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Upon this, Law replies, "It is evident from the maxim (for your Lordship asserts it as such), that whatever institutions are observed in any human society, upon this supposition, that thereby GRACE IS CONFERRED by human hands, or by the ministry of the clergy-ought to be condemned; and are condemned by your Lordship." Upon this he makes a home thrust at Bishop Hoadley, from the offices of the Church under which the Bishop was ordained; the office of ordination containing the words "Receive the Holy Ghost," and pretending to confer the Holy Ghost in the ceremonial of ordination. "The Bishop," says Law, "laying his hands on the person's head, saith, receive the Holy Ghost for the office work of a priest." "From this," says Law, "it is plain (1.) that the reception of the Holy Ghost is necessary to constitute a Christian priest: (2.) that the Holy Ghost is conferred through human hands. If, therefore, your Lordship is right in your doctrine, the Church of England is evidently most corrupt. For if it be dishonorable and affronting to God to expect his grace from human hands, it must of necessity be dishonorable and affronting to God, for a Bishop to pretend to confer it by his hands."

"Suppose," says he, "your Lordship was to have been consecrated to the office of Bishop by these words: "Take thou power to sustain all things in being, given thee by my hands: I suppose your Lordship would think it entirely unlawful to submit to the terms of such an ordination. But, my Lord, receive the Holy Ghost, is as impious a form according to your Lordship's doctrine, and equally injurious to the Eternal power and Godhead as the other."

Law proceeds: "Suppose your Lordship had been preaching to the Laity against the authority of the Virgin Mary, and yet should acquiesce in the condition of being made a Bishop in her name, and by recognizing her power: could such a submission be consistent with sincerity? Here you forbid the laity to expect God's grace from any hands but his; yet not only accept office upon a supposition of the contrary doctrine, but oblige yourself, according to the sense of the Church wherein you are ordained as Bishop, to act frequently in opposition to your own principles."

It is but a few days since a Protestant paper in New York, describing an ordination by the Popish Bishop, spoke of the solemn effect of the "thrilling words " "Receive the Holy Ghost." To my mind it was horrible and blasphemous, that a man, pretending to act by virtue of ghostly power running down through a succession of monsters of impiety and pollution, all red with the blood of saints and martyrs for a thousand years-should pretend to have power officially to confer the Holy Ghost! To me it seemed a horrible attempt at aping the Lord Jesus Christ in his omnipotent power. Nor was the impression more favorable when I read an account of the same words being used at the ordination of the present Bishop of the Protestant Diocese of Massachusetts. The nature of the claim-viz. the power offi

Law proceeds to show the claim made by the Church to convey. God's grace by human hands in the office of confirmation. "The design of this institution," says he, "is that it should be the means of conferring grace by the prayer, and imposition of the Bishop's hands on those who have already been baptized." "When the Bishop is said to confer grace in confirmation, this is properly an authoritative benediction." "In this sense the people are said to be authoritatively blessed by the regular clergy, because by their hands the people receive the grace of God's ordinances."

So, when the Bishop or the priest pronounces the customary benediction, Law says, "We do not consider this barely as an act of charity and humanity, of one Christian praying for another, but as the work of a person who is commissioned by God to bless in his name, and to be effectually ministerial in the conveyance of his grace."

Concerning the Lord's Supper, Law asks, as though the power of the sacrament were indubitable, "Can God consecrate inanimate things to spiritual purposes, and make them the means of eternal happiness?"

Of the pretended absolution used by the priests of the Episcopal Church, Hoadley had said, "The same you will find a sufficient reply to their presumptuous claim to an authoritative absolution. An infallible absolution cannot belong to fallible men." To this Law replies, "Is it not as easy to conceive that our Lord should confer his grace of pardon by the hands of his ministers, as by means of the sacraments? And may not such an absolution be justly called authoritative?"

Hoadley had said, "But to claim a right to stand in God's stead, in such a sense that they can absolutely and certainly bless with their voice alone; this is the highest absurdity and blasphemy, as it supposes God to place a set of men above himself; and to put out of his own hands, the disposal of his blessing and curse." To this Law replies: "Now if it has pleased God to confer the Holy Ghost in ordination and confirmation, and only by them, &c., and to annex the grace of pardon to the imposition of their hands on returning sinners; is it any blasphemy to claim and to exert their power?" Again and again he speaks of " annexing grace to sacraments," and making them "necessary to salvation." "Now, my Lord," says he, "these are the sacerdotal prayers which your lordship encourages the laity to despise. Your lordship sets up, in this controversy, against the arrogant pretences and false claims of the clergy."

cially and authoritatively to confer the Holy Ghost-whether uttered by Popish or Protestant lips taken in connection with the claims of Diocesan Bishops, sounds in my ears horrible and discordant-nearly resembling blasphemy.

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From these powers and functions of the priesthood, he argues the "absolute necessity of a strict succession of authorized ordainers, from the Apostolic times, to constitute a Christian priest."

Now compare with this system of Law, the following creed of the "New York Churchman," the organ of the Bishop of that Diocese, and the expositor of the views of the majority of its laity and clergy. "A ministry of the Apostolic succession, empowered to act as Christ's ambassadors and representatives on earth; the divinely appointed limitation of the blessings of salvation and the gifts of the Holy Spirit to communion with this ministry in the sacraments and word and ordinances of the Church; regeneration in baptism; salvation suspended on faith and good works; the supreme authority of Scripture as explained and interpreted by the Church; these are the principles which are plainly written in our Prayer-Book, and these we are resolved, by God's grace, to maintain both in life and death."

Coincident with these views, are the doctrines of a sermon preached A.D. 1843, before the convention of the Diocese of North Carolina, entitled "Sacerdotal Absolution," which teaches that "it is the explicit sense of our Church that the power of remission and retention [of sins] is as permanent as the ministry, and is an essential prerogative of the sacerdotal office;" that "to remit sins," is to be understood in its literal acceptation; and that "such was the understanding of our Church when the Liturgy was prepared;" "that a power was given [to Apostles and their successors] over DOCTRINES and PERSONS;" ""with the specific power of retaining and remitting sins" that to him who is loosed by the priesthood "heaven is opened, to him who is bound, heaven is shut ;" that with regard to " Absolution," "God having appointed an order of men in the world for accomplishing his gracious purposes of mercy toward mankind, makes them his agents in conferring the blessings which he has in store for them" that in absolving sins, the minister, "as representative of Christ, does what Christ himself would do under the same circumstances;" that his "sovereign will ratify the acts of his ministers as much as if they were done by himself;" that "the final purpose of Christ's kingdom on earth being the remission of the sins of men, and his ministers being the authorized agents for fulfilling its offices, who therefore act in his name and in his stead, their acts done with their authority will be ratified and sealed by him as effectually as though done without their immediate agency."" And hence it may be properly urged, of what special and positive value is a ministry, if its service be only of incidental benefit, such as might ensue from the sober action of any man whatever, and not of an appointed and certain efficacy,

one to which mankind, encouraged and fortified by the promise of God, can confidently resort as the divinely authorized agent for dispensing grace to the soul. A true authority implies either an inherent or accompanying power, which is competent to all the purposes for which it is held; that is, in the present instance, the ministry have either an inherent or accompanying power to FORGIVE SINS, by pronouncing the formula of absolution!"

*

Such is the doctrine of all Churchmen who regard their Church as having a divine and exclusive right. It is the doctrine, not so much of Pusey, as of the Church itself. The Church compels all her ministers, high or low, to act in accordance with it, in denying all other ministers to be ordained. It acts out the same system in ordaining over again all ministers who come to their fold from the Protestant ranks, and in receiving without re-ordination all priests who come to them from the Church of Rome. There are indeed evangelical ministers in the Episcopal Church, who reject these views, but Mr. Barnes has well shown their "position."* The Church is against them. Its offices compel them to belie their sentiments, at every baptism, confirmation, and ordination. The system here set forth, is essentially the system of Popery; it is inconsistent with Protestantism, and with the Reformation. And yet this is the very basis of all the exclusive Episcopal claims; a pestilent superstition; the sum and essence of the great anti-christian apostasy of Rome. No one can even begin to talk about valid ORDINATION, valid ordinances, and Apostolical succession, till his head is first filled with the fundamental principles of Popery.

Words cannot express my astonishment, that such claims, and such doctrines, should find any countenance or toleration in anything pretending to call itself a Protestant Church. What wildness of fanaticism, what depths of delusion, what ravings of madness, go anything beyond this quiescent and complacent fanaticism, which coolly pretends to Apostolical succession, with power to confer grace to impart the Holy Ghost, and authoritatively to absolve sins! Yet, this is the system of High Church Episcopacy, and has ever been so, from the days of Queen Elizabeth to the present day.

*See Barnes on the position of the evangelical party in the Episcopal Church, in the New Englander.

XXX.

APOSTOLICAL SUCCESSION, CORRUPT AS A DOCTRINE, FALSE IN FACT.

THE basis of the Episcopal doctrine of Apostolical succession is the idea, that the Christian ministry is a Priesthood, whose office is less to preach the Gospel, than to PROPITIATE GOD by the exercise of priestly functions; and to be the indispensable and efficient instruments of CONVEYING TO MEN THE GRACE OF GOD

BY THE MINISTRATION OF SACRAMENTS.

This mystic "virtue," it is pretended, is received in ordination; being conveyed down from the Apostles, exclusively through the order of Bishops, to the priesthood of the present day. A mere Presbyter is a non-conductor. Should he pretend to ordain, the "virtue" is not imparted; the chain is broken.

Valid ordination, and valid sacraments, consist in this; that when other men consecrate the elements in the Lord's Supper, these elements fail to become sacramentally the Lord's body and blood, and can furnish no spiritual benefit and comfort. Other men may preach the Gospel, but there is no covenanted mercy to those who believe the Gospel so preached; and who repent of their sins, and serve God in the communion of these men unordained by virtue of the Apostolical succession. But the ordained priesthood, when they preach, actually pledge God to fulfil the promises of the Gospel to those who embrace them; their preaching is valid; when they consecrate the elements in the Lord's Supper, they make them effectual means, as well as authoritative signs, of grace. When they pronounce the benediction, the people are authoritatively blessed; and when they pronounce the absolution, it becomes valid on earth and in heaven; the sinner is truly, authoritatively, and effectually absolved from his sins.*

To the proofs of these Episcopal dogmas, given in the last lecture, the following may be added from that choice Churchman, Bishop Whittingham of Maryland: "The ministry of the Christian Priesthood in the word and sacraments, is equivalent in its nature and efficacy to that of the Jewish priesthood, in offering of anima and other sacrifices. Christ's own availing blood is avouched and pledged by the outward act of his REPRESENTATIVE, THE PRIEST." The Lord Jesus Christ asserted his claim to power, as a man sent from the Father, to forgive sins. Now

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