is not read therein, nor may be proved thereby, is not to be required of any man, that it shall be believed," etc., where it is obvious that the authority which is to "prove" doctrine from Scripture is the Church itself. In fact, nothing can be further removed from the Protestant principle of the supremacy of the individual than the Church of England principle of the authority of the interpretative tradition of the Church.

The second of Dr. Schaff's principles is the supremacy of faith over works. It would be better to state it as the doctrine of justification by faith only. This is the very corner-stone of the Protestant Reformation and is the most revolutionary doctrine ever introduced into the Church. If held in the sense in which Luther taught it, it makes the Church and sacraments not only unnecessary but unintelligible. The Christian has but to believe, that is to give an intellectual assent to, the promises of God in Christ, and he is accepted of God and the merits of Christ are imparted to him: he is saved. "Faith only " makes the old historic Christian system an impertinence. That this doctrine was not adopted by the English Reformers is obvious from the stress laid on Church and sacraments in all the formal teaching of the Church. The Eleventh of the Thirty-nine Articles does, it is true, appear to accept the Lu

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theran doctrine, but an analysis of the article shows that the term “faith only " is not used in the Lutheran sense of mere assent, and is not given the exclusive place in the working of justification which is given it in the Lutheran system.1

The third great principle of Protestantism is the assertion of the priesthood of the laity,- or, as it might better be expressed, the denial of any other priesthood than the universal priesthood of Christians. That every Christian is in a true sense a priest with right of access to God is indeed a fundamental truth of the Christian religion. He partakes of the priesthood of Christ in whom he is. It is also true that he is a king by virtue of his participation in the royalty of his risen Head. But if his royalty is not of such a nature as to render the existence of magistrates and his subjection to them impossible, it is difficult to see how the fact of his priesthood renders impossible or unnecessary that there should be any other priesthood in the Church. Nor, I suppose, has any Protestant ever argued that because all Christians are prophets (as they surely are) the office of preacher should be abolished. Certainly the Anglican Church has never seen any incongruity between the priesthood of the "The Thirty-nine Articles." New York, Gorham, 1906.

1 Kidd,

laity and the existence of an official separate priesthood. It conceives the Christian Church as the Body of Christ, and understands that powers belonging to the Body as such must still be exercised through special organs. Hence the existence of its ordinal and the exclusive appropriation of certain acts to those who have been ordained priests.

We conclude then that while in the broad sense of historic opposition to the abuses that centred about the papal system the Church to which we belong may be called Protestant, it cannot rightly be so called if what is implied by the word is theological sympathy with the Continental Reformers. The theology embodied in the formal documents of the Church of England, and especially in the Book of Common Prayer, is quite the reverse of Protestant.

How, then, did the Church in the United States come to place the word Protestant on the titlepage of the Prayer Book? Is there any clue to the sense in which the word is there used?

During the Colonial period the Church, of which the legal title was the Church of England, seems to have been colloquially known as the Episcopal Church. To this, in Maryland at least, Protestant was added. After the breaking out of the war of the Revolution, there was an act

passed by the Maryland legislature in 1779 intended to secure the rights of the Church to its property, etc., in which it is entitled the Protestant Episcopal Church and its continuity with the Church of England is recognized. What is said to be the first formal adoption of the title in an ecclesiastical document is found in a declaration adopted at a meeting of clergy and laity held at Chestertown, Md., 9 Nov., 1780. There it was resolved"That the Church known in the Province as Protestant be called 'The Protestant Episcopal Church.'" Of this Convention the Rev. J. J. Wilmer writes: "The Rev. Dr. Smith, Dr. Keene and myself held the first Convention in Chestertown, and I acted as secretary "; he adds that he "moved that the Church of England as heretofore so known in the province be now called the Protestant Episcopal Church, and it was so adopted." 1

Later, 13 Aug., 1783, at an important meeting of clergy at Annapolis, the formal declaration was adopted which described the Church under this title, and it seems to have passed into general use without discussion.

This "Declaration of certain fundamental Rights and Liberties of the Protestant Episcopal

1 Perry, "History of the American Episcopal Church," vol. II, 22.

Church of Maryland," is important as throwing light upon the meaning attached to the word Protestant at the time and by those who gave it to the Church. As I fancy it is not widely known, I will quote the greater part of it:

"Wherefore we the Clergy of the Protestant Episcopal Church of Maryland, (heretofore denominated the Church of England, as by law established) with all duty to the Civil authority of the State, and with all Love and Good will to our Fellow-Christians of every other Religious Denomination, do hereby declare, make known, and claim the following as certain of the fundamental Rights and Liberties inherent, and belonging to the said Episcopal Church, not only of common Right, but agreeable to the express words, spirit and design of the Constitution and Form of Government, aforesaid, viz.—

"Ist. We consider it as the undoubted Right of the said Protestant Episcopal Church, in common with other Christian Churches under the American Revolution, to complete and preserve herself as an entire Church, agreeable to her ancient Usages and Profession; and to have full enjoyment and free exercise of those purely spiritual powers which are essential to the Being of every Church or Congregation of the faithful; and which, being derived only from Christ and Apostles, are to be maintained independent of every foreign or