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upon the principle of parity, but of imparity; and, consequently, Presbyterianism, which was not introduced in 1560, could not have been retained till 1610. The truth is, that it had no existence till 1580, twenty years after the reformation. And before presbyterian government was established, a still nearer approach to episcopacy took place in the year 1572. The plan of Superintendents was laid aside; clergymen, with the old titles of Archbishops and Bishops were appointed; they were put in possession of the revenues of the sees, restored to the ancient jurisdiction, and made, as formerly, the third estate of the realm; and this government (although not strictly episcopal, because the Bishops were not consecrated) continued till the year 1584."-Unaccountable, indeed, Sir, it is, that you should not be acquainted with these notorious facts.

A third error is contained in the following words. 'In that year, (1610,) Spotswood, Lamb, and Hamilton, were consecrated Bishops in London, by some of the English prelates; and, on their return home, they imparted the episcopal dignity to a number of others. As they had been Presbyters before this time, Archbishop Bancroft proceeded to their consecration as Bishops, without requiring them to be previously re-ordained as Priests; expressly delivering it as his opinion, that their former Presbyterian ordination was valid.'

Surely, Sir, you must know that there is a very different account given of this matter by Heylin, Collier, and Grey. Bancroft, according them, reasoned in a very different manner. He said, "that there was no necessity for the Scotch Bishops passing through the intermediate orders of Deacon and Priest; for that the episcopal character might be fully conveyed at a single consecration ;" and for this he cited two precedents in the ancient Church. The examples were Ambrose, Bishop of Milan, and Nectarius, Bishop of Constantinople.

This is a much better account of the transaction than you have given. You acknowledge that Bancroft placed episco pacy upon the ground of divine right; we may, therefore, very reasonably suppose, that he would act upon a principle that is more consonant to that belief, than the one you imagine he acted upon. The principle, that the highest order necessarily comprehends the powers of the inferior orders, is perfectly correct, and may, therefore, in uncommon cases, be admitted; although, in the ordinary course of things, it will be found expedient to proceed in a different manner.

I really, Sir, am heartily tired of examining your statements. Some of them are so totally different from the facts, and others are placed in so unfair a point of view, that I believe our readers will think me fairly discharged from noticing every minute particular of this nature. But allowing that you have fairly repre

n SAGE's Presbytery Untwisted, p. 270, and COLLIER's Eccles. Hist., Vol. II. P. 534, o COLLIER'S Eccles. Hist. Vol. II, p. 702,

sented the assertions of some Episcopalians, and of Luther and Calvin, and others, pray, Sir, to what does it amount? Is truth to be tried by the opinions of a few great men? Does reason say it ought to be? Certainly not. We must examine it by its proper evidence; and when it is established by that evidence, it matters not how many names can be brought against it. Were I disputing with you upon what are called the Calvinistic doctrines, I suspect it would excite in you some degree of indignation, were I to give you a long list of Presbyterian divines who have written against those doctrines. You would, I believe, cut the matter short, and tell me, at once, that the truth of the Calvinistic doctrines is not to be tried in that manner, but by reason and Scripture; and if they can be established upon these grounds, it matters not how many ministers of a Calvinistic Church are opposed to them. This would be perfectly correct, and no reasonable reply could be made to it.

This observation may be applied with the strictest propriety to the present discussion. If I have proved from Scripture and the ancients, that episcopacy is a divine institution, then the matter is settled; and if you could produce fifty times as many names as you have produced, it would be to no purpose, but to mislead the unthinking. The argument (if it be not a prostitution of language to use the word in this case) is, however, of a popular kind, and admirably adapted to make an impression upon those who know not the nature of evidence, and, consequently, can have no fixed principles of reasoning.

But if I have not established diocesan episcopacy upon the · grounds of Scripture and antiquity, my showing that you have misrepresented episcopal writers, is nothing at all to the purpose. In the eye of a philosopher, the controversy was ended with the testimony of Scripture, interpreted by the practice of the primitive Church. And the question concerning the principles of the Church of England, and of her reformers, was closed with the evidence produced to prove that they are episcopal. What a few individuals then may say or think, is altogether irrelevant to the point in dispute. Notwithstanding this cannot be denied, yet I shall consider, in my next letter, what you call the concessions of Episcopalians upon the subject of episcopacy.

It is also, I conceive, needless for me to take a particular view of the sentiments of Luther, and Calvin, and Beza, and other reformers; that has been sufficiently done by Durell, and many others since his day, and lately by Dr. Hobart. It is, I conceive, beyond reasonable controversy, that Calvin, at first, did plead necessity for his departure from episcopal government; and that he did acknowledge it to have been the government of all the Churches upon earth, from the times of the Apostles, for fifteen hundred years together.P "But his extraordinary opinion of

p Institut. Lib. IV, chap. iv. sect. 2,

episcopacy will farther appear in a letter which he and Bullinger, and other learned men beyond sea, wrote in 1549 to Edward the Sixth, offering to make him their defender, and to have Bishops in their Churches for better unity and concord amongst them, as appears from Strype's memorial of Archbishop Cranmer, as likewise from a writing of Archbishop Abbot's, found among the manuscripts of Archbishop Usher." Unfortunately, the letter fell into the hands of the Popish Bishops, Gardiner 'and Bonner, who, in the names of the reformers, returned a surly answer to it. "From that time," says Strype, "John Calvin and the Church of England were at variance in several points, which otherwise, through God's mercy, had been qualified, if those papers of his proposals had been discovered unto the Queen's majesty during John Calvin's life. But being not discovered until, or about the sixth year of her Majesty's reign, her Majesty much lamented they were not found sooner; which she expressed before her council, in the presence of her great friends, Sir Henry Sidney and Sir William Cecil." Had it not been for this unfortunate accident, in all probability, the whole reformed Church would have been episcopal; and, in consequence, the animosity, and mischief which resulted from ministerial parity, have been prevented.

As to Luther, "he professes, that if the Popish Bishops would cease to persecute the Gospel," he and those of his communion, "would acknowledge them as their fathers, and willingly obey their authority, which (says he) we find supported by the word of GOD." Consequently, in his and their opinion, episcopacy was an apostolic institution. And Melancthon, one of the greatest characters among the reformed, "lays the blame on the cruelty of the Popish Bishops, that that canonical polity was destroyed, which (saith he) we so earnestly desired to preserve;" and bids the Papists consider "what account they will render to GOD for thus scattering his Church."s

As to the Church of Holland, it is well known that her divines also pleaded necessity for their departure from episcopacy. Bogerman, the President of the Synod of Dort, lamented to the British Bishops who attended that assembly, the unhappy situation of their Church from a want of Bishops; Nobis non licet esse tam beatis, [we are not permitted to be so happy,] was his solemn declaration.

It is needless to enter into a more minute detail of the testimonies which the foreign reformers have left upon record, in favour of the excellency, expediency, and apostolical institution of episcopacy. Enough has been done to show, upon a general view, that the regimen of the Church of England was formed upon a principle of imparity by apostolic institution; of the Church of Scotland, and the Lutheran Churches in Germany, upon the

q CHANDLER'S Appeal defended, p. 238. r STRYPE'S Life of Parker, p. 70. S CHANDLER's Appeal defended, p. 239.

same principle, but upon the ground of expediency; of the Church of Sweden and Denmark, upon the principle of apostolical imparity; and that the Churches of Geneva and Holland wished for episcopacy, and plead necessity for their departure from it. In a short time, however, they found it more consistent, and more convenient to change their ground; and to justify, by the best reasons which they could invent, what at first they very modestly excused.

Before I close this letter, I shall make one or two observations. 1. It appears from history, that every Church upon earth, before the reformation, was episcopal; and that there were no disputes about ecclesiastical regimen before that period; for the notion started by some of the schoolmen, that Bishops are not a superior order, but a superior degree of the priesthood, cannot be called a dispute about the origin of episcopacy. It must, therefore, strike every reflecting mind as a most wonderful thing, that for fifteen hundred years there should have been no diversity of opinion upon the subject of episcopacy, if parity, according to some modern Christians, had been established by the Apostles; or if, according to others, they had left the government of the Church to human arrangement. There is, perhaps, nothing about which men differ more than about forms of government. In the very nature of things, it must be so. It may, therefore, I think, be fairly asserted, that it was morally impossible for the whole Christian world to have agreed in the episcopal form of government, if it had been left to men to determine for themselves what form they would adopt. Upon no principle, it appears to me, could such uniformity prevail, but upon thisthat the episcopal government was established by apostolic authority; and that, therefore, Christians did not think themselves at liberty to alter it.

The next observation that I would make, is this-that although some of the reformed, either from an unhappy necessity, or from an imperfect view of the evidence by which episcopacy is supported, or from that pernicious principle, that the government of the Church ought to be accommodated to the government of the state, did depart from the primitive regimen; yet, at this day, nine tenths of the Christian world are episcopal. This, I presume, no one will controvert. Now, although I should not choose to assert, without any qualification, that universality of belief and practice in this case is a sufficient proof of the apostolic origin of episcopacy; yet, I do assert, that when this universality can be traced up to the apostolic age, it is a clear and decisive proof of the divine source of this mode of government. Upon this argument I shall say no more at present, as I purpose to exhibit it, in a future letter, in every point of view in which I am able to place it. I have just introduced the observation here to show, that the few deviations from episcopal regimen, which unhappily occurred at the reformation, are but as the dust upon the balance; and that if we must count numbers, this mode of trial, as well as every other, is decidedly in our favour.

LETTER XVI.

REV. SIR:

To notice all the intimations, inferences, and positive, unfounded assertions in your 'letters,' would necessarily extend this discussion to an intolerable length. I shall, therefore, bring to view only those assertions, which are best calculated to mislead the unlearned and the unwary.

What further strikes me as worthy of notice in your sixth letter is, first, your assertion, that the Church of Sweden, although she has officers with the title of Bishops, yet those Bishops are no more than Superintendents, such as govern the Lutheran Churches in Germany.

In answer to this, I have nothing more, to do than to refer you to your own quotation from Mosheim. He is undoubtedly good authority upon this point. He says, "The internal government of the Lutheran Church seems equally removed from episcopacy on the one hand, and from Presbyterianism on the other, if we except the kingdoms of Sweden and Denmark, which retain the form of ecclesiastical government that preceded the reformation, purged indeed from the superstitions and abuses that render it so odious."

For

The form of government preceding the reformation, was undoubtedly episcopal; and this form, Mosheim says, was retained; consequently, the Swedish Church is strictly episcopal. this reason, a Presbyter of that Church would not be re-ordained by our Bishops; while a Minister of the Lutheran Church in Germany, or in this country, would be re-ordained; because the Lutherans, both here and there, have not Bishops, but Superintendents.

You observe, Sir, that' several of the foregoing remarks apply to the United Brethren, or Moravians. They, indeed, have Bishops in their Churches, but explicitly renounce all claim of divine right for their system.' They have, then, it seems, by your own acknowledgment, a valid episcopacy. In this, you are undoubtedly correct. Archbishop Potter, when the Moravians first appeared in England, particularly examined their episcopacy, and pronounced it apostolical. Now, this is their own opinion of it, as well as the opinion of the English divines. If, then, in their own opinion, it is founded upon apostolical institution, sanctioned by the HOLY GHOST, it must necessarily be of divine appointment; and consequently, as the power of ordaining was from the beginning attached to the Apostles and their successors, the Bishops, wherever that order is wanting, the proper ordaining officer is wanting. This being the case, if they do not claim a divine right for their episcopacy, and do not re-ordain those that were ordained by Presbyters, it appears to me, that they act very inconsistently. For their episcopacy VOL. I.-19

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