style="font-size:15px;"> Bateman attempted forcibly to shut the book; Sheffield went on: "St. Anthony's temptations; what's this? Here's the fiend in the shape of a cat on a wine-barrel."
"Really, really," said Bateman, disgusted, and getting possession of it, "you are quite offensive, quite. We will look at them when you are more serious."
Sheffield indeed was very provoking, and Bateman more good-humoured than many persons would have been in his place. Meanwhile Freeborn, who had had his gown in his hand the last two minutes, nodded to his host, and took his departure by himself; and White and Willis soon followed in company.
"Really," said Bateman to Sheffield, when they were gone, "you and White, each in his own way, are so very rash in your mode of speaking, and before other people, too. I wished to teach Freeborn a little good Catholicism, and you have spoilt all. I hoped something would have come out of this breakfast. But only think of White! it will all out. Freeborn will tell it to his set. It is very bad, very bad indeed. And you, my friend, are not much better; never serious. What could you mean by saying that our Church is not one with the Romish? It was giving Freeborn such an advantage."
Sheffield looked provokingly easy; and, leaning with his back against the mantelpiece, and his coat-tail almost playing with the spout of the kettle, replied, "You had a most awkward team to drive." Then he added, looking sideways at him, with his head back, "And why had you, O most correct of men, the audacity to say that the English Church and the Romish Church were one?"
"It must be so," answered Bateman; "there is but one Church—the Creed says so; would you make two?"
"I don't speak of doctrine," said Sheffield, "but of fact. I didn't mean to say that there were two Churches; nor to deny that there was one Church. I but denied the fact, that what are evidently two bodies were one body."
Bateman thought awhile; and Charles employed himself in scraping down the soot from the back of the chimney with the poker. He did not wish to speak, but he was not sorry to listen to such an argument.
"My good fellow," said Bateman, in a tone of instruction, "you are making a distinction between a Church and a body which I don't quite comprehend. You say that there are two bodies, and yet but one Church. If so, the Church is not a body, but something abstract, a mere name, a general idea; is that your meaning? if so, you are an honest Calvinist."
"You are another," answered Sheffield; "for if you make two visible Churches, English and Romish, to be one Church, that one Church must be invisible, not visible. Thus, if I hold an abstract Church, you hold an invisible one."
"I do not see that," said Bateman.
"Prove the two Churches to be one," said Sheffield, "and then I'll prove something else."
"Some paradox?" said Bateman.
"Of course," answered Sheffield, "a huge one; but yours, not mine. Prove the English and Romish Churches to be in any sense one, and I will prove by parallel arguments that in the same sense we and the Wesleyans are one."
This was a fair challenge. Bateman, however, suddenly put on a demure look, and was silent. "We are on sacred subjects," he said at length in a subdued tone, "we are on very sacred subjects; we must be reverent," and he drew a very long face.
Sheffield laughed out, nor could Reding stand it. "What is it?" cried Sheffield; "don't be hard on me? What have I done? Where did the sacredness begin? I eat my words."
"Oh, he meant nothing," said Charles, "indeed he did not; he's more serious than he seems; do answer him; I am interested."
"Really, I do wish to treat the subject gravely," said Sheffield; "I will begin again. I am very sorry, indeed I am. Let me put the objection more reverently."
Bateman relaxed: "My good Sheffield," he said, "the thing is irreverent, not the manner. It is irreverent to liken your holy mother to the Wesleyan schismatics."
"I repent, I do indeed," said Sheffield; "it was a wavering of faith; it was very unseemly, I confess it. What can I say more? Look at me; won't this do? But now tell me, do tell me, how are we one body with the Romanists, yet the Wesleyans not one body with us?"
Bateman looked at him, and was satisfied with the expression of his face. "It's a strange question for you to ask," he said; "I fancied you were a sharper fellow. Don't you see that we have the apostolical succession as well as the Romanists?"
"But Romanists say," answered Sheffield, "that that is not enough for unity; that we ought to be in communion with the Pope."
"That's their mistake," answered Bateman.
"That's just what the Wesleyans say of us," retorted Sheffield, "when we won't acknowledge their succession; they say it's our mistake."
"Their succession!" cried Bateman; "they have no succession."
"Yes, they have," said Sheffield; "they have a ministerial succession."
"It isn't apostolical," answered Bateman.
"Yes, but it is evangelical, a succession of doctrine," said Sheffield.
"Doctrine! Evangelical!" cried Bateman; "whoever heard! that's not enough; doctrine is not enough without bishops."
"And succession is not enough without the Pope," answered Sheffield.
"They act against the bishops," said Bateman, not quite seeing whither he was going.
"And we act against the Pope," said Sheffield.
"We say that the Pope isn't necessary," said Bateman.
"And they say that bishops are not necessary," returned Sheffield.
They were out of breath, and paused to see where they stood. Presently Bateman said, "My good sir, this is a question of fact, not of argumentative cleverness. The question is, whether it is not true that bishops are necessary to the notion of a Church, and whether it is not false that Popes are necessary."
"No, no," cried Sheffield, "the question is this, whether obedience to our bishops is not necessary to make Wesleyans one body with us, and obedience to their Pope necessary to make us one body with the Romanists. You maintain the one, and deny the other; I maintain both. Maintain both, or deny both: I am consistent; you are inconsistent."
Bateman was puzzled.
"In a word," Sheffield added, "succession is not unity, any more than doctrine."
"Not unity? What then is unity?" asked Bateman.
"Oneness of polity," answered Sheffield.
Bateman thought awhile. "The idea is preposterous," he said: "here we have possession; here we are established since King Lucius's time, or since St. Paul preached here; filling the island; one continuous Church; with the same territory, the same succession, the same hierarchy, the same civil and political position, the same churches. Yes," he proceeded, "we have the very same fabrics, the memorials of a thousand years, doctrine stamped and perpetuated in stone; all the mystical teaching of the old saints. What have the Methodists to do with Catholic rites? with altars, with sacrifice, with rood-lofts, with fonts, with niches?—they call it all superstition."
"Don't be angry
