proved us by the fire of the Marian persecution, and took away, by a martyr's death, those in whom we most trusted; and then finally employed a number of labourers, in the restoration of His temple, of whom none should yet be so conspicuous, that the edifice should seem to be his design, or that he should be tempted to restore the decayed parts according to any theory of his own, but rather that all things should be made "according to the pattern which He had shown us" in the Church Primitive. Had our reform taken place at first, we had been Wickliffites; under Edward, we had been a branch of the Reformed[1] (the Zuinglian or Calvinist) Church: now we bear no human name; we look to no human founder; we have no one reformer, to set up as an idol; we are neither of Paul nor of Apollos; nor have we any human maxims or theories as the basis of our system; but have been led back at once to the distant fountains, where the waters of life, fresh from their source, flowed most purely.
Both of the continental branches, as was said, erred in this respect; and both have, through their error, suffered. Luther, although scripturally asserting the presence of Christ in the Eucharist, still retained from the Romish Church the idea of the necessity of explaining that presence. His theory of Consubstantiation was, not a development of Divine truth, but a human system, explaining the mode of the Divine operations. This first error entailed the necessity of other expositions, on points about
- ↑ The "Reformed" is the received name for such Churches as agree with Calvin and Zuingli in the doctrine of the Sacraments, and as such was understood in old times not to include the English, which was always accounted as a Church per se. As, however, the Churches comprehended under this name did not altogether agree among themselves, it came to be used for that portion of the Western Church which was neither Romanist nor Lutheran. Hooker speaks of "reformed," as opposed to corrupt Churches; but he also uses the term of those, who considered themselves eminently "Reformed" Churches, as being most opposed to Rome, e. g. B. iv. c. 14. Init. "To leave reformed Churches, therefore, and their actions, for Him to judge of in whose sight they are, as they are; and our desire is that they may, even in His sight, be found such as we ought to endeavour, by all means, that our own may likewise be; somewhat we are enforced to speak concerning the proceedings of the Church of England."
