NOTES TO LECTURE IV.

103

ignorant of it, without damage of his salvation;" and Lactantius thus, "Those things can have no foundation, or firmness, which are not sustained by any oracle of God's word." Again, "I will not that the holy church be demonstrated from human reasonings, but the divine oracles."

See the quotation from Eleutherius, bishop of Tyana, A. D. 431, “against those who declare that we ought neither to search into, nor speak from scripture, being content with the faith they possess," in Clarke's Succ. of Sacr. Lit. vol. ii. p. 197. See similar sentiments from Theodoret, Cyril and Basil, in Usher's Answ. to the Jesuit, p. 35. See also Cyprian, Epist. 63 and 64, Tertullian, lib. de Veland. Virg. cap. 1. And lib. de Amma. cap. 28.

NOTE C.

We will here add some additional testimonies and remarks.

Mr. Keble, in his Primitive Tradition, says, "he does not see how without its aid" ("the chain of primitive tradition") "the very outward face of God's church and kingdom among* us could now be retained," and he enumerates as among "the points of catholic consent known by tradition," and which "constitute the ties and knots of the whole system," "the apostolical succession."t

So on p. 76 he expects from this tradition "the proving the existing church system divine in many points where they ignorantly supposed it human."

Nevertheless, this same writer has this declaration: "It is among the privileges reserved for serious inquiring piety, to discern an express will of God, as well in these ecclesiastical laws, as in others more immediately."§

The following is the confession of bishop Croft in his Naked Truth or the True State of the Primitive Church || "And I hope my readers will see what weak proofs are brought for this distinction and superiority of orderno scripture, no primitive general council, no general consent of primitive doctors and fathers, no, not one primitive father of note speaking particularly and home to our purpose; only a touch of Epiphanius and St. Austin upon Aerius, the Arian heretic, but not declared, no, not by them, an heretic in this particular of episcopacy."

Professor Powell, of Oxford, in his Tradition Unveiled, says of the highchurch party, that "the traditions readily allow (which must appear to a strict inquirer) that all such appeal to written evidence alone is utterly insufficient to establish the point. No such institution. complete and distinct, is to be found in the New Testament, positively delivered, or strictly deducible; no code of its constitution laid down like the Levitical in the Old. Tradition, however, supplies the deficiency."

This silence of scripture is admitted by bishop Skinner, who offers some solution of the fact. See his Vindication, p. 134, and Dr. Mitchell's Letters, p. 59, &c.

The same thing is admitted by Dr. Cooke. "How," he asks,* ** "can the scripture assert beforehand that a thing is done? (that they succeed, in the present tense.) What Episcopalians, therefore, would be simple enough to expect to find a passage in scripture, asserting that the bishops do succeed the apostles in their apostolic office?" However this be, it might reasonably have been expected that the scriptures would have made it plain that it was the purpose of God that prelates alone should succeed the apostles.

That the claims of prelacy rest, after all, upon patristic tradition, is evident from the whole tenor of Dr. Bowden's Letters. See Wks. on Episcop. vol. i. pp. 106, 115, 116.

It is here, therefore, to be observed, that even were this doctrine embodied in the present standards of the English church,*** "she did not take her direction from the scriptures only, but also from the councils and examples of the four or five first centuries, to which she labored to conform her

*4th edn. p. 38.

See also p. 78.

See do. pp. 39, 40.

Scott's Coll. of Tr. vol. vii. p. 306.

||See p. 19. See also pp. 22, 23.59. **Wks. on Episc. Vol. ii. p. 211. ***Dr. Owen, vol. 17, p. 235.

reformation. Let the question now be, whether there be no corruptions in this Church of England, supposing such a natural state to be instituted. What I beseech you, shall bind my conscience to acquiesce in what is pleaded from the four or five first centuries, consisting of men that could and did err, more than that did her's, which was pleaded from the nine or ten centuries following."

Now if this doctrine of succession is by tradition, then it cannot-as prelatists make it-be of the substance of doctrine, or among things necessary to salvation; for this kind of tradition is that which the church rejects, which Taylor repudiates, and in whose disparagement Mr. Keble himself inconsistently joins. "In practical matters," it is said, "tradition may be received, but in doctrinal (with the exception of the creed) it cannot." (Keble, on Prim. Trad. p. 71.) Again "all necessary credenda, all truths essential to salvation, are contained in scripture itself."—(Keble, p. 74.)

It follows, therefore, that either this whole doctrine is not fundamental or necessary, and therefore prelacy is self-condemned; or if it is fundamental, it cannot be proved, or verified by tradition, but must be contained in scripture. But this, it is granted it is not, in any certain and palpable form; and therefore, to affirm, as do these writers, that its rejection unchurches and unchristianizes other communions, is as grossly absurd in reason, as it is heretical in doctrine, and uncharitable in spirit.

LECTURE V.

THE TESTS BY WHICH THIS PRELATICAL DOCTRINE OF APOSTOLI

CAL SUCCESSION MUST BE TRIED.

That we may once more illustrate the nature of the doctrine of apostolical succession, we ask a candid examination of the following passages, which are all extracted from "The Churchman," published in New York, under the sanction of Bishop Onderdonk: the first is from Dodwell, an English writer, quoted in the Oxford tracts-the second from Dr. Hook, an English divine of the Oxford tract stamp-the third from an Address on Unity by Dr. Onderdonk, Bishop of New York-the fourth from a correspondent.

1. "None but the bishops can unite us to the Father and the Son. Whence it will follow, that whosoever is disunited from the visible communion of the church on earth, and particularly from the visible communion of the bishops, must consequently be disunited from the whole visible catholic church on earth; and not only so, but from the invisible communion of the holy angels and saints in heaven, and what is yet more, from Christ and God himself. It is one of the most dreadful aggravations of the condition of the damned, that they are banished from the presence of the Lord and the glory of his power. The SAME is their condition, also, who are disunited from Christ by being disunited from his visible representative."

2. "Unless Christ be spiritually present with the ministers of religion in their services, those services will be vain; but the only ministrations to which he has promised his presence, are those of bishops, who are successors to the first commissioned apostles, and to the other clergy acting under their sanction and by their authority."

3. "None but bishops can unite us to the Father, in the

way of Christ's appointment, and these bishops must be such as receive their mission from the first commissioned apostles. Wherever such bishops are found dispensing the faith and sacrament of Christ, there is a true church; UNSOUND IT MAY BE, like the church of Rome, but still a true or real church,—as a sick or diseased man, though unsound, is still a real or true man."

4. "By being duly admitted members of the church of Christ, men are placed in a covenant relation to God, in which he gives them, on certain conditions, a title to the benefits of Christ's mediation. The means and pledges of this title's being made effectual, are the sacraments, services, and ordinances of this church."

Now, as prelatists have "suspended the validity of their own ministry and ordinances, and the whole christianity of all their people," and their claim to be regarded as a church of Christ at all, upon this doctrine of an unbroken line of valid and successive prelatical ordinations, from the existing incumbents up to the apostles themselves, into whom, as into a fountain of episcopal grace, they all empty themselves—we will proceed to expose the utter groundlessness and absurdity of this vaunted prerogative. Res est ridicula et nimis jocosa.1

Having disposed of this subject, we shall then proceed to show what is the true doctrine of apostolic succession; and that presbyterianism, both as it regards its doctrines and its order, is accordant to the apostolic platform.

This exclusive claim to be THE CHURCH, and the only true church, and the only conveyancer of heavenly grace, we may consider as a fact to be proved, and as a right to be established. Now, in making good these pretensions, there are certain acknowledged principles or canons which have been ratified by prelatical adoption, and by which they may be tested.

The succession which is thus claimed by prelates, is not a succession of christians, nor of ministers, but of prelates; for episcopal ordination does not, we are told, confer any right or power whatever to transmit the sacred gift and grace, except in the one order of prelates. It is, therefore, a personal and exclusive succession of prelates which is to be made manifest. It must then be shown not only that the church has ever existednot only that officiating ministers have ever been found in that church-not only that there have ever been an order of men calling themselves prelates-but it must be shown, that there has been an unbroken succession of true prelates-from the

1) Catullus.

LECT. V.]

WHAT PRELATISTS MUST PROVE.

107

apostles' days down to the present time. For, if there is any reasonable doubt, as to any one link in this lengthened chain, then is their proud boast made in vain.

But, should prelatists even succeed in carrying their chain, in its unbroken continuity, up to the apostles, and thus bridge over the dark chaos of intervening time-they will be required to fasten it surely and strongly to the rock of ages. They must point out and make steadfast where and how, it has entered, as an anchor sure and stedfast, and is infixed in the good foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner-stone.

It will not do for prelatists to deal with this doctrine of apostolical succession, as the Romanists do with that of infallibility. This they assume, as the basis of their system, and as in itself necessary, as the ground and security of the entire building. But, as Mr. Newman in reasoning with the Romanists remarks, this "cannot be taken for granted as a first principle in the controversy, for if so, nothing remains to be proved, and the controversy is at an end." In like manner do we say, in arguing with prelatists: That principle, on which the excommunication of all the protestant churches in the world is to be based, must be shown to rest upon no dubious interpretationupon no questionable meanings,-no interpolated opinions of uninspired and unauthoritative men-no figment of the universal consent of the early church, founded upon the doubtful remains of comparatively a few, self-contradictory fathers.

But, as Mr. Newman says of the Romish doctrine referred to, that Romanists are obliged to maintain it by their very pretensions to be considered the one, true, catholic, and apostolic church, so also do we affirm of prelatists, that they also are obliged to maintain this unauthenticated and equally preposterous dogma, by their very pretensions to be considered the one, true, catholic, and apostolic, church. The absurdity, however, with which such a course is chargeable, is in both cases, equally apparent; and the reasonableness of our rejection of both, until proved by a divine warrant, and fully established in all their parts, equally obvious.

Nor is this all. For, even could we suppose that it had been discovered in the apostolic writings, that such an order of ministers as prelates had been ordained in the churches established by the apostles,-as, for instance, Timothy and Titus; -it would be still further necessary to prove, that this order was instituted by the apostles as a perpetual and unalterable

1) See Lectures on Romanism, p. 68, &c.