GENERAL PRINCIPLES 31 



THE LAMBETH CONSENSUS OF PROTES- 

 TANT CHURCHES. 



As we pass to the Protestant side of 

 Christendom we find the picture reversed. 

 The churches of the Reformation are 

 largely in accord with the Lambeth articles. 

 At the head is the Lutheran Church, with 

 twenty million members in Europe and a 

 million in America. It has retained the 

 Holy Scriptures as the only rule of faith ; 

 the two creeds, together with the Athana- 

 sian Creed and the Augsburg Confession ; 

 the two sacraments, with large portions of 

 the Catholic sacramentary ; and the historic 

 episcopate as an expedient institution in 

 Germany, with an apostolical succession in 

 Sweden and Moravia which is as undis- 

 puted as the Anglican and with which 

 the American Lutheran communion is 

 about to reinforce its evangelical ministry. 

 Next appear the reformed churches, Dutch, 

 French, and German, — less numerous but 

 more potent as yet in our American Chris- 

 tianity. These churches retained the 

 Scriptures as the very word of God written ; 

 the Apostles' Creed, with the Heidelberg 

 Catechism and the Canons of Dort ; and 



