long so much for episcopacy, yet they approve of it, and want it only out of invincible necessity. In some places the sovereign is of another communion, the episcopal chairs are filled with Roman Catholics. If they should petition for bishops of their own, it should not be granted. In other places the magistrates have taken away bishops whether out of policy, because they thought that regiment not so proper for their republics, or because they were ashamed to take away the revenues and preserve the order, or, out of a blind zeal, they have given an account to God; they owe none to me. Should I condemn all these as schismatics for want of episcopacy, who want it out of invincible necessity?

"Thirdly, there are others who have neither the same desires

I feel at such language being applied to the good, the admirable Ridley, "to whom I am inclined to ascribe whatever in our formularies bears the characters of method, exactness, precision, terseness, elegance, philosophy, or Catholicity." Knox's Remains, vol. iii. p. 54.

I cannot conclude this note without expressing my sincere regret that Froude's Remains were ever published. I know that they have done great mischief to the cause of our reformed Church, and have enabled the ill-disposed to raise a cry against every true churchman, which, however unfounded, excites prejudice and interferes with the spread of sound doctrine. Every high churchman is now, the authors of the Tracts for the Times being used as a middle term, confounded with Mr. Froude, and made answerable for all the crude thoughts of a pious, but certainly ill-regulated and wavering mind. Mr. Oakeley has indeed stated, that "the study of the Journal has been in more than one instance blessed with individual profit," and he assigns as a reason, that it deals in particulars, whereas all practical books of devotion deal in generals.— Preface to Sermons, xxiv. Let this be granted in all the extent of which it is capable, and yet I cannot think it any excuse for the publication. We must not do evil that good may come of it, and evil it certainly is to make the public acquainted with the unsettled state of a man's religious feelings who held office in the Church, to proclaim his regret at having been ordained by the bishop of a Church so badly reformed. I cannot understand what is the 66 one great cause" to the promotion of which Mr. Froude devoted himself. If we are to believe himself, he was at one time a decided Romanist, and I cannot make out the period when he could have given his unfeigned assent and consent to the Book of Common Prayer.

I

nor the same esteem of episcopacy, but condemn it as an antichristian innovation and a rag of Popery. I conceive this to be most gross schism materially. It is ten times more schismatical to desert, nay to take away (so much as lies in them) the whole order of bishops, than to subtract obedience from one lawful bishop. All that can be said to mitigate this fault is, that they do it ignorantly, as they have been mistaught and misinformed; and I hope that many of them are free from obstinacy, and hold the truth implicitly in the preparation of their minds, being ready to receive it when God shall reveal it to them. How far this may excuse (not the crime but) these persons from formal schism either a toto or a tanto, I determine not, but leave them to stand or fall to their own Master." Ib. p. 164.

"Episcopal divines do not deny their Churches to be true Churches wherein salvation may be had. We advise them, as it is our duty, to be circumspect for themselves, and not to put it to more question, whether they have ordination or not, or desert the general practice of the universal Church for nothing, when they may clear it if they please. Their case is not the same with those who labour under invincible necessity. Episcopal divines will readily subscribe to the discrimination of the learned Bishop of Winchester in his second answer to the epistle of Molinæus, Nevertheless if our form of episcopacy be of divine right, it doth not follow from thence that there is not salvation without it, or that a Church cannot consist without it. He is blessed who doth not see Churches consisting without it; he is hardhearted who denieth them salvation. We are none of those hardhearted persons, or put a great difference between these things. There may be something absent in the exterior regiment which is of divine right, and yet salvation to be had.' This mistake proceedeth from not distinguishing between the true nature and essence of a Church, which we do readily grant them, and the integrity or perfection of a Church, which we cannot grant them without swerving from the judgment of the Catholic Church." Ib. vol. ii. p. 614.

"But shall we then condemn those few of the reformed Churches whose ordinations always have been without bishops?

No, indeed, that must not be, they stand or fall to their own Master; and though I cannot justify their ordination, yet what degree their necessity is of, what their desire of episcopal ordinations may do for their personal excuse, and how far a good life, and a catholic belief, may lead a man in the way to heaven, (although the forms of external communion be not observed,) I cannot determine. For aught I know, their case is the same with that of the church of Pergamos, I know thy works, and where thou dwellest, even where Satan's seat is; and thou holdest fast my name, and hast not denied my faith; but I have a few things against thee:' and yet, of them, the want of canonical ordinations is a defect which, I trust, themselves desire to be remedied; but if it cannot be done, their sin is the less, but their misery the greater. I am sure I have said sooth, but whether or no it will be thought so, I cannot tell; and yet why it may not, I cannot guess, unless they only be impeccable, which I suppose will not so easily be thought of them, who themselves think that all the Church possibly may fail." Taylor's Works, vol. vii. p.141.

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Thus Chillingworth says, "It is not all one to forsake the errors of the Church, and to forsake the Church, or to forsake the Church in her error, and simply to forsake the Church, no more than it is for me to renounce my brother's or my friend's vices or errors, and to renounce my brother or my friend. The former, then, was done by Protestants, the latter was not done. Nay, not only not from the Catholic, but not so much as from the Roman did they separate per omnia, but only in those practices which they conceived superstitious or impious." Works, chap. iii. pag. 96.

"We confess with him (Luther) that in the Papacy are many good things which have come from them to us, but withal we say there are many bad; neither do we think ourselves bound in prudence either to reject the good with the bad, or to retain the bad with the good; but rather conceive it a high point of wisdom to separate between the precious and the vile, to sever the good from the bad, and to put the good in vessels to be kept, and to

cast the bad away, to try all things, and to hold that which is good." Ibid. page 275.

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To the same effect Bishop Hall. Judge what a shame it is to hear a Christian divine carelessly shaking off all arguments drawn from antiquity, countenance perpetual succession in and from apostolic Churches, unanimous consent, universal practice of the Church, immediate practice of all the Churches succeeding the Apostles, as either Popish or nothing; and all these are acknowledged for our grounds, and are not Popish." Bp. Hall's Works, vol. ix. pag. 526.

"Let not any adversary think to elude this testimony with the upbraiding to it the patronage of the Popish opinion concerning traditions; we have learned to hate these vanities, and yet to maintain our own truths without all fear of the patrocination of Popery. We deny not some traditions (however the word for want of distinguishing is, from their abuse, grown into an ill name) must have their place and use; and in vain should learned Chamier, Fulk, Whitaker, Perkins, Willet, and other controversers, labour in the rules of discerning true apostolical traditions from false and counterfeit, if all were such; and if those which are certainly true were not worthy of high honor and respect." Ibid. page 520.

I must add the opinion of a layman upon this question: "They think it," says Bacon, "the true touchstone to try what is good and evil by measuring what is more or less opposite to the institutions of the Church of Rome, be it ceremony, be it policy, or government; yea, be it other institutions of greater weight, that is even most perfect, which is removed most degrees from that Church, and that is even polluted and blemished, which participateth in any appearance with it. This is a subtle and daugerous conceit for man to entertain; apt to delude themselves, more apt to delude the people, and most apt of all to calumniate their adversaries. This surely, but that a notorious condemnation of that position was before our eyes, had long since brought us to the rebaptization of children baptized according to the pre

tended Catholic religion; for I see that which is a matter of much like reason, which is tl. re-ordaining of priests, is a matter already resolutely maintained. It is very meet that men beware how they be abused by this opinion, and that they know that it is a consideration of much greater wisdom and sobriety to be well advised, whether in general demolitions of the institutions of the Church of Rome, there were not, as men's actions are imperfect, some good purged with the bad, rather than to purge the Church, as they pretend, every day anew, which is the way to make a wound in the bowels, as is already begun." Of Church Controversies, Works, vol. ii. page 511, ed. 1803.

Mr. Fitzgerald has quoted Lord Bacon as maintaining, that no form of Church government was prescribed by Christ. I am sorry to be compelled to say, that Mr. Fitzgerald, in order to establish this point, has had recourse to a practice not unprecedented in controversy, but which I did not expect from him; he has stopped where it was convenient for him to stop; he has stopped when the next sentence explained Lord Bacon's meaning, and removed all possibility of misconception. Even in the quotation given there are words which roused my suspicion as to Bacon's opinion, "the substance of doctrine is immutable, and so are the general rules of government." Lord Bacon does not, however, leave his meaning uncertain, "In these things, so as the general rules be observed, that Christ's flock be fed, that there be a succession in bishops and ministers, that there be a due and reverent use of the powers of the keys, that those that preach the gospel live of the gospel, that all things tend to edification, that all things be done in order and with decency, and the like; the rest is left to the holy wisdom and special direction of the master builders and inferior builders in Christ's Church, as it is excellently alluded by that Father that noted that Christ's garment was without seam, and yet the Church's garment was of divers colours, and thereupon setteth down for a rule, in veste varietas sit, scissura non sit." Of the Pacification of the Church. Ibid. page 530.

It appears then that Lord Bacon held the very opinion I have been advocating, that provided the ministry of the Church was continued as appointed by Christ, the discipline of the Church