CHURCH DOCTRINE,

BIBLE TRUTH.

LONDON:

PRINTED BY R. CLAY, SON, AND TAYLOR,

BREAD STREET HILL

CHURCH

DOCTRINE,

BIBLE TRUTH.

BY THE

REV. M. F. SADLER, M.A.

PREBENDARY OF WELLS, AND VICAR OF ST. PAUL'S, BEDFORD;
AUTHOR OF "THE SECOND ADAM AND THE NEW BIRTH,"
“SACRAMENT OF RESPONSIBILITY," ETC.

"I am the Vine, ye are the branches."

"Holding the Head, from which all the body by joints and bands having
nourishment ministered, and knit together, increaseth with the increase of God."
"Exceeding great and precious promises, that by these ye might be partakers
of the Divine nature."

LONDON:

BELL AND DALDY, 186, FLEET STREET.

CAMBRIDGE: DEIGHTON, BELL AND CO.

BIBL

PREFACE.

In the following treatise, I have endeavoured to set forth what God, in His holy word, teaches us respecting Church principles, and then I have turned to the Prayer-book, in order to ascertain how far it reflects the teaching of the Scriptures.

This book is not intended to be a treatise on the Prayerbook, or on the Church and Sacraments in their relations to the rest of Christianity, much less is it intended to embrace the whole circle of Christian doctrine and practice.

My one purpose in writing it has been to show that all distinctive Church doctrine is found in the Bible, and that the particular statements of that doctrine in the Prayerbook, which a large number of religious Englishmen affect to treat as unscriptural, are the mere echo of certain Scripture statements; so that, so far as the matters treated of in this book are concerned, there is no difficulty whatsoever attaching to any assertion contained in the Prayerbook; all difficulties of this kind resolving themselves into mysteries inherent in certain assertions of God in His Holy word.

The Prayer-book has too often been assumed to need apology, on account of what it teaches respecting the

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