THE HOLY CATHOLIC CHURCH, THE

COMMUNION OF SAINTS.

A Discourse,

DELIVERED AT BRUNSWICK CHAPEL,

NEWCASTLE,

July 29th, 1873,

IN CONNECTION WITH THE ASSEMBLING OF THE

WESLEYAN-METHODIST CONFERENCE.

BEING

THE FOURTH LECTURE ON THE FOUNDATION OF THE

LATE JOHN FERNLEY, ESQ.

WITH NOTES, AND SUPPLEMENTARY ESSAYS ON THE HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN
FELLOWSHIP, AND THE ORIGIN OF THE "HIGH CHURCH" AND

OTHE

BY THE REV. BENJAMIN GREGORY.

LONDON:

WESLEYAN CONFERENCE OFFICE,
2, CASTLE-STREET, CITY-ROAD;

SOLD AT 66, PATERNOSTER-ROW.

PREFACE.

My aim in these pages is to present, clearly and convincingly, the true idea of the Christian Church. I have neither evolved it out of my own consciousness, nor constructed it according to the systems of uninspired men, but have betaken myself directly, and confined myself exclusively, to the only authoritative and trustworthy instructorsChrist and His Apostles; referring to other teachers for confirmation only, as they simply elicit the meaning of the sacred text, or in refutation of unwarrantable interpretations, or exposure of polemical interpolations or manipulations of Holy Writ. This latter part of the work has been the only unpleasant part. If in clearing away arbitrary theories, which have long overlain the yet perfect outline of the Temple of God, I have sometimes shown too much directness and incisiveness, it must be remembered that the task of the excavator is rough work, and that the Divine idea of the Church has lain for ages like some grand temple in the desert, entombed in the sand-drifts of centuries.

A great weight was taken from my mind by a mild complaint in the current London Quarterly Review, that the Lecture, as delivered, did not "present more directly the specific Methodist idea of the Church." The one thing which, above all others I dreaded, deprecated and watched against, was the very thing which, it seems, I was expected to do, namely, to give a specific Denominational idea of the Church. This presentation of the specific idea of some particular Denomination has been the fatal flaw of all the ablest books upon the Church, from Belarmine, Hooker, and Field, to M'Neile and Goulburn. If I had understood that to be my duty, I should have declined the task without a moment's hesitation. If my dread of the temptation to handle "the Word of God deceitfully" had not rescued me from perplexing a great subject by one more sectional book upon the Church, my sense of the ludicrous, no doubt abnormally developed, would have stood me, for once, in good