torical reputation will not be challenged, has
adduced the statement in chapter xv. as one of his proofs that Calvin
himself could not have framed the Scotch Confession otherwise than Knox
has done.[129]

[Sidenote: Notes of the True Church.]

The nature of the church, and the notes by which the true church is to
be discerned, are explained in chapters xvi. and xviii. As in most of
the other Reformed or Calvinistic Confessions, greater prominence is
assigned to the Invisible Church, consisting of the elect of all times
and nations, than to the general visible church subsisting at any
particular time in the world and embracing all who profess faith in
Christ and submit to the godly discipline He has prescribed. The notes
by which it may be discerned whether any branch of the professing church
is indeed part of the true Kirk of Christ are stated _negatively_--not
to be "antiquitie, title usurpit, lineal descente, place appointed, nor
multitude of men approving," as Roman Catholics were wont to allege; and
_positively_ to be "the trew preaching of the Worde of God," "the right
administration of the Sacraments," and "ecclesiastical discipline
uprightlie ministred as Goddis Worde prescribes."[130] "These articles,"
as Principal Lee has so pithily expressed it, "have been almost as
disagreeable to some Episcopalian writers as they were to the most
servile adherents of the pope. It is thought a most dangerous omission
to make no mention of uninterrupted succession and conveyance of
authority from the apostles. This omission has been somewhat incorrectly
charged against the reformers of our church. They do certainly mention
_lineal succession_, but they mention it only to disown it. They say
that though the Jewish priests in our Saviour's time 'lineally descended
from Aaron,' yet no 'man of sound judgment will grant that they were the
Church of God.'"[131] They further assert that wherever the three notes
given above are found and continue for any time (be the number never so
few above two or three), there without all doubt is the true Kirk of
Christ, who according to His promise is in the midst of them; and in
this they are borne out not only by Calvin but by Luther, who boldly
affirmed: "Were I the only man on earth that held by the Word, _I alone
would be the church_, and I would be justified in pronouncing of all the
rest of the world that it was not the church."

[Sidenote: Two Sacraments only.]

The only other parts o