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that are present hold their hands upon his head, by the hands of the bishop.' And from hence, I suppose, it was that our rubric was taken, that it agrees so exactly with it in every particular. And the reason of it seems to be the same with that of the fourth canon of the Council of Nice, that three bishops shall be always present at the ordination of a bishop. Not but that the ordination is valid, and was always reputed so, although performed only by one bishop; but this was done to prevent clandestine ordination, to make the work more public and solemn, and to signalize it by the concurrent testimony and consent of several persons joining together in it."*

Bishop Taylor, from the canon of the Council of Hispalis, in 657, shews that even then the canon of the Council of Carthage had not been received in the western church; "but for almost three hundred years after, ordinations were made by bishops alone.” †

The rubric of our church was not designed to pronounce ordination of a priest by a bishop alone to be absolutely irregular; for we do not refuse the orders of the eastern church. Nor would the irregularity of an English bishop, should he ordain alone, fall on the ordained, but on the ordainer; the orders being still valid, and the priest capable of being ordained bishop the next day, if of the legal The rubric merely receives a provincial canon of the African church, which our church rightly judges to be useful in guarding against several inconveniences.

I repeat that I studiously avoid severity of language. But I have no words to express my opinion of a writer possessing so very little information as Mr. Faber regarding the constitution of the church (for I should be sorry to put a harsher construction on his argument) rashly and peremptorily deciding on the rubric of the church, that, if presbyters have not the power of transmitting the presbyterate, “then their joint imposition of hands is an unmeaning and nugatory ceremonial." After this was I not fully warranted in asking, whether Mr. Faber meant to join the presbyterians? Not that I had any apprehension of his giving up his preferment and his episcopalian orders. I contemplated what I conceive the far more mischievous conjuncture of a clergyman, whose name may possibly, in some quarters, carry some weight as an author, adopting arguments which the enemies of our church have a thousand times brought forward, and which our illustrious champions have a thousand times refuted. Mr. Faber may quote Bishop Hall; but does he know, that the reason that the bishop spoke of the orders of the foreign churches at all was, because he had already proved presbyterian orders to be invalid; and was, for that reason, taunted, as our church always is, (for this argument, also, Mr. Faber has borrowed from our enemies,) with the case of the foreign churches? Does Mr. Faber know that Bishop Hall (whatever necessity he may have talked of in the passage quoted by Mr. Faber) had already stated his deliberate sentence, that ordination and confirmation "have been ever held so intrinsical to episcopacy that I would fain see where it can be shewed that any extremity of necessity was, by the catholic church of Christ, ever yet acknowledged for a warrant sufficient to diffuse them into other hands"? Were not the

* Ibid. pp. 137, 138. See also Hooker, book vii. chap. vi. 5.
+ Episcopacy Asserted, sec. xxxii. Works, vol. ii. p. 193.

arguments of Hall, and of all our writers, expressly intended to overturn the foundations on which the presbyterians of Scotland and England supported the validity of their orders? The church of England has long since simply denied their validity; for if a priest of the Roman, Greek, or Oriental church, join our communion, he needs and can receive no new ordination; whereas, a presbyter of the Scotch church must receive deacon's orders from a bishop before he can officiate amongst us. And therefore, the opinions of private and particular persons do not affect the question one way or other. But Mr. Faber is "disinclined, without evidence, to unchurch the presbyterial church of Scotland."*

I suppose, however, that it was not without evidence he had said a little before, that

"The apostolical institution of bishops, with the power of governing superintendence over the clergy, is so clear, both from scripture and from ecclesiastical history, that no sane person would ever think of disputing it."+

From which I apprehend we may fairly infer, either that Mr. Faber believes that "the presbyterial church of Scotland" have never thought of disputing the apostolical institution of episcopacy, or else that he believes it to be composed of insane persons. But, after all, what will Mr. Faber's arguments in favour of presbyterianism advantage "the two churches of history," when Mr. Faber himself acknowledges that he is unable to demonstrate that they derive their orders even "by the simple imposition of the hands of the presbytery"? The simple question is this, does Mr. Faber mean, that if three presbyters should take it into their heads to consecrate a bishop, whatever irregularity they might have committed, their act would be valid, and the ordained or consecrated person would be really and bona fide a bishop? If Mr. Faber does not mean to say this, I confess I cannot discover what he means. And if he does, such an avowal from such a quarter is most important. At all events, it is not a new idea, as it seems to have been taken up from John Wesley, who being persuaded by Lord King's book that presbyters and bishops are the same, acted on the notion, and consecrated Dr. Coke a bishop.§

Still I do not perceive how this, even if it were true, could be of any service to the two churches of history.

The examination of Mr. Faber's authorities I must defer to next month; that is, if you think it worth while to trouble your readers farther on the subject. If the tone of either this or my former letter be such as can give just offence, I am heartily sorry for it. It is my earnest wish that truth should suffer nothing by the language or temper of its advocate. Whether what I had already published would warrant Mr. Faber in adopting such a tone of levity as may seem to some

* British Magazine, p. 536.

Vallenses and Albigenses, p. 553.

+ Ibid. p. 532.

§ Southey's Life of Wesley, vol. ii. p. 436. Second Edition.

VOL. XIV.-Dec. 1838.

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persons rather disgusting, in the treatment of sacred subjects, it is not for me to say. I shall certainly not be induced to imitate his example. I am, my dear Sir, very truly yours,

Trinity College, Dublin, Nov. 13, 1838.

JOHN CLARKE CROSTHWAITE.

P.S.-I fear some inaccuracies may have escaped me. I have written with great haste, not having received your November Number till the latter end of last week, and being prevented by my duties from reading Mr. Faber's letter until Saturday.

MR. FABER'S POSTSCRIPT ON THE PAULICIANS.

SIR,-On reperusing Mr. Dowling's attack last night, I thought it not impossible that he might, in a subsequent number of the British Magazine, allege my preterition of one part of it as a proof of my conscious culpability. Under this impression, and to save both him, and you, and myself to boot, further trouble, I beg the insertion of the following postscript to my former communication.

I. I had said in my work: "The unsuspecting reader who happens not to have particularly studied this part of ecclesiastical history, will probably be surprised to learn that the process of reading, with care and attention, the four gospels, in connexion with the fourteen epistles of St. Paul, actually converted Constantine into a Manichèan."

Upon this, Mr. Dowling gravely brings forward, in mood and form, the testimony of both Photius and Peter Siculus, or Petrus Siculus, (which last is the nomenclature preferred, at my expense, by my opponent,) to prove that Constantine was, from the first, a stark Manichean; and that, upon the receipt of the two books of the gospels and St. Paul's epistles from his friend the deacon, he forthwith rejected all the writings of the Manichèans, and admitted (very much like us modern protestants) nothing save the deacon's present, though he applied it to the somewhat unexpected purpose of hammering out of it, not sound Christianity, but veritable Manichèism itself,-which yet, these very writers assure us, he and his disciples rejected and abominated, together with Manes, and Scythianus, and Budda, and the whole race of the more ancient heresiarchs.

1. Now I certainly could never have anticipated that I should encounter an opponent so decidedly what we are wont colloquially to term matter of fact, as not to perceive (like the gentleman who challenged Sir Walter Scott to demonstrate the existence of the Princess Edith Plantagenet) that, in the foregoing extract from my work, I was merely using the language of banter, to express my total want of reverence for those anile fables which it is the good pleasure of Mr. Dowling to receive as a trustworthy portion of authentic history.

2. In preferring such a complaint against Mr. Dowling, I can only smile; but, as I proceed, I might rather weep, were I, which luckily I am not, much given to the melting mood.

Adopting, then, the use of plain English, and quitting the language of (I hope) not quite unpardonable banter, I may well, in Mr. Dowling's own words, ask Mr. Dowling's own readers, "Will it be believed" that I have actually myself, in all fairness and honesty, quoted, at full length, the identical passage from Peter Siculus, which my opponent has solemnly quoted against me for the avowed purpose of demonstrating my very culpable "carelessness of mispresentation?"

The exactly parallel passage from Photius, as given by Mr. Dowling, I did not quote; because, as I distinctly stated, I had not read Photius. (1.) But Mr. Dowling here will say, that I quoted only the Latin version of Peter as it occurs in the Bibliotheca Patrum, not the Greek original; and that this said Latin version is no better than it should be.

It is perfectly true that, because I had no access to the Greek original, I quoted only the Latin version: but if any curious individual will compare together the Greek, as adduced by Mr. Dowling at page 397 of the British Magazine for October, 1838, and the Latin, as adduced by myself at page 33 of my own work on the Vallenses and Albigenses, he will perceive that they each alike set forth the very same alleged fact-namely, that Constantine was originally a Manichean, and that afterward he determined to receive no book save the gospel and the Pauline Epistles, (librum deinceps, præter Evangelii et Apostoli codices, nullum attingere,) in order that, by their help, (eorum ope) he might daub over the injuriousness of his former wickedness, and by false interpretations make them speak his own Manichean sentiments.

(2.) We find it a somewhat trying piece of business gravely to explain a pun to an undiscerning auditor; and perhaps we may find it scarcely less trying to undertake the solemn interpretation of a mere piece of banter. But most trying of all is it, at least to one's patience, when we have to deal with such treatment as that which I have publicly experienced from Mr. Dowling.

He quotes against me a passage to demonstrate what he is pleased to represent as my careless inaccuracy, but what the whole world, save himself, would instinctively perceive to be nothing more than pure banter; when all the while, in perfect honesty, the identical demonstrative passage, which was effectually to demolish my credit, had actually been already cited by myself.

I regret to say that, even in popish and Socinian writers, I have rarely met with a more gross perversion to serve a turn in contro

versy.

II. Mr. Dowling, however, talks of my "attempting to press history into the service of a theory."

1. It is marvellous that he perceives not my alleged practice to be precisely his own actual practice.

To the great amusement, I doubt not, of the Romish followers of Bossuet, who either believe or, for obvious reasons, affect to believe, that the Paulicians, and their spiritual descendants the Albigenses, were rank Manichéans, Mr. Dowling has resolutely taken up, in evident good earnest, the asserted opinion of the renowned bishop of Meaux, and has determined that the Paulicians (and also, I conclude, the Albigenses,) shall be all Manicheans of the first water.

Under this aspect it is quite in vein, that both Photius and Peter Siculus attest their rejection of Manes, and all the writings of the Manicheans, their strenuous reception of nothing save the New Testament, and their perfect innocence of tampering with the inspired text (as the real Manichèans were notoriously wont to do, in order that it might thus serve their own purposes), to make it speak the language of Manichèism. All this is quite in vein. Those two prejudiced writers, Peter and Photius, assert, with every mark of inconsistency and falsehood branded upon their assertion, that the Paulicians were Manicheans; and forthwith Mr. Dowling, with entire sincerity, I doubt not-for we all know how easily the mind may be honestly warped by a predetermined theory-professes to believe them!

2. With his ready credulity I have no quarrel. He has an undoubted right to believe just as much as he pleases; but then I must protest against his being out of humour with my thorough incredulity. Respecting Peter, whom I have fully examined, and respecting Photius, who, from Mr. Dowling's own account of him, seems to be pretty much the mere double of Peter, I am constrained to say, what another writer has said of another witness on another occasion: Ego huic testi, etiamsi jurato, qui tam manifesto fumos vendit, me non crediturum esse affirmo.

III. Mr. Dowling apparently triumphs in my full admission, that the Albigenses were the spiritual descendants of the Paulicians.

1. He has small room, I take it, for triumph. While the popish priests scattered among the vulgar the same idle tales of the Manicheism of the Albigenses that their predecessors in the East had scattered of the Manicheism of the Paulicians, a thoroughly honest writer, Roger Hoveden, gives us in full the open religious confession of these very Albigenses at Lombers, in the year 1176; a confession which at once demolishes the whole Babel of malignant fabrication.— See Roger Hoveden, Annal. fol. 319, in my work on the Vallens, and Albig., p. 234-236.

2. What the confession of the Albigenses was, we may justly deem the olden confession of the Paulicians, who abhorred Manes and his doctrine, and who built their theological creed on the unadulterated text of the New Testament; nor can Mr. Dowling legitimately deny to me this right of retrospective argumentation, since he triumphs in the fact, that the Paulicians were the doctrinal parents of the Albigenses.

IV. The modern speculatists, whether popish or protestant, of whom Mr. Dowling seems so fond, and concerning whom he thinks foul scorn of me that I have never consulted them, are little, indeed, evidentially speaking, to the purpose. Of the real question, the whole pith lies in the two oldest witnesses, Photius and Peter Siculus; or rather, I should say, in Peter Siculus alone, for he spent nine months among the Paulicians. All that Mr. Dowling's moderns can do is, to read lectures upon the text of Peter, with such comments upon it as they can pick up from later and less authoritative authors. The matter must finally be settled by Peter himself, Photius, if we please, being called in as his companion in the witness-box.

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