the sixth century. It affirmed that it was the
very same Church that had been established in Palestine on the Day of
Pentecost, and in this realm by Augustine in 597. It reaffirmed its
old national independence in things local just as it had affirmed it in
the days of Pope Gregory, It re-affirmed its adherence to every
doctrine[12] held by the undivided Church, without adding thereto, or
taking therefrom.

{16}

Then, it denied something. It denied the right of foreigners to
interfere in purely English affairs; it denied the right of the Bishop
of one National Church to exercise his power in another National
Church; it denied the claim of the Bishop of Rome to exercise
jurisdiction over the Archbishop of Canterbury; it denied the power of
any one part of the Church to impose local decisions, or local dogmas,
upon any other part of the Church.

Thus, the Reformation both affirmed and denied. It affirmed the
constitutional rights of the Church as against the unconstitutional
claims of the Pope, and it denied the unconstitutional claims of the
State as against the constitutional rights of the Church.

Much more, very much more, "for weal or for woe," it did. It had to
buy its experience. The Reformation was not born grown up. It made
its mistakes, as every growing movement will do. It is still growing,
still making mistakes, still purging and pruning itself as it grows;
and it is still asserting its right to reform itself where it {17} has
gone wrong, and to return to the old ideal where it has departed from
it. And this old ideal is wrapped up in the sixth name:--

(VI) THE PRIMITIVE CHURCH.

Re-formation must be based upon its original formation if it would aim
at real reform. It is not necessarily a mechanical imitation of the
past, but a genuine portrait of the permanent. It is, then, to the
Primitive Church that we must look for the principles of reformation.
If the meaning of a will is contested years after the testator's death,
reference will be made, as far as possible, to the testator's
contemporaries, or to writings which might best interpret his
intentions. This is what the English Reformers of the sixteenth
century tell us that they did. They refer perpetually to the past;
over and over again they send us to the "ancient fathers,"[13] as to
those living and writing nearest to the days when the Church was
established, and as most likely to know her mind. They go back to what
the "Commin