by additional testimony from some other quarter. No cause is firm which depends on such a witness.

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But even if this witness is permitted to testify, and is regarded as as credible, what does he prove. Schooled and prepared as he has been, he has not been trained to say exactly the right thing for those who call him to testify. In the first place, for aught that appears, the bishop in every church, about whom he speaks so much, may have been a Presbyterian bishop; and his "council" may have been a ses. sion" of lay-elders. In the second place, admitting that what he calls "the presbytery" consisted of clerical and preaching elders, officiating in various chapels, and all belonging to one church, we see not how it appears that the bishop was any thing more than a permanent president of that body, the princeps senatús, the first among his equals. In the third place, admitting that the presbyters of whom this Ignatius speaks, were merely Episcopalian priests; and that, in the churches to which those epistles were addressed, the clerical body was already divided into three dis tinct orders, it does not appear from the testimony, that a similar arrangement existed any where beyond the limits of Syria and Asia Minor. And in the fourth place, if we admit that the monarchical principle had already established itself in the churches on the European as well as on the Asiatic side of the Mediterranean, and that every where, even as early as A. D. 115, the bishops had become a distinct order from the presbyters; the main point is, after all, untouched. Ignatius, so far as we can see, testifies not one word to the point on which the Episcopalian argument turns, particularly as managed by Mr. Chapin. He does not say that the bishops of whom he speaks were apostles, or that they had the same rank and authority with the apostles of the preceding age. He com.

pares the bishop not with the apostles, but with Christ himself and with God the Father; and it is the presbytery which he likens to the "sanhedrim of God" and the "college of apostles." He says indeed, "that as Jesus Christ, our inseparable life, is sent by the will of the Father," so "the bishops, appointed to the utmost bounds of the earth, are by the will of Jesus Christ;" but he nowhere alledges a divine warrant, or even an apostolical tradition, for a hierarchy subsisting in three orders. The modern doctrine of transmitted apostleship—and par ticularly that important part of it which teaches that the prelate-bishop is the same in order and authority with the New Testament apostle, having only laid down his proper title in excess of meekness-does not appear to have been broached in the days when the epistles of Ignatius were written.

The attempt then to set up the bishops of the Protestant Episcopal church in the United States, as hav ing full apostolical authority not only over those who have agreed to conform to the conventional regulations of that respectable body, but over all Christians. within these territorial limits-is a failure. The argu ment in their behalf fails, at the very point at which there ought to be no room for doubt. That old rusty chain of succession, along which the magnetic fluid is supposed to have been transmitted to their persons, seems glorious and golden to such eyes as Mr. Chapin's; but as for us, even though our faith were easy enough to ad mit that there is no "solution of continuity" under the depth of those dark centuries through which the chain is said to stretch unbroken, we find the first link wanting-the very link on which the whole series is alledged to depend-the link which ought to connect the whole with the original and undoubted

apostles. It is not enough to assert, what nobody denies, that the first bishops, so called in the New Testament, were ordained by the apostles; those are admitted to have been mere presbyters. The inquiry is not concerning a succession from or through New Testament bishops, but concerning a succession of apostles from apostles. It must therefore be proved, not that the apostles ordained bishops and deacons in the churches, and missionary preachers for the work at large, but that they ordained men to the highest of the three orders of the hierarchy; and that they ordained them to be apostles, and, under that name, to exercise in their own persons, and to transmit to other ages all the authority and power which belonged to the original twelve. Till this proof is fairly made out, the succession of prelates is any thing but a succession of apostles.

We promised to say something respecting the Episcopalian doctrine and ceremony of confirmation; but we fear that our readers, wearied with the unexpected prolixity of this article, will be too ready to excuse us. Our remarks then on this topic shall be confined to a brief exhibition of some specimens of our author's exegesis.

Confirmation, as it is prescribed in the ritual of the Protestant Episcopal church, is a public ceremony by which persons who have been baptized, and have come to years of discretion, may acknowledge and renew by their own personal act, the obligations involved in their baptism. It is equivalent to that public profession of religion, which a bap tized person makes at uniting with a Congregational church. As represented in the prescribed "order of confirmation," we find little to object to it, except that one part of the form seems to involve, or at least to countenance, the monstrous dogma of baptismal regeneration. But as Mr. Chapin represents it, it

is an imitation-nay, a shocking parody of that laying on of the Apostles' hands, in connection with which the Holy Spirit was imparted to primitive believers, in the miracu lous gifts of prophecy, of healing, and of tongues. For the texts which speak of such a laying on of hands by the Apostles, and which at the same time speak distinctly of the miraculous descent of the Holy Spirit as the accompaniment, (see Acts viii, 14-20; xix, 6,) are his first proof that the Apostles practiced this Episcopalian ceremony. His second proof is found in the word "confirm,” where Paul and Barnabas are spoken of as revisiting the churches which they had planted, and "confirming" either "the churches," or "the souls of the disciples;" for to him it seems a plain case, that neither a church, nor a believer, can be really confirmed unless by the due performance of some rite of confirmation, which is both "outward and external." His third proof-and it is to this that we would particularly call attention-is found in the language of Paul, where he speaks so strikingly of the "earnest,' the "seal," and the "pledge" of the Spirit. Let us not pronounce a hasty judgment on this piece of interpretation, however surprising ; but let us rather turn to the two passages referred to, and give them a new and deliberate perusal.

The first of these texts is, (2 Cor. i, 20, 22,) "For all the promises of God in Christ," the promises of that gospel which had been preached by Paul and his companions to the Corinthians," are yea, and in him amen, to the glory of God by

us.

Now he who stablisheth us,"(0 de ßeßaior,) he furthermore who is establishing us" with you in Christ, and hath anointed us, is God, who hath also sealed us, and given us the pledge of the Holy Spirit in our hearts." Of this text our author deliberately says, "The whole passage most evidently [!] contains

a reference to the performance of some external rite, by which the recipient was consecrated or set apart to the worship of God through Christ, which [external rite?] was to them not the evidence of their Christian character, but a token of it, and not the Spirit, but a pledge of it in the heart."

The other passage, (Eph. i, 13,) is, “In whom”—that is, in Christ"ye also trusted," ['as we have done'-see the preceding verse,] "after that ye heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation; in whom also, after that ye believed, ye were sealed with that Holy Spirit of promise, which is the pledge of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession, to the praise of his glory." A well known parallel to this is found in the same epistle, (iv, 30,) "Grieve not that Holy Spirit of God by whom ye are sealed to the day of redemption." Of this passage, speaking so distinctly of that inward, living testimony to the truth of the gospel, which the believer finds in the progressive experience of its power, and in the indwelling of the sanctifying Spirit within him,-our author coolly says that it is "of the same purport," as indeed it is, with the one which he has just before construed into a mere recognition of a ceremony. "The reference [to the external rite of confirmation] is so direct, the allusion so distinct, as to be apparent to the most casual reader." What exegesis!

With what spectacles, it will be asked, does this man read his Bible? When it is so perfectly obvious that in both these passages the Apostle is appealing to that experimental proof of the truth of the gospel, which the believer finds in its quickening and sanctifying effects upon himself by the Holy Spirit promised on the condition of his believingan experience which is at once the only true "seal" of the genuineness of his subjective faith, and the "earnest," the pledge, the begun

fulfillment, the first instalment, of those exceeding great and precious promises which are the object of his faith-when it so evident that Paul means, in both these passages, just what John means when he says "He that believeth hath the witness in himself,"—what must be the condition of that man's mind, who with the Bible open before him can see nothing here but an Episcopalian confirmation? How is it that he contrives to miss the plain meaning of passages so spiritual and experimental? How is it that in de fiance of text and context, he is induced to force upon the Apostle a meaning so foreign to his language and his argument? The natural history of this abnormal condition of a mind not unendowed with common sense, nor unprivileged in respect to information, might be stud ied to advantage.

Such exegesis originates in the author's false or imperfect concep tions of the genius of Christianity. His mind is full of the visible in religion-the "outward and exter nal." Organization and order, hierarchies, ordinances, rites, liturgies, ceremonies, and vestments, have occupied his thoughts and kindled his enthusiasm, till they rise before him, always and every where, like a morbid hallucination. Thus with him, the visible, or what he supposes to be the visible in Christianity, eclipses the spiritual; and when he reads his Bible, the images that are dancing in his brain seem to dance upon the sacred page. Thus if he finds Christ praying for the redeemed that they all may be oneone in their Redeemer and their God-one in that unity of holy pur pose and desire, and that unmeas ured communication of the Holy Spirit, in which the incarnate Son is one with the Eternal Father-he construes all that as if the Savior were speaking of an organized and outward unity. Thus, too, if he finds Paul speaking of believers as anointed and sealed with the Holy

Spirit, and as receiving in this fulfillment of a gospel promise a blessed pledge that all shall be fulfilled -this is to him "most evidently," most visibly and palpably, a reference to the "external rite" of confirmation.

Such a habit of mind has been aggravated in the present case, if it was not originally induced, by an ill directed study of the Fathers. Our author probably values himself upon his patristic learning. We give him full credit for having expended much time, and much patient attention, on this particular branch of theological study. We think indeed that he has read the Fathers more than was good for him, unless he had read them in a different way and for a different purpose. He has studied them, but he has not mastered them. On the contrary, they have mastered him, and he has sat at their feet, and humbled his common sense to learn of their ignorance and superstition, till they have taught him to reason almost as childishly, and to misinterpret Scripture almost as wretchedly as they do.

We counsel him, therefore, to eschew the Fathers. To him they have been and will be blind guides. Let him study Baxter rather than Origen, Dwight rather than Irenæus, Chalmers rather than Tertullian. Instead of stumbling on the dark mountains of Clemens Alexandrinus, let him take a course of logic under the archbishop of Dublin. We do not recommend the archbishop's treatise on the kingdom of Christ to his present attention, but only the Logic, for we remember that "strong meat" is not for all, but only for those that are able to bear it. Let him get rid of his patristic logic, his patristic interpretation, and his patristic divinity, and ere long, it may be hoped that the mists which hang over his Bible, dimming its blessed light, and re

fracting its spiritual revelations into a strange confusion, will clear away. Then he will understand that the Christianity of the Bible is larger than Episcopalianism, and more glorious than that chimera of organized catholicity," to which so many blinded minds are ready to do homage.

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It is not in any hostility to that body of professed Christians of which this author is a member, and the peculiarities of which he has undertaken to maintain, that we have animadverted so freely on the book before us. We respect that sect, as we respect other sects, not for those matters of organization and form in which it differs from the rest of Protestant Christendom

not for its threefold hierarchy, its printed prayers, its white-robed priests, or the pretense of an exclusive validity' in its sacraments— but for whatever of simple Christian truth is proclaimed from its pulpits; for whatever of spiritual worship is breathed out towards heaven from its assemblies; for whatever of the power of godliness dwells in the hearts and glows in the lives of its members; and for whatever efforts it is putting forth at home and abroad, in love to Christ, to make known to all men that doctrine of the cross which is the wisdom of God and the power of God to salvation. Episcopalians ought not to imagine that they are assailed, or that we attempt to exclude their church from the visible body of Christ, when we expose the follies and the errors of a book like this. In showing what this book is, we are rendering to them, as a Christian community, a service, for which they ought to be grateful. If such books are to have circulation and authority among them, and are to operate in forming the minds and the hearts of their clergy and their laity, their church must be the suf ferer.

- FEW travelers have found more inducements in past popularity, to continue their wanderings over the world, than Mr. Stephens. His ear lier works on some parts of the eastern continent, although hasty and inaccurate, were so full of good nature and of entertainment, that the reader closed them with a feeling of personal friendship for the author. In his Central America, he attempted somewhat higher things. His preparation, indeed, for investigating the ruins of that country, was apparently but small; his accuracy in description, we suspect, was not equal to that of ordinary travelers. Still his enthusiastic ardor in exploring the architectural remains of Copan and Palenque, amid the greatest discomforts; his narrative of a dangerous journey through a country in a state of anarchy and revolution, together with his perpetual good nature, and disposition to make the least of all annoyances and hardships;-these valuable qualities of a traveler again ensured him success with his readers; while the really valuable results of his journey raised his work above the level of those which are written for mere amusement.

The work before us, is to be regarded as a continuation of Mr. Stephens' travels in Central America, which were broken off soon after he reached Yucatan, by the illness of the accomplished artist who was his companion. On their return to Yucatan, the Spanish gentlemen, with whom they had become acquainted during their first visit, did all in their power to promote their objects. Letters of recommendation, and fa

vorable notices in the newspaper at the capital, gave them every encouragement at the outset of their enterprise. When they reached the interior, the country houses, and the laborers on the farms, were put at their disposal. The curates assisted them with information and advice, and became their most hospitable entertainers. And though few felt much curiosity concerning Indian ruins, and the majority, perhaps, wondered that men could come so far on such a business; still every kind attention was paid to them, except that of assisting them in their explorations. That would be too much labor to be expected of the indolent Spaniards of Yucatan.

But with all this, the embarrassments they met with, were little less than those of their tour in Central America. The rainy season was of unusual length, and instead of ending soon after they reached their field, hung on until their frames felt its worst effects, in fever and ague. When they came to a ruin it was overgrown with large trees, to say nothing of bushes, which must be felled, for the sake of the drawings. No surveyor of the route for a railroad at the west, or layer out of cities in the woods, ever had more to do, than our travelers; and certainly none ever had more inefficient helpers, than an ignorant Maya Indian. Among their troubles, not the smallest arose from the smallest cause. From the bushes which they brushed by, multitudes of garrapatas or wood-ticks dropped upon them, and penetrating the skin, produced such torment, that, between the fever and ague and these little animals, one wonders how they came away alive, and admires their resolution in not coming away re infecta.