LECT. VIII.] THIS SUCCESSION A FACT TO BE PROVED.

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regum, but it cannot be pretended to be de jure regis regum. It may be delivered ex cathedra, but it cannot be proclaimed "as by commandment of the Lord." To impose it as a heavy burden upon the consciences of all men, is wantonly to usurp the throne of judgment-for all judgment is committed unto the Son. It is to affront the supremacy of Him, who has not vacated his throne, but ever lives as head over all things to his church. As a question of conscience, the matter is thus clearly decided. No possible doubts or fears can have place respecting it. We may sit unmoved and unharmed, whatever fiery assaults may be made upon us, and their combinations, anathemas, and badly mimicked fears, we may treat as the idle wind, which we regard not; "for where there is no law, there is no transgression."

But satisfactory as is the conclusion to which we are thus led, it may be well, for our full confirmation, to bring this doctrine to the tests of some other principles; and first let us try it by the standard of history.

To this investigation we are indeed challenged in a voice not less bold and confident of victory than that of the giant Philistine, when he scowled defiance upon the army of the Israelites. Peradventure, if God shall give his assistance, this boasting may be found as vain and profitless, even though a David may be wanting to fight the battles of the Lord. The cause is safe, whatever may be the portion of its advocates, since victory is already sure. "These," we are told, are "mainly matters of fact, resting upon history, and not on preconceived opinions, and controversalists must be reminded that they are to be dealt with as facts, and can be met only by historical contradictions."1 So says Bishop Seabury: "there is no other way left to obtain a valid commission to act as Christ's ministers in his church, but by an uninterrupted succession of ordinations from the apostles. Where this is wanting, all spiritual power in Christ's church is wanting also."2

The fact, then, to be proved, is, as the same writer states it, the derivation of their power from the apostles, through episcopal (prelatical) ordination,-in other words, the apostolical succession. "This succession has been handed down," it is said, "with scrupulous care from the earliest times, and at the reformation, was rigidly preserved in the Church of England." In

1) Oxford Theology in the Lond. Quarterly Review, April, 1840, p. 294. This is an elaborate defence of the Oxford Theology, perhaps by Southey.

2) Sermons, vol. i., p. 12. Brit. Crit., Oct., 1839, p. 309.

"We must be as sure," they say, "that the bishop is Christ's appointed representative as if we actually saw him work miracles as St. Peter and St. Paul did." Oxf. Tr. No. 10, P. 4.

3) Brit. Crit., Oct., 1839, p. 309.

other words, the whole power of the ministry is derived from the apostles through a line of prelates personally succeeding them, every link of which is unbroken and perfect, and which line can be still made clear by every prelate.

It must then, as we have already shown, be made manifest that not a single link is wanting in this entire chain.1 It must be proved that each individual in this succession had received an ordination, which in its form was perfectly valid and beyond doubt. It must be further proved of each individual, that as a subject for that ordination, he was in all respects duly qualified, both as required by scripture and the canons. And further still, it must be proved in regard to each individual, singly and separately considered, not only that he was a fit subject for ordination-not only that he was ordained in due and regular form-but also that all this was true of each of his ordainers. They also, it must be shown, were in number, in character, in standing, and in qualifications, such as to give validity to their act, and thus efficaciously to communicate the plenitudo sacerdotii, the plenitude of sacerdotal grace.

A failure of "proof for the historic fact," in any one particular, regarding any one individual, in this apostolical succession, throws doubt upon the whole; and the certainty of an unbroken line being thus destroyed, the whole pompous fabric crumbles into dust. When a perpetual succession of prelates who have been found duly authenticated' in each of these particulars, and wanting in none, is established, then, and not till then, may our faith be challenged. Till then, we will continue to rejoice that the reformers wrenched this chain from the hands of apostate Rome, and fastened it afresh to the rock of scriptural truth."

Let us first inquire, therefore, whether these conditions can be met in any fairness, as it regards the period immediately subsequent to the establishment of christianity. Supposing the foundation to have been as securely laid, as we have found it utterly insecure, the next most important step would be to approve as sound and good the first links, by which the whole succession is attached to this adamantine rock. Thus only can it be demonstrably transmitted, in uninterrupted succession, to the present time.

Now here we boldly deny, that there does exist any such historical evidence in the first age of the church, as to stamp any traditive doctrine on this point, with a clear and full apos

1) See Brit. Crit., Oct., 1839, p. 309.

2) See ibid.

3) See Lect. V.

4) See Chillingworth, vol. i., p. 106.

5) See Voetius Desperata Causa Papatus, Amsterdam, 1535, p. 268, Lib. 11, Lect. 11, Cap. xix.

LECT. VIII.]

PETER NEVER AT ROME.

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tolical character. There is no such thing as an universal agreement, either as to the facts or as to the doctrine founded upon them, and, therefore, no title of undoubted authority.

As the Anglican church traces up her succession through the Romish church, so that its validity depends upon the validity of that church,1 what is the proof, we ask, for the succession, as commencing with Peter, and descending to the present occupant of the Roman papal throne? This chain, on which is suspended the whole character and hopes of the British hierarchy, is, we aver, defective at the very point where the firmest coherence is needed. "It is indistinct and attenuated, and open to valid objections, at its commencement, where it should have been clear and uncontroverted."

The very basis on which the whole succession is founded, is still open to serious disputation, as untenable and groundless. For that Peter ever was at Rome at all, is a question on which learned men have given very different views.2

On what authority is it asserted that Peter ever was at Rome at all? Besides one or two other fabulous legends about the æronautic flight of Simon Magus, and the personal encounter with our Saviour, when the apostle was again denying Christ by a base and unmanly flight, it is alleged that the sepulchre of St. Peter is to be seen at Rome at this day. But even were the real body of the apostle enshrined at Rome, we know that the translation of the bones and bodies of martyrs from one place to another, is no unusual thing in the history of Rome. But again, how are we to believe that the body of St. Peter is actually at Rome, when, as Dr. Fulke says, "half his body is at Peter's in Rome, the other half at Paul's; and yet he hath another head at John Lateran; and his neither jaw, with the beard upon it, is in France, at Poictiers; at Triers, many of his bones; at Geneva was part of his brain, which was found to be a pumice stone-like as Anthony's arm was found to be a hart's pissel."

1) "From the church of Rome," says Dr. Geo. Miller in his recent Letter to Dr. Pusey, (Lond., 1840, p. 6,) "corrupted though it was, we profess to have received the sacred orders of our priesthood, and the commissioned authority of our episcopacy; and we are accordingly ever ready to acknowledge, as already invested with the holy orders of our church, and therefore requiring no new ordination for admission among our clergy, those of the clergy of that church, who have, from time to time, connected themselves with ours."

3

Laud confesses that this succession stands or falls, with the opinion that the church of Rome "never erred in fundamentals." See Neal's Puritans, vol. iii., p. 189. See p. 193.

"I agree with the Romanists in resolutely maintaining the doctrine of the apostolical succession.' Pratt's Old Paths, p. 221.

2) Spiritual Despotism, p. 303. 3) See this question discussed in Bowers' Hist. of the Popes, vol. i., ch. i.

4) Conf. of Rhem. Test. on Rom. 16, p. 185, Am. ed. and Dr. Willet, Syn. Pap., p. 160.

There is no agreement as to the time when the apostle should have visited Rome. The time specified is absolutely contradictory to scripture history. There are several considerations grounded upon scripture statements, which involve this assumption in impenetrable obscurity, and make it more difficult to believe than to reject the story, as "but a fable.”3 It is also not improbable that Peter died at Antioch and not at Rome.*

The arguments against the supposition by many learned men, have never been satisfactorily answered, while they have been considered irrefragable even by Romanists themselves."

Thus much may suffice, as to the uncertainty which surrounds the question, whether Peter ever was at Rome at all. But that Peter was the fixed and resident bishop of Rome, is a most untenable position, and contrary to all reason."

LECT. VIII.] PETER NEVER BISHOP OF ROME.

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That Peter occupied that chair as the head of the papal succession as the exclusive source of transmitted grace to the church-is a gross and palpable fabrication, destitute of all scriptural basis or historic verity, and the pregnant source of innumerable crimes, and the blackest enormities that have stained the bloody page of ecclesiastical history.

"All unavoided is this doom of destiny." The very core of the papacy is rottenness. The corner-stone is wanting, and its airy castle topples to the ground. There is uncertainty, to say the least, around the very charter from which this whole succession dates its lineage. God in his merciful providence has thus baffled the devices of Satan, and wrested from him this prime principle of intolerance and heresy-the very pillar and ground of the unity and infallibility of Rome.

No one

But let this pass, and supposing Peter to have been bishop of Rome. Whom, we inquire, did this imaginary pope-or these popes-choose and ordain to be his successor? could have dared to assume the apostolate of Peter and the primacy of Rome, the destined mistress of the world, unless called as was Aaron-unless called, chosen, and invested with the keys of earth, hell, and heaven, by the divine apostle. Who was thus chosen, called, and ordained? We ask and demand an answer-Who?

"These great apostles," answers Dr. Hook, "successively ordained Linus, Cletus, and Clement, bishops of Rome," from whom "the prelates in these realms derive their mission by an unbroken, spiritual descent." And "this continued descent is evident to every one who chooses to investigate it." Most boldly spoken. And now, surely, we will have the proof; "for these are matters of fact resting on history, and not on preconceived opinions, and controversialists must be reminded" of this. Unlock, then, your doors, ye guardian prelates, summon to your aid the whole orders of "bishops, priests, and deacons, who can, if they please, trace their spiritual descent from St. Peter or St. Paul." Let it please you to bring forth the priceless Sybil leaves, on which are charactered, in burning proof, strong as of Holy Writ, the insignia of this early royalty. Oh, why so tantalizing to a world ready to pay all due homage to your just honors? or so modest, as to conceal from view the evidences of your unpretending greatness?

To be most serious, (where gravity itself might be overcome, to see this mountainous fabric in laborious agony,) here, again,

1) Dr. Hook's Two Sermons, 3d ed., Lond., 1837, pp. 7, 8.

2) Edinb. Rev. Oxf. Theol. Ap., 1839, p. 294.

3) Dr. Hook, as above.