LECT. XV.] PRELATISTS ENCOUNTER FURTHER DIFFICULTIES.

373

the apostles, "whose authority to confer the gifts of the spirit is derived originally from the laying on of the hands of the apostles themselves;"-then it is most clearly impossible for any christian now, or ever after, to have any assurance that he has partaken, or that he can truly "partake, of the body and blood of Christ."

And if a hope of covenanted mercy is necessary to christian faith, and peace, and joy, then since this hope, on these principles, is imparted only by the true prelatical successors of the apostles; and since no human being can be certain that his ministers and their predecessors, up to the time of the apostles, were in every respect their true successors, and qualified to act in their name; no human being can, in life or in death, cherish a well-grounded or comfortable hope of eternal life.2

Another consequence of this doctrine,-by which the poisoned chalice prepared for the destruction of others, is shown to convey death to them by whom it was prepared-is, that by making the efficacy of all ordinances to depend on prelates, who by virtue of their lineal succession, are able to convey the necessary grace; they most effectually becloud the certainty of any valid administration of them within their own bounds. For as in all ages, there have been multiplied cases of baptism where no such transmission of "episcopal grace" could take place; so are we informed that "half the existing hierarchy in America have had their baptism and education from dissent;" which baptism is of necessity no baptism, so far as any prelatic efficacy or validity has been conferred upon it. But upon the validity of baptism, rests the validity of all subsequent orders, which must, of course, to be of any value, be grafted on a good tree, springing from a good root; and hence it cannot by possibility be shown, on this theory, that there is a validly ordained minister in any existing hierarchy in the world. Thus are these "conspirators" against the privileges and rights of others to use their own wordsblown up by their own treasonable plot.

That the christian ministry is of divine institution we believe,

1) See ibid.

2) "Let it be THY SUPREME CARE, O my soul"-such is the language which Bishop Hobart puts, in his Companion to the Altar, into the mouth of the communicant,-"to receive the blessed sacrament of the body and blood of the Saviour, ONLY FROM the HANDS OF THOSE who derive their authority by regular transmission from Christ.' "Where the gospel is proclaimed, communion with the church, by the participation

of its ordinances at the hands of the DULY AUTHORIZED PRIESTHOOD, IS THE INDISPENSABLE CONDITION OF SALVA

TION, except in cases of ignorance, invincible prejudice, imperfect reasoning, and mistaken judgment."

3) See e. g. Potter on Ch. Govt. pp. 236, 230, &c.

4) Quoted from an American Episc. author, in British Critic, Oct. 1839, p. 308.

5) Mr. Newman.

and that ordinarily the right to enter upon it is avouched by ordination, we also believe;-and that there ever has been and will be a succession of ministers, is also a part of our faith. But that this ministry is dependent for its existence, on an order of prelates; and that its efficacy flows through their consecration; and that their power to bestow this all-important gift, is determined by the fact of an unbroken lineal succession of such prelates-all this we regard as most perfectly visionary.

We repudiate it as antichristian-as no part of Christ's ordinance,1 and as without any authority from Him, whose ministers and ambassadors we are. Our ministry we have received through prelatists, but not of, by, or from, them. To them we attribute no other virtue than as conveyancers of a divine institution, whose efficacy comes-and COMES SOLELY from a divine power. SCRIPTURE EPISCOPACY is PRESBYTERY, and SCRIPTURE BISHOPS ARE PRESBYTERS. As presbyters we acknowledge and receive prelates, and the ministry from them, as the custodiers of this sacred office; but whatever they claim more than this, cometh not from above-it is an usurpation-and is perfectly null and void, except as to its criminality. We do not regard existing prelates as antichristian-although prelacy, in all beyond presbytery, we must regard as one branch of sacerdotal and unchristian assumption"the stairs and way to anti-christianity" by which it has ascended, and may again ascend to power,-"rather than antichristianity itself." It is because they have thus preserved the substance of the ministry we recognize prelates at all. As for this challenged superiority of prelatic jurisdiction, we know it

It is a nullity, contrary to the sense of the early English church-to the laws of England-to the testimony of most learned Romish divines-and to the judgment of the best writers and churches all the world over. To rest the claims of any ministry to the respect, confidence, and honor of the people, or to a divine institution, on this doctrine of succession, as do high-church prelatists in and out of Rome, in England and in America; is most assuredly to destroy their claims to any respect whatever, with an utter destruction. It is the opinion of Mr. Faber, certainly one of the most learned divines of the present English church, and a firm believer in three orders, and which opinion he sustains by incontrovertible arguments, that "it may perhaps endanger the whole system of apostolical succession, if

1) See Divine Right of the Min

istry, p. 26, pt. ii. 1654.

2) See this fully shown in Powell.

See Divine Right of the Ministry, pt. ii. pp. 18, 22.

LECT. XV.] PRELATIC BIGOTRY AND CRIMINALITY.

375

we rigidly insist upon the absolute necessity of a transmission through the medium of bishops (i. e. prelates) exclusively." "It is most evident," says Dr. Field, a writer of "the very highest authority" with these high-church theologues, "that, that wherein a bishop (prelate) excelleth a presbyter is not a distinct power, or order, but an eminency and dignity only, specially YIELDED to one above all the rest of the SAME RANK, for order sake and to preserve the unity of the church.”2

To pronounce a sentence of excommunication upon presbyterians, and all other of the reformed churches,-which being reformed, are not therefore new, or novel churches, but the preexisting and deformed churches made better-because they reject prelacy; is, we must say, an outrageous violence done to reason, scripture, charity, and christianity; and "doth more advance and honor antichrist, than it doth disparage or disgrace us."3 Such a judgment is self-condemned.

There are three species under the genus bishop. There is the. scripture bishop, which is a presbyter. There is the primitive bishop, which is a presbyter acting as constant moderator or president. And there is the prelatic bishop, of the after agethe lordly claimant to the succession of apostolic jurisdiction, over the only bishops known to the word of God. Now we challenge the whole bench to show any sufficient authority for this third species in scripture, or in the first two centuries,— the diocesan, prelatical successor of apostles, occupying his order as peculiar, supreme, and by divine right."

1) Faber's Albigenses, pp. 553562.

2) Field of the Church, lib. iii. cap. 39.

3) Div. Right of Min. p. 30.

4) See on this threefold distinction, and the whole subject, the Altare Damascenum, Davidis Calderwood, Lugd. 1708, p. 83, &c.

5) "If I were worthy to advise some people,' says the author of "The Rights of the Chris. Church," (Lond. 1707, ed. 3d, pp. 316, 317, &c.) "I would desire them not to act like the executioners of the three children, in venturing to burn themselves, that they might be sure to throw others far enough into the fire; and that they would no more attack the dissenters on such principles as unchurch all who departed from Rome, those who have as well as those who have not bishops. In order to prove this the consequence of their principles, I here demand,

if the church of Christ be (as they affirm) but one, and that those who refuse communion with it, cut themselves off from it, whether the Romish bishops were at the time of the reformation bishops or not? If they were, the protestants, by separating from them, and by setting up a communion in opposition to them, became schismatics, and thereby cut themselves off from this one church; since two opposite communions, as the clergy on all sides hold, cannot be both ministers of the same church; and if one is a member of the true church, the other cannot be so too; and a false church is no church, at least of Christ; and consequently the protestant bishops cannot be governors in the church of Christ, because ecclesiastical headship supposes a union with the body, and they who break that union must destroy any headship, power, or authority they had before over

We must, however, plead against false testimony; or the dogmatic interpretation of the testimony given, in a prelatic sense; or the ex parte decision of these intolerant hierarchs, sitting in conclave, with closed doors, the laity and the clergy being disallowed to speak;—as not the voice of the church; as most insufficient authority; and as nothing more nor less than the judgment of the usurper upon his own claims. But of this, more again.

the body, or any part of it, since by their schism they cease to belong to the body."

"On the contrary, if the Romish church, at any time before the reformation, ceased to be a true church, they ceased to have a right to those privileges belonging to it, of which the receiving and conveying spiritual power or government is on all sides allowed to be one; and consequently, they were incapable of bestowing any on the protestant bishops."

In an article on the apostolical succession, in the London Christian

Observer, (for 1838, App. p. 820,) it
is said, "But in reprehending the
popish abuse of the doctrine of apos-
tolical succession, we would ever
keep in mind its sober and scriptural
interpretation; for never can we
question that our Divine Lord has
always had a church, and that our
portion of it is of apostolical line-
age. But the Romanists' view of
the doctrine is superstitious and un-
warranted by Holy Writ; and when
espoused by any professed member
of the Church of England, IT IS

ALSO AS SUICIDAL AS IT IS UNSCRIP-
TURAL.

"

LECTURE XVI.

THE PRELATICAL DOCTRINE OF APOSTOLICAL SUCCESSION CONTRARY TO THE MORE APPROVED AND CHARITABLE JUDGMENT OF THE ENGLISH AND AMERICAN CHURCHES.

HAVING dwelt upon the unreasonableness of this prelatic doctrine of apostolical succession, we are prepared to show that it has been rejected in whole or in part, by many of the best divines of the English church; and that it is not, in the judgment of a large portion of it, to be regarded as the established doctrine of that church.

We are indeed told by Mr. Vagan, in a statement authenticated by Dr. Hook, that "one of the FALSEHOODS propagated in these days is, that the reformers did not hold the divine right of episcopacy, (prelacy,) but that this doctrine was subsequently introduced." In support of this bold assertion, he alleges that in a certain conference with Romanists, a certain Dean Horn "observed that the apostles' authority is derived upon after ages, and conveyed to the bishops, their sucessors." He then mentions the authority of Bishop Hutton, as the only other ground of evidence, on which to convict the true friends of the church, and of the cause of Christ, of the heinous charge of falsehood.

Now as we have been obliged, "in all conscience," and as we believe, "in all charity," with no hatred or malice towards any individuals, to speak strongly in reprehension of this theoretic doctrine, as being in its necessary tendency in all time to come, and in its actual developments in all time past, evil and greatly evil-we would gladly incur the wrath of such zealots for the "sacred order," if we could be instrumental in wiping off from one of the stars, which shone in the bright banner of the

1) Hook's Call to (dis) Union, p. 2) Ibid, p. 107. 106, Am. Ed.