Here the reader sees the main features of this system ;-a system supported by a large number of learned and influential divines in the Church of England since the time of Archbishop Laud. It has lately been revived by the authors of the Oxford Tracts for the Times, Dr. Hook, vicar of Leeds, &c. This doctrine is the ROOT of all their errors and popish proceedings. By such a scheme as this they FORGE A CHAIN TO BIND HEAVEN AND EARTH, GOD AND MAN, TO THE ACTS OF PRIESTLY ARROAllow the above doctrine, and though Satan and his host incarnate should become ordained by succession Bishops, yet no ordinances but such as they administer have the promise of Christ, but are all vain! This scheme of Anglican-popery will be seen to have a little variation in its machinery from Roman-popery; but they are both animated by the same genius, and both terminate in the same consequences.

GANCE.

The reader will not regret to see, in the commencement of this Essay, the opinions of two celebrated foreign Protestant divines on this subject: the one, of the Lutheran church, and the other, of the reformed French church. Chemnitius, a greatly admired Lutheran divine, in his admirable Examination or Confutation of the Council of Trent, says, "By this measure, they (the papists) endeavour not so much to reproach our (the protestant) churches, as, at one stroke, to give a mortal stab, and to destroy them from the foundation. In their clamours by which they labour to establish this point, they contend, that in our churches is no true and legitimate administering of the sacraments, that God by our labours will give no blessing, no pardon, no remission of sins; that we can have no true sacrament of the body and blood of Christ; that all our ministers are thieves and robbers, not having entered by the true door" (of apostolical succession) "into the sheepfold. An atrocious denunciation indeed! And they give no reason for it but this, that the ministers of our (protestant) churches, are not called, sent forth, ordained, shaven and anointed by popish Bishops.'

Now it is clear that there is a perfect identity in the matter urged against the reformers by the papists, and that urged by high church of England clergymen against all protestants who have not episcopal ordination. If the latter have not ventured to be

1 Part II. p. 421, fol. Genev. 1634.

so bold in their denunciations, we can easily see the reason. They know the full consequences, boldly declared, would, with many protestants, even in the Church of England, work as an argumentum ad absurdum: the absurdity would produce reaction. They, therefore, generally throw it out to work upon weak, credulous, unsuspecting, or bigoted minds.

Claude, in his able Defence of the Reformation, says, "And to speak my own Thoughts freely, it seems to me, that that firm opinion of the absolute necessity of Episcopacy, that goes so high as to own no church, or call, or Ministry, or Sacraments, or salvation in the world, where there are no Episcopal Ordinations, although there should be the True Faith, the True Doctrine, and Piety there; and which would that ALL RELIGION should depend on a FORMALITY, and even on a Formality that we have shewn to be of no other than Humane Institution; that opinion, I say, cannot be lookt on otherwise then as the very worst character and mark of the highest hypocricy, a piece of Pharisaism throughout, that strains at a gnat when it swallows a camel, and I cannot avoid having at least a contempt of those kind of thoughts, and a compassion for those who fill their heads with them." m

m Part IV. p. 97, 4to, Lond. 1683.

SECTION II.

THE STATE OF THE GENERAL QUESTION.

Having exhibited a general view of the doctrine of succession as taught by these high churchmen, it may now be proper to clear our way by giving the true state of the question.

The succession divines maintain,

1. That Bishops are, by DIVINE RIGHT, an order superior to, distinct from, and having powers, authority, and rights incompatible with Presbyters, simply as Presbyters:

2. That the Bishops of this order are the SOLE SUCCESSORS of the Apostles as ORDAINERS of other ministers, and GOVERNORS both of pastors and people:

3. That this succession is a PERSONAL SUCCESSION, viz.,— that it is to be traced through an historical series of persons, validly ordained as Bishops, transmitting, in an unbroken line, this episcopal order and power to the latest generations:

4. That no ministry is VALID, except it have THIS episcopal ordination; and that ALL ordinances and sacraments are VAIN, except they be administered by such episcopally ordained ministers. Now we deny every one of these positions. And we shall shew,―

1. That Bishops and Presbyters are, by divine right, the SAME ORDER; and that Presbyters, by divine right, have the same power and authority as Bishops; that ORDINATION by Presbyters is equally valid with that of Bishops; and, consequently, that the ministry of all the reformed Protestant churches is equally valid with that of any episcopal church:

2. That Presbyters are as much the SUCCESSORS of the Apostles as Bishops are:

3. That a succession of the Truth of DOCTRINE, of Faith and Holiness, of the pure Word of God, and of the Sacraments

duly administered, is the ONLY ESSENTIAL Succession necessary to a Christian Church:

4. That all are TRUE Christian CHURCHES where such a ministry, and such ordinances are found.

Here it should be well observed, that the distinguishing character of the scheme we oppose, is its unchristian exclusiveness and intolerance. If its advocates had contended only for the lawfulness or allowableness of an ecclesiastical arrangement for a class of ministers whom they choose to call Bishops, without excluding the Presbyters of other churches from their scriptural power and authority to perform all the duties necessary for the being and well being of the christian church, this might have passed: but this does not satisfy them. Nothing will answer their design, but the degrading of the Presbyters of those churches, and all Presbyters, to an incapacity for performing those duties which God has committed unto them, and the setting up of an order of Bishops, by divine right, with the SOLE and exclusive powers of ordaining ministers, and of governing them and the church to the end of the world. Again, if these writers had contended simply for the importance of a succession of pious ministers, in a settled state of things, in any church, as a great blessing to that church, and an encouragement to the faith of its members, without making an unbroken line of succession ABSOLUTELY ESSENTIAL in all states to the very being of a church, they would have acted commendably; and not a word of disapprobation of such a succession is found in this Essay. But this would have allowed, with the early christian Fathers, that the succession of Apostolical FAITH and DOCTRINE is the ONLY ESSENTIAL succession: this, however, is too liberal for our high churchmen; it would not answer their intolerant purposes. Bishop Taylor, the Oxford Tract-men, &c. solemnly maintain, that without an unbroken line of such Bishops as their scheme maintains, and their ordinations from the Apostles, there is no ministry, no promise of Christ, no blessings in any of the ordinances of religion; and that, consequently, the Scotch church, the Lutheran church, and all the Protestant churches in the world, are consigned, like heathens, to the uncovenanted mercies of God!

As an Epilogue to this drama, these writers, after this excommunication, sometimes affect to feel a little charity for the

excommunicated, and say, "We do not hurt them-the church doors are open-they can come in if they please they shut themselves out, &c." Just so says popery: "We are the church," say they," its doors are open." And they will "compass sea and land to make one proselyte, and when he is made, they make him twofold more the child of hell than themselves." " But if a person does not see reason for the dominion of his holiness of Rome, for denying the evidence of his senses in their doctrine of Transubstantiation, &c., then they consign his soul to perdition, and his body to the secular arm to be burned. If you say, "this is cruel," it is replied, "Oh! no: we pity him-we do not hurt him-the church doors are open-he may come in if he pleasesyea, we intreat him to come in-he shuts himself out-his blood must be upon his own head.” The reader must determine whether or not this charity is from above.

We repeat, then, that in perusing this or any other work on the subject, the reader must never forget that the establishment of the fact of some kind of an order of Bishops having existed in the church from an early period, and of the fact of an unbroken line from the same period, would not establish the system of these men. It might be allowed that both are important to the well being of a church; and yet it would not follow that they are necessary to the being of that church. No proof will do for the above scheme, but the proof that the Lord Jesus Christ has ABSOLUTELY determined that no ministers but such Bishops as they feign shall convey this succession; and that, WITHOUT this unbroken line of such Bishops, and their ordinations from the time of the Apostles, he will give NO blessing to the ministry or ordinances of any church under heaven, to the end of the world. No proof but this will suffice to the establishing of their monstrous scheme. If its advocates would act candidly and fairly, they should set themselves to produce this proof, or give up their cause. If the reader keeps this, the true state of the question, distinctly before his mind, their endless assertions and sophisms will be powerless; if he does not, he will, of course, be mystified and misled.

But though we thus state the subject, that the establishment of the fact of some kind of an order of Bishops from an early period in the church, and the fact of an unbroken line from the

n Matt. xxiii. v. 15.