from the whole world (Mtt. xxviii. 19, 20). Accordingly, His Church was founded on the day of Pentecost through the preaching of the Apostle Peter after the descent of the Holy Ghost, and numbered about three thousand souls (Acts ii. 41).

4. Spread of the Church. Though small at first like the grain of mustard seed, to which Christ had compared it (Mtt. xiii. 31), the Church spread gradually from Jerusalem to Samaria and Galilee, and congregation (Lev. iv. 4; Ex. xxxv. 21), the day of the assembly or congregation (Deut. ix. 10; xviii. 16). Hence St Stephen says of Moses that he was in the church (or congregation, èккλnoia) in the wilderness with the angel that spake to him in the Mount Sina (Acts vii. 38). Again, David says in Ps. xxii. 22 (quoted in Heb. ii. 12), I will declare Thy name unto my brethren, in the midst of the church or congregation (èv μéσw ekкλnolas) will I sing praise unto Thee. Again he says in Ps. xxvi. 12, My foot standeth in an even place: in the congregation (ẻккλŋolas) will I bless the Lord. Comp. also Ps. lxviii. 26. The Hebrew is rendered in the Septuagint sometimes by the word ἐκκλησία, sometimes by συναywyn, both being congregation. In the XIXth Article the Church is called a "Congregation of faithful men," Cœtus fidelium.

1 "As ouvaywyn, synagogue, was the more frequent word for the congregation of the Jews; so perhaps our Lord and His Apostles adopted, by way of preference and for distinction's sake, the word ekkλŋola, church, for the congregation of Christians." Bp. Browne on the xixth Article.

As it

thence to the uttermost parts of the earth. spread, the word "Church" was naturally applied sometimes to the whole collective body of Christians, partakers of one hope, one faith, and one baptism (Eph. iv. 4, 5); sometimes to the community of Christians in a particular town or country, as at Jerusalem (Acts viii. 1), at Antioch (Acts xiii. 1), at Ephesus (Acts xx. 17), at Corinth (1 Cor. i. 2, comp. Rev. ii. iii.); sometimes to a single body of Christians meeting or living in a private house, as that of Aquila and Priscilla (Rom. xvi. 5), that of Nymphas (Col. iv. 15), or that of Philemon (Philem. 2).

5. The Church, then, spoken of in the Apostles' Creed is the collective Society1, or Congregation of believers, which Christ first called out from the rest of the world by the preaching of His Apostles, of which He is the Head, having purchased it for Himself with His own Blood (Acts xx. 28); to which He is ever adding such as shall be saved (Acts ii. 47); against which, by virtue of His all-sufficient promise, the gates of hell shall not prevail (Mtt. xvi. 18): and which “has been, now is, and hereafter shall be, so long as the sun and moon endure 2."

6. Holy. Now the Church of Christ is called in the Creed Holy3, not because every member of it is holy, for in this mortal life the tares will be ever mingled

1 "The Church is always a visible Society of men." Hooker, Ecc. Pol. III. i. 14.

2 Pearson On the Creed, Art. Ix.; Cranmer's Catechism, p. 124.

3 In the Nicene Creed the Church is also called one, or united, for all its members have one God and Father (Eph. iv. 6), are sheep of one Fold under one Shepherd (Jn. x. 16), are all baptized into one Spirit (1 Cor. xii. 13), and have all one Faith and one Hope of their calling (Eph. iv. 2-5). See P On the Unity of the Church. In the same Creed it is tolic, as being built on the foundation of the Prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the Head