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such allegation does he venture to bring.

If the Latin translation,

no matter for its unclassicality, be faithful in regard to the alleged statements of Peter, which Mr. Dowling pretends not to deny, what possible harm can result, in the way of EVIDENCE, from my having quoted a faithful Latin translation, simply because I had not an opportunity of consulting the original Greek?

I really blush for Mr. Dowling's production of such a charge as this; on the strength, or rather the lamentable weakness, of which, he professes (bless the mark!) to "crave judgment against my pretensions."

II. I now pass to Mr. Crosthwaite; since my lot, it seems, is to fight two antagonists at once.

1. At the very commencement of his reply, this gentleman is guilty of a most reprehensible inaccuracy. He describes me as believing that bishops, priests, and deacons, constitute but two orders.

Now I never expressed my fixed personal belief either one way or the other, On the contrary, when speaking of the alleged fact, that governing bishops were appointed by the apostles as a distinct order, with the power of ordaining others exclusively inherent in them, quoad ordinem; I specifically said, even as quoted in the very same page by Mr. Crosthwaite himself, that, "the impossibility of establishing this alleged fact I was very far from asserting." I confessed, that I myself was unable evidentially to establish it; but I subjoined, still as quoted by Mr. Crosthwaite, that "I had not the vanity to say that it is therefore impossible."

It really would be a considerable convenience in the article of time, if Mr. Crosthwaite, in his prosecution of this matter, would a little attend to accuracy.

2. What I was confessedly unable to establish myself, I courteously invited Mr. Crosthwaite to establish; for the meanest capacity may see that the whole question turns upon the single hinge of the power of ordination being, or being not, exclusively inherent in the episcopate quoad ordinem.

Now I do not assert that the power is not thus exclusively inherent; I simply say, what I may be allowed to know as a fact, that I myself am unable evidentially to establish the point of exclusive inherency.

From a consciousness of this inability on my own part, I called upon my gratuitous assailant, Mr. Crosthwaite, to undertake the probate himself. Yet I regret to say that, throughout the whole of his very long, and very irrelevant, communication, he never once attempts the probate of this vital matter. Hence, so far as he and I are con

cerned, it still remains an open question.

Very probably, as we descend the stream of time, something like evidence may be detected in the lower fathers; but this will be of no value, unless we can establish a regular catena patrum up to the apostolic age, and ultimately to the written word of God itself. If, for a moment, we suppose (I merely put an hypothesis) that the power of ordination was, simply and (as Jerome speaks) for the avoidance of schism, intrusted to the governing bishops, quoad disciplinam, nothing would be more probable than that, in lapse of time,

an intrustation quoad disciplinam would be speciously transmuted into an exclusive inherency quoad ordinem. Hence, any detached evidence, if there exist such, of a later period and of a later father, will obviously be of no value, unless it be checked by the exactly concurrent evidence of scripture, and the earliest fathers. But, purely as a fact, (and it is vain to contend against facts,) the point of exclusive inherency quoad ordinem cannot, I apprehend, be substantiated, either from scripture, or from Clement of Rome, or from Ignatius, or from Polycarp, or from Justin, or from Ireneus, or from Theophilus, or from Athenagoras, or from Clement of Alexandria, who severally flourished in the first and second centuries. This fact led me modestly to confess my own inability to establish the point in question; but, as I knew not whether better-read divines, like Mr. Crosthwaite, might not be able, through some other channel, to establish what I could not establish, I no less modestly added, "I have not the vanity to say that it is therefore incapable of establishment."

Mr. Crosthwaite, however, for reasons best known to himself, has not accepted my invitation. Whether he means to do it in his promised future communication, I pretend not to say. But this I will say, that, unless he can satisfactorily do it, he might just as well save himself the trouble of writing any more.

That there may be no mistake, and that your readers may distinctly bear in mind what they ought to look out for, I beg to repeat, that Mr. Crosthwaite's business is, to prove, upon competent evidence, that the power of ordination was, by the apostles, made exclusively inherent in the episcopate quoad ordinem.

To this single point, for all the rest is plain enough, I respectfully ask permission to pin Mr. Crosthwaite.

3. Since Mr. Crosthwaite, I regret to say it, has wished to turn into mere personalities a pure question of EVIDENCE, you will, I am sure, allow me, in self-defence, to make my own profession of faith, touching the matter of episcopacy.

So far as I can understand myself and others, my own views on the subject are precisely the same as those of Bishop Hall, and Bishop Burnett, and Richard Hooker. I might easily mention many more, from the Reformation downward; but these may suffice.

My belief, then, is this: for Mr. Crosthwaite has constrained me to be a fool in egotism.

For the avoidance of schism, and for the better regulation of the church, a governing episcopate, as we may learn from the cases of Timothy and Titus, and the seven angels of the seven churches of Asia, was early appointed by the apostles themselves. Such being the case, we are bound, I think, in all modest sobriety, to submit ourselves to this apostolically ordained polity; unless circumstances shall occur of such a nature as to make it either conscientiously or physically impossible. Now, on the supposition that the old Vallenses and Albigenses had not bishops in regular succession, they would obviously have been placed in exactly such over-controlling circumstances;

and the same remark applies to many of the reformed churches of the sixteenth century. When idolatry or separation is made the alternative, and when bishops, like the corrupt and persecuting bishops of the popish church, before and since the day of the glorious Reformation, become the ravening wolves of the flock instead of being the faithful and brave sheep-dogs, we must obey God, rather than man. If the episcopate insist upon leading their people into the rank idolatry of popery, (for, by our own church, popery is stigmatized as idolatrous,) their people must refuse to follow them; and they are not to be presumptuously set down as aliens from the commonwealth of Israel merely because, through dire necessity, they are compelled, by the fault of their bishops, to place themselves under a succession of pastors who themselves are not bishops, and who (as the succession descends) receive not episcopal ordination. To this I may add, that, what at first was necessity, in course of years becomes prescription: nor are we to unchurch a church, like the presbyteral church of Scotland for instance, because she now labours under a moral, though not a physical, impossibility of change. No man would rejoice more than myself to see a disciplinal union of the episcopal and presbyteral churches of Scotland; but while, from real historical conviction, and not from mere idle declamation touching an apostolical succession, gratuitously interpreted by certain modern writers, I prefer the former, still I assuredly think, that the offensive Samaritanising of the latter, on the part of sundry ill-judging zealots, is not the most likely way to win her regard and to bring her over to what I myself deem a more excellent, though not the sole way.

4. But it is time that I should have done with myself; though possibly the burden of threescore years and five, independently of Mr. Crosthwaite, may be an excuse for garrulity. My vouchers must now be produced. I have already, in a former communication, brought forward Bishop Hall; I shall now bring forward Bishop Burnett and Mr. Hooker.

(1.) Respecting the work of the ministry, our twenty-third article states that, Those we ought to judge lawfully called and sent, which be chosen and called to this work by men who have public authority given unto them, in the congregation, to call and send ministers into the Lord's vineyard. On this, Bishop Burnett comments as follows:"I come, in the next place, to consider the second part of this article, which is the definition here given of those that are lawfully called and sent. This is put in very general words, far from that MAGISTERIAL STIFFNESS in which some have taken upon them to dictate in this matter. The article does not resolve this into any particular constitution, but leaves the matter open and at large, for such accidents as had happened, and such as might still happen. They, who drew it, had the state of the several churches before their eyes that had been differently reformed; and, although their own had been less forced to go out of the beaten path than any other, yet they knew that all things among themselves had not gone according to those rules that ought to be sacred in regular times. Necessity has no law, and is a law to itself." Burnett on the Art., art. xxiii. pp. 322, 323.

(2.) We have now heard yet a second bishop; let us next hear a presbyter, who has long been distinguished by the honourable title of judicious.

"Men may be extraordinarily, yet ALLOWABLY, two ways admitted unto spiritual functions in the church. One is, when God himself doth, of himself, raise up any, whose labour he useth without requiring that men should authorize them. Another extraordinary kind of vocation is, when the exigence of NECESSITY doth constrain to leave the usual ways of the church, which otherwise we would willingly keep: where the church must needs have some ordained; and neither hath, nor can have possibly, a bishop to ordain. In case of such necessity, the ordinary institution of God hath given oftentimes, and may give, place. And therefore, we are not simply, without exception, to urge a lineal descent of power from the apostles by continued succession of bishops in every effectual ordination. These cases of inevitable necessity excepted, none may ordain but only bishops.”—Hooker's Eccles. Polit. book vii. § 14, vol. iii. p. 196.

5. From these avowals, it appears to me to follow in strict logical necessity, that, right or wrong, Hall, and Burnett, and Hooker, (to say nothing of many others, from the Reformation downward,) must have held the intrustation of the power of ordination to the episcopate quoad disciplinam, as contra-distinguished from the exclusive inherency of that power in the episcopate quoad ordinem.

For, if the power be exclusively inherent in the episcopate, then no circumstances whatever, save a voice from heaven, as when the Lord called St. Paul to the apostolate, can give what is exclusively inherent in one body of men, to another body of men, who, by the very terms of the proposition, neither do nor ever did possess it.

But Hooker, wherein he fully agrees with Hall and Burnett, assures us that, in particular circumstances, an ordination may be effectual, though it possesses not a lineal descent of power from the apostles by continued succession of bishops.

Therefore, unless he be glaringly inconsistent, Hooker must have held that the power of ordination is NOT exclusively inherent in the episcopate quoad ordinem.

Whether he was correct or incorrect in his opinion is another question. But such, from his very statement, must have been his opinion, because he pronounces, that an unepiscopal ordination may be effectual. At all events, this opinion can by no possibility be set aside, save through the medium of an evidential demonstration, that the power of ordination was not simply intrusted to the episcopate quoad disciplinam, but that such power was made exclusively inherent in the episcopate quoad ordinem.

6. As for what Mr. Crosthwaite says of the church of Rome deeming the presbyterate and the episcopate only one order, it is creditable to him to have noticed the circumstance, because it makes entirely against his own case. The Roman church is a considerable depository of old opinions, some of which can, and some cannot, be traced back to the apostolic age. Now, the present opinion can scarcely be deemed more modern than the sixth century; because, when Pope Pelagius was consecrated bishop of Rome by two bishops and a presbyter, the principle of the Latin church, as specified by Mr. Crosthwaite, was evidently acted upon; for upon no other supposition can that remarkable fact be accounted for. I have already mentioned the still more ancient evidence afforded by Jerome and Clement of Rome; and I may now additionally mention the chronologically intermediate evidence of Clement of Alexandria. This writer, about the end of the VOL. XV.-Jan. 1839.

H

second century, divides the whole body of the clergy into the presby. ters who rule, and the deacons who serve. Ομοίως δὲ κατὰ τὴν ἐκκλησίαν, τὴν μὲν βελτιωτικὴν οἱ πρεσβύτεροι σώζουσιν εἰκόνα τὴν ὑπηρ etikǹv dè, oi diákovo.-Clem. Alex. Strom. lib. vii. Oper. p. 700. Without expressing a positive opinion, I may at least say, that the standard dogma of the Roman church, associated with such corroborative testimony as I have incidentally produced, ought to teach us moderation, by repressing that violent ultra-high-church humour which would. rashly make Samaria the type of the presbyteral church of Scotland and of other national churches similarly politied. This strange modern humour, it seems, out-herods Herod by being actually in advance of popery itself.

7. If Mr. Crosthwaite can produce any evidence really to the point,I mean the point, that the power of ordination is exclusively inherent in the episcopate quoad ordinem,-I shall be, at once, both interested and instructed in attending to it. But if he studiously avoids the true question, I shall not think it necessary to trouble you any further. I have the honour to be, your obedient humble servant, G. S. FABER.

Sherburn House, Dec. 14, 1838.

MR. AUSTIN IN REPLY TO MR. AUSTEN ON RATING TITHE. SIR,-In the December number of the British Magazine, your correspondent, Mr. John Thomas Austen, says, "Under the old assessment law a rate was good which was equally made. By the late act, a rate to be good must be made on the full annual value of all rateable property; therefore, under Joddrell's decision, farms must be rated upon their productiveness, which is governed by the amount of capital employed, and the skill of the occupier."

On this ground, a farmer should be assessed upon the rent of his farm, and the interest of the capital he employs upon it, which should be 10 per cent. upon a capital of from five to six pounds an acre. He also says, "The tithe is the tenth of the produce, and its net value is what that tenth will produce, after paying all the expenses of collecting, threshing, selling, and so forth; to clear which, the titheowner must also, if he takes it in kind, employ a capital which should pay him 10 per cent."

In my appeal, as rector of Pulboro', against the poor-rate in 1832, it was proved in evidence, that the occupiers of land in that parish required a capital of £30,000 to cultivate the 6000 acres contained in it; and that the rector would require a capital of £1000 to take up his tithes in kind. And the proportions would be

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