NOTES TO LECTURE VI.

153

must run, do generally, if not universally, relate to their character as bishops, and not as presbyters. Thus, for instance, none dispute Dr. Parker's ordination as a presbyter: but many question, for the reasons that have been mentioned, whether his consecration as a bishop was regular or even valid. Now, though our ordinations are derived from him, as well as yours, yet they are not at all affected, according to our principles, by the dispute about his consecration; for we believe that he had power to ordain as a presbyter: whereas, according to your own principles, all your ordinations do absolutely depend on the validity of his disputed consecration. If his consecration was invalid, all your ordinations are likewise invalid and as his consecration is, at best, much disputed, and very doubtful, 't is impossible that your ordinations, which depend upon it, should be clear and indisputable.

"Upon the whole, if I was now to be ordained, and thought it my duty to seek ordination where there was the fairest probability of being within the uninterrupted succession, I should think myself much safer in taking presbyterian ordination, than episcopal orders. But, after all, as the gospel has not by express and positive prescription, made an uninterrupted succession of regular ordinations, in any line whatever, absolutely essential to the ministerial character, I conceive we have no right to make it so; and since God has not in his providence kept up clear and certain evidence of the fact, I can't but think it is very dangerous for us to pretend to it; and that it is in effect giving up the cause of christianity to make the lawfulness of the ministry, and the validity and effect of gospel ordinances, absolutely to depend upon it."

So in the Sketch of Hist. and Princ. of Presb. in Eng. p. 38: "And no scripture can be adduced to prove that the twelve apostles, either received a commission to ordain, or did ordain, or gave authority to ordain; while it is quite clear that others ordained who were not apostles, (Acts xiii. 1, 3;) or, if the apostles ordained successors, it was simply successors in the ministry of the gospel, not in the apostleship. Indeed, not one single passage of scripture can be adduced to show that consecration and ordination are two distinct things, that there is one way of appointing prelates, and another way of appointing priests or presbyters, the former of which is transmissible, and the latter not transmissible."

Baxter uses another argument to show the unscripturality of prelacy. "I prove," says he, (Five Disputations on Chr. Gov. 1658, Disp. 1, Arg. 10, p. 51; see also p. 67,) "the minor according to their own interpretation of Titus i. 5, and other texts. Every city should have a bishop and it may be a presbytery, (and so, many councils have determined; only, when they grew greater, they except cities that were too small; but so did not Paul.) But the episcopacy of England is contrary to this; for one bishop only is over many cities. If therefore they will needs have episcopacy, they should at least have had a bishop in every city. Now, when the apostle formed new churches with officers over them, he gave them no authority to institute any different kind of churches, or any different order of ministers, but only such as he had appointed to succeed them in the same office.'

"Now, if the apostles," says Mr. Baynes, (Diocesan's Tryall, p. 66,) "had done this with reference to a further and more eminent pastor and governor, they would have intimated somewhere this their intention; but this they do not; yea, the contrary purpose is by them declared. For Peter so biddeth his presbyters feed their flocks, as that he doth insinuate them subject to no other but Christ, the arch-shepherd of them all. Again, the apostles could not make the presbyters pastors without power of government. There may be governors without pastoral power; but not a pastor without power of governing. For the power of the pedum, or shepherd's staff, doth intrinsically follow the pastoral office."

NOTE D.

I WILL here give another illustration from the Old Testament, taken from a very rare treatise of Matthew Henry, not found among his published works, and preserved by the Rev. Shepard Kollock. It is “A Brief Enquiry into the Nature of Schism." (Lond. 1717, pp. 5, 6, 7.) "Only one scripture

occurs in the Old Testament, which perhaps will help to rectify some mistake about schism. It is the instance of Eldad and Medad, who prophesied in the camp. The case, in short, is this: Eldad and Medad were persons upon whom the spirit rested, i. e. who were by the extraordinary working of the spirit endued with gifts equal to the rest of the seventy elders, and were written, i. e. had a call to the work, but they went not out unto the tabernacle as the rest did, though God himself had appointed that they should, v. 16. And they prophesied in the camp, i. e. exercised their gifts in private among their neighbors, in some common tent. Upon what inducements they did this, doth not appear; but it is evident that it was their weakness and infirmity thus to separate from the rest of their brethren. If any think they prophesied by a necessitating and irresistible impulse, they may remember, that the spirit of the prophets is subject to the prophets. "Now, if some of the schismaticating doctors that the church has known had but had the censuring of Eldad and Medad, we should soon have had a judgment given against them much more severe, than would have been awarded to him that gathered sticks on the sabbath day.

"And 't is confessed, all the circumstances considered, it looks like a very great irregularity, especially as an infringement of the authority of Moses, which they who prophesied in the tabernacle under his presidency manifestly owned and submitted to.

"Well, an information was presently brought in against them, v. 27. Eldad and Medad prophesy in the camp, that is, to speak in the invidious language of the times, there's a conventicle at such a place, and Eldad and Medad are holding forth at it.

"Joshua, in his zeal for that which he fancied to be the church's unity, and out of a concern for the authority of Moses, brings in a bill to silence them; for, as hot as he was, he would not have them fined and laid in the jail for this disorder neither; only, my lord Moses, forbid them: not compel them to come to the tabernacle if they be not satisfied to come, only for the future prohibit their schismatical preaching in the camp. This seemed a very good motion.

"But hold, Joshua, thou knowest not what manner of spirit thou art of. Discerning Moses sees him acted by a spirit of envy, and doth not only deny, but severely reprove, the motion, v. 29. Enviest thou for my sake? Would to God that all the Lord's people were prophets, provided the Lord will but put his spirit upon them. He is so far from looking upon it as a schism, that he doth not only tolerate but encourage it. And O that all those who sit in Moses' chair, were but clothed with this spirit of Moses."

LECTURE VII.

THE PRACTICAL DOCTRINE OF APOSTOLICAL SUCCESSION TESTED

BY SCRIPTURE.

THE SUBJECT CONCLUDED.

WE have already brought this prelatic doctrine of apostolical succession to the balances of the sanctuary. We have shown first, that when thus tested, it is found to be contrary to the spirit and teaching of the scriptures-secondly, to that one ministerial commission upon which the christian ministry rests its entire authority, and which recognizes only one orderand thirdly, to the divine promises, as contained in scripture and which cannot, without the greatest violence and arrogance, be exclusively appropriated by the clergy of any denomination or by any particular or self-styled Catholic church.1

1) As a further exhibition of the importance attached by its advocates to this doctrine, take the following: "Such, therefore, as have laid aside ordination by the highest grade of the ministry, and substituted in its place ordination by the second grade, have lost the sacerdotal office; and this office being essential to the very existence of the church, they can no longer be regarded as in a church state. Dr. How's Vind. of the Prot. Ep. Ch., p. 123.

Baxter, in his True and Only Way of Concord, (Lond., 1680, Pt. iii., p. 90, 91,) gives the following abstract of Dodwell's doctrine on this subject, whose book he professes

to answer:

"1. That the ordinary means of salvation, are, in respect of every particular person, confined to the episcopal communion to the place he lives in, as long as he believes

"2. That we cannot be assured that God will do for us what is necessary for salvation on his part, otherwise than by his express promises that he will do it.

"3. Therefore we must have interest in his covenant.

"4. Therefore we must have the sacraments, by which the covenant is transacted.

"5. These, as legally valid, are to be had only in the external communion of the visible church.

"6. This is only the episcopal communion of the place we live in. "7. The validity of the sacraments depends on the authority of the persons, by whom they are administered.

"8. No ministers have authority of administering sacraments, but only they that have their orders in the episcopal communion.

"9. This cannot be from God, but

We will now endeavor to show that this doctrine of prelatical succession (for we ourselves claim a ministerial,-though not a lineal and personal succession,) is equally as contrary to the facts of scripture as it is to its spirit, its principles, its teachings, its promises and its predictions.

Ordination, we are told, by the imposition of the hands of a prelate, is essential to the validity of the ministry,1 to the efficacy of ordinances-and to the visibility and perpetuity of the church of Christ. And this succession is mediately derived from the apostles, the first duly commissioned prelates of the church.

Now is it not a most wonderful thing that ordination should make individuals now, what it did not make them in the days of the apostles ?3 For the apostles were not made bishops by ordination; neither were they ever ordained at all, as preliminary to their ministry. And when they, in joint conclave, filled up the vacant see, which had been voided by the death of the apostate metropolitan Judas, it is further true, that even when thus left to themselves, our Lord having gone to heaven, "they did not ordain in the manner afterwards adopted by the

"11. That the ordained have no more or other power than the ordainers intend or profess to give them.

"12. That it is certain, that the bishops of all former ages intended not to give presbyters power of ordaining or administering out of their subjection; ergo, they have it not.'

1) Mr. Keble labors to prove, that it is the doctrine of the Church of England, that the Holy Ghost is really communicated by a supernatural gift, with the imposition of the prelate's hands, and that thus "the episcopal succession is a channel of special graces." He shows, that the words in the ordination service are to be taken literally, not as a prayer, but as expressive of an actual bestowment; for which, he says, "the language of which the, (viz. Mr.

Whitgift,) was so unrivalled a master, fails him, as it were, in his endeavor to find words to express the greatness of the gift which he there apprehended." According to Whitgift, "the same power is now given, (Mr. Keble's italics,) as was originally given to the apostles. So that "he which receiveth the burden is thereby forever warranted to have the spirit with him and in him, for his assistance, countenance and support. "Whether, therefore, we preach or pray, baptize, &c., our words, judgments, acts, and deeds, are not ours, but the Holy Ghost's.' "The power of the ministry giveth daily the Holy Ghost." For all this, he adduces also the authority of Hooker, (Primit. Trad., p. 102-104,) as he might also that of Bishop Beveridge. See Wks., vol. ii., passim.

2) See Palmer, i., p. 161, &c., and vol. ii., p. 440, 443.

3) Baxter, in his True and Only Way of Concord, Lond., 1681, p. 212, largely proves, that in cases of necessity there may be a true bishop or presbyter, without any ordination. So also in Part iii., p. 79.

4) Bishop Beveridge affirms, that Christ, during his personal ministry, did not ordain the apostles. Wks., vol. ii., p. 116.

LECT. VII.]

SCRIPTURE FACTS VERSUS PRELACY.

157

laying on of hands." Such, then, was the case as it regards Matthias. Ordination, therefore, can never continue in successive impartations, what it never originated. Nor can it be either a necessary and inseparable sign or seal of that grace and authority with which it never was connected by divine appointment, or under divine teaching and example;-since without it, those very gifts were bestowed on the very persons who are made the patterns of all their successors.

So utterly unknown to the sacred writers was this theory of sacramental ordination, as the great means of all clerical grace, that when Paul the apostle, who had already approved his apostleship by many a hard encounter and by numerous seals of his ministry-when this same Paul was to be sent forth on a mission to the heathen-he was, by the express dictation of the Holy Spirit, ordained with the imposition of the hands of three brethren belonging to the church at Antioch, called teachers and prophets, and of whom, therefore, it were an absurdity too gross for the most credulous to believe that they were prelates and not rather simple presbyter-bishops.3

Timothy, in like manner, was set apart by the laying on of the hands of a presbytery or company of presbyters. And who can imagine that, at this period, there were prelates numerous enough to have canonically consecrated Timothy? And who can believe these prelates would be denominated by the name of that very order which it is now "a fundamental article" "of the very substance of the faith," and "essential to salvation," to believe to be excluded by divine appointment from such a blasphemous presumption as the attempt to ordain, and above all, to ordain a prelate? But let us imagine Timothy to be, for a moment, duly consecrated a prelate. In the very fact, that the Holy Ghost, in recording his ordination, uses words which, by the universal suffrage of the Latin, and many of the Greek fathers and by the interpretation of common sense, refers to presbyters, there is demonstrative evidence that no such

in the Ancient Church, proposed in the year 1641," (London, printed 1656, p. 3.) "Ignatius understood the community of the rest of the presbyters or elders who then had a hand, not only in the delivery of the doctrine and sacraments, but also in the administration of the discipline of Christ, for further proof of which we have that known testimony of Tertullian, in his general apology for Christians. "The presidents who bear rule therein are certain approved elders, who have obtained this honor, not by reward,