LECTURE I.

THE NECESSITY FOR AN EXAMINATION INTO THE PRELATICAL

DOCTRINE OF APOSTOLIC SUCCESSION.

WHEN the prophet Jeremiah was commissioned by Jehovah to stand in the gate of the Lord's house, and there call upon all who entered in to worship the Lord to amend their ways and their doings, he was especially enjoined to admonish them not to trust in lying words.1 And what were those "lying words," in which they were not to trust? The people had been led by their false teachers to believe that because the temple, with all its services, its ritual, its forms and ceremonies, and its gorgeous rites, were theirs, and because these had been originally ordained by the express appointment of God, they were, therefore, so unalterably the favorites of heaven as to be assured of God's presence and favor, however perverse and disobedient they might be. Thus were they deluded with the cry, "The temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, are these;" not remembering that He, who ordained the temple was a holy God-that the temple itself was a holy place that the end for which it and all its services were instituted was to promote the holiness of its worshippers; and that, therefore, the further removed they were from holiness of heart and life, the greater was that condemnation in which they were involved by these distinguishing privileges.

And yet, as the same principles of human nature still remain, these ancient Israelites have found imitators in every age and country. So that there are, and ever have been, those who cling the more tenaciously to the form of godliness, by how

1) Jer. vii. 1—4.

much the more they are strangers to its power; and who are therefore "haughty, because of the holy mountains," just because they have no other holiness in which to trust. Forms and ceremonies man loveth, and can, by his natural powers, appreciate and enjoy. These, too, nourish and sustain the righteousness of the self-approving heart; while "the righteousness of God, which is by faith in Christ Jesus," as it excludes all boasting, has ever been a stone of stumbling and a rock of offence.

Hence do we find multitudes, even now, not only within the pale of the Romish church, but also within the limits of the prelacy, and even elsewhere, who look round upon their fellow christians as aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of promise-as lying beyond the precincts of the holy city in the open field of uncovenanted mercy, in all the shame of their natural pollution, unwashed and unsanctified-and as thus debarred from all rightful participation in the blessings of God's sanctuary. Confident in their own claim to the peculiar favor and promises of heaven, they are found boasting that they can call Abraham their father, and that theirs are the oracles of God, with the urim and thummim of sacred ordinances. On these do they build their assured reliance, and while they say to us, who by their decision are "afar off,”-stand by, for we are holier than ye,-in all the sanctimoniousness of these ancient pharisees, do they exclaim, with endless repetition, "the temple of the Lord-the temple of the Lord-the temple of the Lord are we."3

Do we allege these things without foundation, or on insufficient grounds? "We trow not."

There is a time to speak, and a time to be silent. There is a time, when to be silent is treachery; and to speak, fidelity. Such a time to speak is come when charity is violated, and the law of brotherly kindness set at naught; when character is blackened and rightful claims are denied; when truth itself is enslaved to the exclusive interests of a party; and when not only we, but all who may look to us for guidance and direction, are blotted from the book of life, expunged from the roll of christian churches, and positively declared to be "as the heathen."

The doctrine now inculcated, and to which we object, is summarily this: That there is an order of ministers in the christian church distinct from, and superior to presbyters; and who are exclusively entitled to be called bishops. That these, are

1) Zeph. iii. 11.

2) See Note A.

3) See a very valuable illustration of this tendency to trust in

names and privileges in Archbishop Whateley's Origin of Romish Errors, ch. 6. § 3.

by divine right, and not merely by human appointment;-that they possess prerogatives, by pre-eminence, their own-that they, alone, are empowered to ordain,-that their ordination is essential to the validity of a true gospel ministry-that they possess, and can alone bestow, the gifts of the Holy Spirit-and that, without them, all preaching, and all ordinances, administered by such as were ordained in other denominations, are "vain," and "without the promise of Christ," and of course delusive, not only as it regards us who minister, but those also to whom we minister in holy things.

Presbyterian ministers are therefore branded as "pretended ministers"-as guilty of "presumption and daring imposture," "3 but as no "ministry," and their churches "no churches" "withered branches"-as "unauthorized sects."5

We are "protestant sectaries" "sectarions" -"the meetingers”—“schismatics"—"guilty of a most grievous sin” and of "wicked errors"-"self-appointed teachers"_"dissenting mountebanks" and "those beings who pretend to be ministers of the gospel and really are ministers of hell."11

"It is utterly unlawful to attend our ministry," and to hear us "is rebellion against God."12

"Our Baptism is a mockery, which may sprinkle with water on earth, but cannot admit souls to the kingdom of heaven."12

We are declared to be as totally different from the true church and the true ministry, "as a mouse is from a bat,"13 or as "one kind of flesh is from another,"1*—“they are in the church, we are out of it."15

We are therefore (and if all this is true, we are justly) “excommunicated," as being guilty of "a sin against our brethren, against ourselves, against God—a sin which, if not repented of, is eternally destructive to the soul," since "all our acts of separate worship" are to be ranked among the works of dark

ness.1

Our church "sessions are meddling, inquisitorial courts.'

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"Our whole system involves errors in fundamental doctrines,"1 while presbytery and episcopacy are declared to be two opposites.2

"Whereas," says Bishop Beveridge, "in the private meetings, where their teachers have no apostolical or episcopal imposition of hands, they have no ground to succeed the apostles, nor by consequence any right to the spirit which our Lord hath; without which, although they preach their hearts out, I do not see what spiritual advantage can accrue to their hearers by it."3

This is no more than a fractional illustration of that language and sentiment which are now prevalent in reference to Presbyterianism. It may be thought, however, that this is the language of only some few, illiberal, bigoted and extravagant writers. But this is not the case.

This system is not only found in the writings of many old and standard divines of the Church of England, of whom fortythree are quoted in No. 74 of the Oxford Tracts; it is not only receiving extensive currency, by the able and zealous advocacy of certain eminent divines of Oxford; it has not only been avowed by some of the English prelates, and by two thousand of the English clergy; but it is now extending itself widely

1) Oxford Tr., vol. 1, Am. Ed. 2) Dr. Pusey's Letter to the Bishop of Oxford, p. 100. Am. Ed.

3) Sermon on Christ's presence with his ministers; in Works, vol. 2.

4) See the list of them in the Oxford Tracts, vol. 3, Tract 74.

5) Very erroneous conceptions prevail of the extent to which these high-church principles, as developed by their recent advocates, have been diffused.

These doctrines, says an English

episcopal press, "are every where creeping into houses and into churches too.' "Puseyism," which is scarcely a modification of popery, is increasing most fearfully; its votaries boast that TWO THOUSAND clergymen of the established church have publicly or privately announced themselves converts to its erroneous doctrines." Plea for Presb. p. 522.

A Roman catholic priest, in Great Britain, in a public meeting recently stated, that out of fifteen thousand clergymen of the Episcopal church, eleven thousand have embraced these sentiments. The proportion is by no means so large in this country, and the statements respecting the church of England may be exaggerated.

As to the extent of the influence of these views, see also Professor Powell, of Oxford, in his recent work, "Tradition Unveiled, or An Exposure of the Pretensions and Tendency of Authoritative Teaching in the Church." Lond. 1839, p. 1, 2. "It is clear," he says (p. 4) of these opinions of church authority, and others dependent on it, that they "have been extensively adopted and are strenuously upheld, and are daily gaining ground among a considerable and influential portion of the members as well as ministers of the established church."

Dr. Pusey boasts of "the almost electric rapidity with which these principles are confessedly passing from one breast to another, from one end of England to another." Letter, page 230, 231, Edn. 2,-and also of "the sympathy which they found in the sister and daughter churches of Scotland and America." The testimony of R. M. Beverly Esq., who was himself educated at one of the universities, is of weight. In his "Heresy of Human Priesthood," he says, "At last, however, the old Laudean fever has revived, and has spread its contagion through all ranks of the clergy; a swarm of

through the protestant episcopal churches in this country; has been avowed by some American prelates; by some leading journals-by some of their periodicals-and by some of their ministers, in this very city.1

Acting on these principles, the episcopal church, by her Canons, prohibits her ministers from allowing a minister of any other denomination to preach in any of her pulpits-while they, who fully adopt these principles of high-churchism, most carefully avoid any possible occasion—as for instance co-operating in the advancement of any work of common charity or benevolence by which they might "even seem" to acknowledge our claim to the character of christian ministers. The most zealous efforts are also made to put into the widest possible circulation, those works, pamphlets and tracts in which these views are most boldly and pertinaciously advanced. By these, and other means, the minds of many in our communion have been already excited to inquiry on these great questions-while the minds of all must, sooner or later, be turned anxiously to the settlement of the fundamental principles which they involve. From these causes, in different parts of this country, as well as in England and Ireland, ministers of our own, and other protestant denominations, have felt called upon to appear in vindication of their claim to membership in the holy, catholic, and apostolic church of Christ.

Urged by a strong conviction of duty, we have also determined to examine those assumptions, whereby we are to be despoiled of all rigth and title to the character of a church of Christ-the possession of christian ordinances-and a christian ministry. The reasons or some of them-why this course appears plainly and imperatively demanded of us, we will at this time present.

This open discussion of these high and exclusive claims, we owe to their authors and abettors.

However desirable and proper it is for christians to live in

unknown and inferior priests may now justify the adoption of Puseyistic opinions, by reference to the prelates of Oxford and Lincoln, and it is believed, to the Archbishop of Canterbury also." Ed. 2d. pub. in 1839, pp. xi. 74. See also p. 81. See further the Review of Tracts for the Times, Number Ninety, in Edinb. Rev., April, 1841, p. 146.

The recent restriction put upon the publication of what are termed "The Oxford Tracts," will in no degree retard, but rather advance the