unscriptural or horrid idea than this fundamental basis of Prelacy; the demission and transfer of Christ's priesthood and kingdom, to earthly representatives and vicegerents; a demission and transfer of prerogatives which he has reserved for himself for ever, and the glory of which he will not give to another!

And yet how unblushingly these claims are put forth; and put forth with scarce a rebuke; with increasing complacency on the part of Prelates, and with increasing belief on the part of their people; may be seen by some extracts from a production of Mr. McCoskry, the present Protestant Episcopal Bishop of Michi gan. In his sermon, 66 Episcopal Bishops, successors of the Apostles," he says, "He (Christ) is the head and permanent ruler thereof; and although now removed from sight, and seated on his mediatorial throne, yet he governs and regulates this Church, or kingdom (as it is frequently called), by his constituted agents, to whom he has committed THE VERY SAME AUTHORITY WHICH HE RECEIVED FROM THE FATHER." 66 Everything that could be possessed by a mere human being, was given by the Saviour." "He was, as the Apostle declares, the head of the body"-" consequently this headship was TRANSFERRED, and all the power necessary to preserve and regulate the body." * "It must follow then, that as Christ is the permanent Ruler and Head of this body now in Heaven, so are those to whom he transferred this power permanent rulers and heads on earth." *

*

"The Apostles were raised to the very same office which Christ himself held, I mean that which belongs to him in his human nature, as head and governor of the Church. They were to supply his place in this respect, and in short, to do everything which Christ would have done had he continued on the earth." They received the full power which Christ possessed, so long as the Saviour exercised the OFFICE OF HIGH PRIEST, and before he TRANSFERRED it to the Apostles, &c."

66

"It cannot be supposed for one moment, that the Saviour would transfer so great an office as he himself had received from the Father, without giving instructions, whether it could

be transferred to others." And this "VERY SAME OFFICE WHICH CHRIST HIMSELF HELD," Bishop McCoskry claims, has been TRANSFERRED and TRANSMITTED down to the Bishops of the present day! And if this has not been done, he declares, that "all who profess to be commissioned as ambassadors of Christ, are gross impostors !"

Surely, the Bishop of Michigan must sufficiently magnify his office. He claims to have received the kingdom of the Church in Michigan! holding the very same office that Christ would hold, were he on earth; with authority to do all that Christ in his hu

• In Boardman, p. 274.

man nature might do, as head of the Church in that peninsula, were he there in person! Surely, if we may borrow an epithet of the old Puritans, we have an abundance of "POPELINGS" in our American Dioceses, each speaking "high swelling words," but scarcely in all one decent POPE. How can it be that Christ can have so many supreme VICEGERENTS, holding each supreme authority over the one Catholic Church? How can it be that there are so many Heads over one single body?

I see that many of the details of Popery are wanting in this system; but the very heart, and frame work, and life-blood of Popery are all here.* Let these principles prevail; let them have

The following extract will show the progress which Protestant Episcopacy is making towards Popery in the Diocese of New York. It is from a funeral sermon, on the death of Rev. Palmer Dyer, late of Whitehall, preached in Trinity Church, Granville, N. Y., by Rev. John Alden Spooner, A. M., Rector of the Church of Messiah, Glenn's Falls, and of Zion's Church, Sandy Hill, N. Y. The extract is copied from the "Protestant Churchman."

He was Baptized. The record and proof of that his CONVERSION is in the Church book at Granville, N. Y. At the sacred fount there his sins were washed away, and he was regenerated."

"He was Confirmed. There is left us no doubt as to his 'receiving the Holy Ghost.' That gift was imparted to him in the Church, by the laying on of the hands' of Bishop Brownell; and the record of it exists. Our ground of humble and scriptural joy is thus enlarged. Union with the mind of God was thus rendered more sure by the possession of the Holy Spirit to enlighten and guide. The heart before cleansed in Baptism, now made the tenement of the Holy Ghost in the lesser Sacrament of Confirmation, had double certainty of improvement."

"Hence, when after mature reading he was led to the belief that among Christians no Baptism had ever been considered unquestionably safe except it were given by a Bishop or by one ordained by a Bishop, he at once ceased to rely on any other, and not only taught so, but set a consistent example by first getting himself rightly baptized in the Church. Hence, too, he was a second time confirmed, because he felt that confirmation came rightly only after Baptism, and not till his Baptism in the Church did he consider himself as baptized at all. And hence, in the awakening to sound truth and early practice which the spirit of God has mercifully granted to part of Christendom in the last twelve years, he thoroughly sympathized; thankful if instead of one accurate and energetic minded Froude to one kingdom, God had kindly given many to each; if, instead of one blameless Pusey to be ignorantly and unrighteously condemned, God had kindly given more than impugners could frame decrees to silence."

"As a final ground of consolation and the crowning and necessary mark of saintship, we notice in the deceased, that he continued and worthily, in the communion of the Church. He knew that out of the fold there could be no expected safety: that out of the ark there could be nothing but the common distraction."

'Nay, if good hope exists for any one, it must be drawn from such deeds and exhibited conduct as could not be well brought together in the last hours of a few painful days, or in the distracted exercises of a last few weeks. Yea, whosoever will have himself and leave for his friends the Bible ground of hope, will have it and leave it to the portraiture following."

"Bible ground of hope requires of a person that he be Confirmed. Without the gift of the Holy Spirit, that which is required to precede all others, is imparted by the laying on of hands.' And in all cases, that in the laying on of the hands of the chief Minister, the Bishop, as an act distinct from Baptism and succeeding to it." "We would have placed before this the existence of habitual private Confession and Absolution. Our judgment dictated to do that in drawing out the case of our departed brother; but our section of Christendom has lost that portion of the Christian's heritage. Yet, as we doubt not that the intervention of the Priesthood is indispensable to a scriptural tranquillity of the conscience, so do we believe that no positive

room, and air, and time, to expand to their natural growth, and there is nothing in Popery more destructive to truth, to freedom, and to true religion, more arrogant, more impious toward God, or more injurious to man.

and undoubting ground of hope can ordinarily exist, either in an individual for himself or in others for him, except that up to the last there have been, as in the case of Hooker (page 7), habitual confession and free and full absolution and benediction."

"It is the absolution and benediction of the Church for which God looks in the individual to determine that he is in favor. It is to the Ministry that God says: Whatsoever ye shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven; and whatsoever ye shall loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.' St. Matt. xviii. 18. Separated, then, from the Church we see no ordinary Bible hope of heaven. Otherwhere than in the Church, and with that Ministry which God appointed, the individual is not 'loosed from sin.'"

"Habitual religiousness demands frequency in the stated forms and acts of piety. Among those forms, the restored elevation of the cross, and habitual and devout crossing of the person, should be distinguished. In our poverty, we cannot, it is true, witness the consecrated Church at the end of every second league; but if we would, we might at such intervals behold the Cross, towards which the traveller might turn, and near which the wayfarer might kneel. And devout crossings of the person, while in every emergency and in every act ve might not by word place ourselves in Christ, by this sacred symbol we should. Crossing ourselves in the beginning of a duty and at its end, as when we rise from our prayer; crossing ourselves at the appearance of danger, or in each hourly act, we thereby invoke the power of Christ and place ourselves with him: and so, from every section could one go to his death from almost within the shadow of the cross, and in any emergency close his eyes in the embrace of the Lord. To such an one no death could be a surprise."

"Again, among those acts of piety that should be frequent, and that, next to the holy Communion, are of chiefest efficacy in making the soul ripe for even an unwarned death, are, habitual private confession, and the Pastor's absolution and the Pastor's blessing. Inflicted Penance is the loving correction that maketh great; the Pastor's absolution and the Pastor's frequent blessing are the purest and richest gifts through Christ on this side of heaven to fit to live, to fit to die, and to insure the best destiny of eternity. Frequency in the stated forms and acts of piety is necessary to habitual religiousness.”

XXIX.

EPISCOPAL EXCLUSIVENESS-ITS BASIS SUPERSTITION.

THE Bishop's charge in Primitive times was a single Church, not a Diocese of Churches. Like our Congregational, Presbyterian, and Baptist Churches, every congregation had its Bishop, and every Bishop his congregation. For a long time these Bishoprics were about as numerous in Christian countries, as Congregational Churches in New England. The parish and the Bishopric were coextensive and identical. Instead of one Bishop in a territory, like that of Connecticut, there were scores, if not hundreds. There were no Diocesans over these congregations and their Bishops; each Bishop was what the Apostles made him and left him, the Pastor of a single Church. If any one will see the proof of this, let him read Lord King, on the Primitive Church; a work which Slater has vainly attempted to set aside. Let him read Mosheim, or the lectures of Dr. Campbell, or the recent works of our own Punchard and Coleman. The length to which these lectures have already been protracted, admonishes me that I ought not to enter upon the details of this part of the subject: nor is it, indeed, necessary. Let me simply quote the conclusions of Archbishop Whately on this subject; conclusions of whose correctness the amplest proof is at hand. "Each Bishop," says Whately, "originally presided over one entire Church. It seems plainly to have been the general, if not the universal practice of the Apostles, to appoint over EACH SEPARATE CHURCH, a single individual." "A Church and a Diocese seem to have been for a considerable time co-extensive and identical." "And each Church or Diocese perfectly independent as regards any power of control." "The plan pursued by the Apostles seems to have been, as above remarked, to establish a GREAT NUMBER of SMALL (in comparison with modern Churches), DISTINCT, AND INDEPENDENT COMMUNITIES, each governed BY ITS OWN SINGLE BISHOP, consulting no doubt with his Presbyters, and accustomed to act in concurrence with them, and occasionally conferring with the brethren in other Churches."

*

Whately (like Stillingfleet) renounces all pretensions to a divine authority for Episcopacy. He denies that modern Episcopacy conforms to the Primitive model; and justifies it only on the ground that the Church has power to alter and arrange its own polity, without being limited and restricted to one particular form. "And they " [the English Reformers], he says, "rest the claims of ministers, not on some supposed sacramental virtue transmitted from hand to hand, in unbroken succession from the Apostles, in a chain of which, if any one link be even doubtful, a distressing uncertainty is thrown over all Christian ordinances, sacraments, and Church privileges; but on the fact of those being the regularly appointed officers of a regular Christian community;" and that regular Christian community, he regards as "a congregation of faithful men,"-" having inherent rights belonging to a community;" to declare what is the regular way of appointing their officers (pp. 123-125). "The Church of England," he maintains, "it is notorious," "does not possess exact confor mity" to the most ancient models. And he adds-"To vindicate them on the ground of the exact conformity, which it is notorious they do not possess, to the most ancient models, and even to go beyond this, and condemn all other Christians, whose insti tutions and ordainers are not utterly like our own-on the ground of their departure from the Apostolical precedents, does seem― to use no harsher expression-not a little inconsistent and unreasonable." "And yet, one may not unfrequently hear numbers of Episcopalians pronouncing severe condemnation on those of other communities, and even excluding them from the Chris tian body: not on the ground of their not being under the best form of government, but of their wanting the very essentials even of a Christian Church; * and this while Episcopa lians have universally so far varied from the Apostolical institutions, as to have in one Church several Bishops, each of whom, consequently, differs in the office he holds, in a most important point, from one of the Primitive Bishops, as much as one of the governors of our colonies differs from a sovereign prince."

Had not this work been already so long protracted, it would afford an interesting and important topic of inquiry, to trace in history the simultaneous growths of prelatical assumption and superstition, as side by side, faithful and inseparable coadjutors, they strode on to an undivided dominion over the understanding, the conscience, and the liberties of mankind. No sooner was the figment of the Christian ministry a priesthood invented, than the path to despotism over the conscience, and to the subversion of the fundamental doctrines of the Gospel, lay open without obstruction. Ambitious Prelates were sure to exalt their ghostly power, and to grasp an entire monopoly of con