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Church: and that he should not be received again therein without public confession of his crime and declaration of his repentance. If this were vigorously enforced, we should soon have greater purity of life in the world, and fewer discussions about high and low churches. But before we can obtain any idea of the manner in which such law could be enforced, we have to consider the second question respecting the Authority of the Church. Now Authority is twofold: to declare doctrine, and to enforce discipline; and we have to inquire, therefore, in each kind,-

9. (3) What is the authority of the Invisible Church? Evidently, in matters of doctrine, all members of the Invisible Church must have been, and must ever be, at the time of their deaths, right in the points essential to Salvation. But, (A), we cannot tell who are members of the Invisible Church.

(B) We cannot collect evidence from death-beds in a clearly stated form.

(C) We can collect evidence, in any form, only from some one or two out of every sealed thousand of the Invisible Church. Elijah thought he was alone in Israel; and yet there were seven thousand invisible ones around him.¹ Grant that we had Elijah’s intelligence; and we could only calculate on collecting one seven-thousandth part of the evidence or opinions of the part of the Invisible Church living on earth at a given moment: that is to say, the seven-millionth or trillionth of its collective evidence. It is very clear, therefore, we cannot hope to get rid of the contradictory opinions, and keep the consistent ones, by a general equation. But, it has been said, these are no contradictory opinions; the Church is infallible. There was some talk about the infallibility of the Church if I recollect right, in that letter of Mr. Bennett’s to the Bishop of London.² If any Church is infallible, it is assuredly the

¹ [1 Kings xix. 14, 18.]

² [See Resignation of the Rev. W. J. E. Bennett, M. A.; Correspondence of the Lord Bishop of London with the Rev. Mr. Bennett, 1850, p. 9. Mr. Bennett (1804-1886), first Incumbent of St. Paul’s, Knightsbridge, and one of the founders of St. Barnabas’,

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