Nor do we only feel these pretensions as ridiculous, but we view them as profane. We admit, that episcopacy gained an early entrance into the church, but in common with nearly the whole of the protestant profession, we deny that it is to be found in the New Testament. While we maintain, that so far as episcopacy is found in the early records of the church, that it was parochial, and totally different from the diocesan episcopacy of the papal and Anglican churches. Diocesan episcopacy is supposed to receive an impreg nable support from the distinction, which is made in ancient writings, between bishops and presbyters, but no reasoning can be more shallow and inconclusive. The original episcopacy was totally different from that of our day. If, however, our brethren think that episcopacy is a benefit, and that the constitution of the christian church leaves them at liberty to adopt whatever they may think beneficial, they are perfectly right in using it. Or if they believe episcopacy to be a divine institution, they are bound to conform to it, but if they conform to it like Christians, they will avoid the profanation of the name of Christ, by uttering anathemas, as by his authority, against all who disallow their opinions.

We believe that truth, holiness, aptness to teach, and the recog nition of the church, in some way expressed, are the essential characters of the christian ministry. But though we believe these to be the essential characters of the ministry, we are no advocates for disorder, but plead for a decent and a regular introduction into a work of so much difficulty and importance. We value our own ministerial descent. The presbyteries from whom we received ordination, received their ministry, in succession, from the ejected nonconformists,-men of whom Locke, though a conformist, says, "Bartholomew day was fatal to our church and religion, in throwing out a very great number of worthy, learned, pious, and orthodox divines." Were they true ministers of Jesus Christ? He who can deny it, must be alike capable of looking at the mid-day sun, and denying that it shines. I ask not where they got their ordination; many of them, we know, got it from diocesan bishops: so that if the assumed apostolic succession were worth a rush, we could show as much of it, as the men who make it their boast; for we maintain that bishop and presbyter are identical, and that the superiority of the former is a usurpation, unsanctioned altogether by the New Testament. But I pursue the inquiry, where did our fathers get their ordination, no further, for I fear we should be drawn into the same slough as our brethren; the slough through which, in their opinion, every communication from the Spirit of purity passes to the church. Son of God! unless we have received a commission from thee, our earthly descent, our distant earthly descent can only confound us.

In opposing the exclusive claims, which have been so ostentatiously put forth, it has been pleaded effectively, both in our fathers' days, and in our own, that the assumed succession chain has been broken,-broken and scattered in various forms. It is a matter of history, that there have been popes and antipopes, bishops and anti

bishops; and there are none to tell which of the two demons, one of whom was often the murderer of the other, was the real depository of divine influence. It is a fact, that laymen have been made popes. It is a fact, that these prime fountains of the succession have been made and then unmade, declared to be false, and that, meanwhile, they have consecrated other bishops, and that thus, upon succession principles, they have communicated their illegitimacy to unborn ages. It is a fact, that in the English episcopal church, there have been bishops and archbishops, who have had no other than dissenting baptism,-the baptism of men, who, on succession principles, are not only no ministers, but no part of the church of Christ. It is a fact, that at this hour, there are scores of clergymen in similar circumstances, and who, on account of this original defect, can, on succession principles, perform no valid act of ministry, and be the channel of no grace to their hearers. A chain,

As a legal question, this point has been decided. This decision, however, does not settle the religious question. From his celebrated judgment in the case of "Kemp v. Wicks," it is evident that Sir John Nicholl, who presided in that case, saw further than some of his apostolical friends. King George the Third had been married by Archbishop Secker,-a dissenter by birth, education, and early profession. On high church principles, he was unbaptized, and certainly he was unconfirmed. Sir John no doubt saw that for him to pronounce dissenting baptism invalid, would nullify the baptisms, marriages, ordinations, consecrations, and all the clerical and episcopal acts of the good archbishop; he saw, that for him to pronounce dissenting baptism invalid, would bastardize the royal family, and would even unchurch the bigots, who, with a short-sightedness which is really astonishing, were longing for such a decision. He, therefore, pronounced that lay baptism is valid. But then it must surely be the baptism of a laic within the church, and not of persons whose "churches, as they like improperly to call them, are false churches-mère human institutions-human inventions, having no union or connexion whatever with the one church which was founded by Christ at Jerusalem;” while "their teachers have never received authority or commission from Christ to preach or teach, they are mere self-called, self-sent, self-appointed, and false teachers." (Church Mag. March, 1839, p. 69.) However valid, in the view of the ecclesiastical law, be lay baptism, the baptism of men who form no part of the church of Christ, must be no baptism, and consequently Secker, who, with several other prelates, had no other baptism but that of "self-called, self-sent, self-appointed, and false teachers," must have been unbaptized. Secker was first the unbaptized Bishop of Bristol, then, the unbaptized Bishop of Oxford, and finally, the unbaptized Archbishop of Canterbury. Butler was first the unbaptized Bishop of Bristol, and then the unbaptized Bishop of Durham. Hort was first the unbaptized Bishop of Dromore, and then the unbaptized Archbishop of Tuam; while Barrington-tremble ye unapostolic heads on which his heathenish hands were laid!-was the unbaptized Bishop of Durham. Unhappy Bristol! unhappy Durham!—which have both had two unbaptized bishops! They entered not the church by her recognized door, but they "climbed up some other way." As unbaptized men, all their acts are invalid. Not only have their prayers, and their sermons, and their sacraments, carried mischief into another state; but their marriages, their ordinations, and their consecrations, are spreading confusion in this world. Who among the advocates of the succession is not stained by the unwashed hands of these unbaptized bishops? On their own showing, not only is the ordination of these advocates invalid, and their ministry no channel of grace; but all their wives

indeed! yes, a chain broken into a thousand parts, light as the leaves of autumn, and scattered by every wind. Woeful ministry, woeful people, whose reception of grace depends on such a bond!

But admit, though all history contradicts it, that the line is unbroken; a sober Christian would as soon believe, that Satan is the link, which binds this world to God, as that the mitred priesthood of the middle ages is the link, which binds the church to Christ. Some of them might be good men; and amongst the humbler class of the priesthood, there might be many groping their way to heaven, and doing their best, to take others with them: but as for the great body of the superior clergy, so far from being ministers, they were not even Christians; so far from being Christians, they were scarcely men. King Edward III. sent a gay ignorant young man to the pope, to be consecrated as bishop of Durham. A remonstrance having been addressed to the pontiff, on the young man's incapacity, the pope replied, "If the king of England had asked me to make an ass a bishop I would not have refused him." And better had it been, to put an ass into the fold than a wolf. Now can it be supposed that wretched beings like these-like this pope, and this bishop, are the channels through which, and through which only, the Spirit of God is to flow? The doctrine is so monstrous, that if it were found in the New Testament, it would be quite sufficient to destroy its credibility.

We fear that the Anglican church is guilty in the matter of tradition; but the recorded faith of that church, a faith, which all her clergy solemnly subscribe, testifies against the succession. It is no business of mine to decide whether that faith is recorded in chaste expressions. The faith is a matter of fact; and he who has subscribed without believing it, must be unsound in either his head or his heart.

The homily against idolatry says, that the church of Rome is "not only a harlot, but also a foul, filthy, old, withered harlot." What! can" a harlot, a foul, filthy, old, withered harlot," be the mother of legitimate sons? and what is still more strange, are the progeny of this harlot, this foul, filthy, old, withered harlot, the only legiti mate sons of the chaste spouse of Christ ?-this is marvellous indeed. The same homily calls the church of Rome an "idolatrous church.” The apostle says, "My dearly beloved, flee from idolatry." Ah, the apostle little knew the channel into which the grace of God was about exclusively to run. Flee from idolatry, must the Anglo-catholics say!-we shall break the succession; for it is through them only whom we have solemnly subscribed as idolators, that our succession comes. And should He, before whom even apostles are as dust and vanity, condescend to remonstrate and say, "Come out from among

are harlots, and all their children are illegitimate. There is a pompous fatuity about modern apostolicism, which makes it difficult to retain one's gravity in her presence. And yet, it is melancholy that men should elaborate these absurdities out of so simple and so beautiful a religion as that of Jesus Christ.

them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing" the votary of the succession must reply, I cannot be altogether separate, for it is by touching the unclean thing only, that I can touch thee.*

We maintain, and we think the church of England bears us out in maintaining, that the succession scheme is false; we also maintain, that like all other falsehood, it is perilous to the souls of men.. There are many precepts of the New Testament, which this scheme commands us to disobey. Jesus Christ says, "Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves." The disciple whom Jesus loved, and who drank so deeply into the spirit of his Master, says, "Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God." "If there come any unto you, and bring not this doctrine, receive him not into your house, neither bid him God speed." In opposition to this doctrine, an eloquent preachert of the succession scheme, saya," If wheresoever the minister is himself deficient and untaught, so that his sermon exhibits a wrong system of doctrine, you will not allow that Christ's church may be profited by the ordinance of preaching; you clearly argue that the Redeemer has given up his office, and that he can no longer be styled the minister of the true tabernacle." We argue no such thing; but we argue that the Redeemer never sent the minister, that the Redeemer has no sort of connexion with him, and that it is the duty of all true Christians to forsake him. The same eloquent preacher whispers softly, that "by acting faith on the Head of the ministry," we" are instructed and nourished, though, in the main, the given lesson be falsehood, and the proffered sustenance little better than poison." In contradiction to this deceptive blandishment, the apostle lifts up his voice like a trumpet, and says, "But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you, than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed. As we said before, so say I now again, if any man preach any other gospel unto you, than that ye have received, let him be accursed."

But while this scheme is so perilous to the souls of men, by necessitating disobedience to Jesus Christ and his apostles, it is, at the same time, perilous to them, by commanding them to receive "the ministers of Satan," as "the ministers of Christ,"-to listen to "strange doctrines, the commandments and doctrines of men," as the doctrines of Christ; and, what is worse, to consider Jesus Christ himself, as leagued in this scheme of folly and impiety; yes, as the chief' actor-the origin and the patron of the whole. Think

*The reader who is unacquainted with the topics to which this head of the discourse relates, may find information on them in the writings of Howe, Clarkson, Calamy, and Boyse among our fathers; and in Lord King's " Enquiry." Among the moderns, he may find the desired information in Mr. Blackburn's edition of "Dr. Mason on Episcopacy," in " Powell on Apostolical Succession," and in various able tracts which have been written in opposition to the "Tracts for the Times." To these celebrated tracts, to the writings of Dr. Hook, and other churchmen, the reader is referred, who wishes to practice the salutary maxim," hear both sides."

+ The Rev. H. Melville.

on the hardening, the stupifying effect of this widely taught system, on the ignorant and irreligious. Think of them as held in double bonds, the bond of anti-christian opinion, and the bond of thinking, that in listening reverently to that opinion, they are pleasing Jesus Christ. Think of them, and let us attempt their liberation, in the peaceful form of preaching to them the apostolic gospel,—the great and unquestioned truth of that religion which Christians, in every age, in every country, have professed. The prevalence of doctrine so benumbing to the moral and spiritual faculties, is a call to fresh exertion. I trust that we, the ministers of Jesus Christ, feel it to be so. And as for you, our beloved brethren, whom God has blessed in your merchandize, and in your agriculture,-you who "have bread enough and to spare,"-you, who without sacrificing a single comfort or convenience, could help this institution to put forth additional labour, do you not feel that the prevalence of this stupifying doctrine calls you to fresh exertion,-calls you to see to it, as a matter which the Redeemer will require at your hands, that there be no part of your vicinity abandoned to its fatal influence.

REV. JOHN WILLIAMS'S REMARKS ON MONS. MOERENHOUTS VOYAGES IN THE PACIFIC,

(To the Editor.)

IN the July number of your Magazine, there appears a review of Mons. Moerenhout's Voyages in the Pacific Ocean, some parts of which are, I think, calculated to awaken unfounded suspicions respecting the state of our missions and the conduct of our missionaries in Tahiti and other islands of the South Seas. Your reviewer, I fully believe, had no unfriendly intention in publishing extracts from M. Moerenhout's work; but I regret that he did this without previous enquiry into the character and competency of their author. Had such enquiry been made, he would, I am satisfied, have felt some hesitation in placing before the christian public, without note or comment, one or two of the objectionable passages inserted in your Magazine. It is doubtless true, that many of the affecting and faithful representations of the moral condition of society in some of the islands, furnished by our missionaries, have been often overlooked, whilst their more favourable reports have been remembered, and in this way erroneous impressions have been left upon the minds of some, which require correction. But in avoiding this error, we shall, I am persuaded, embrace another and a greater, if we rely upon the testimony of M. Moerenhout, and other commercial adventurers, who, like him, contemplate missionaries and their labours through the medium of their own selfish aims and secular interests. I am therefore happy to be enabled to supply an antidote to the mis-statements of this author from the pen of Mr. Williams, from whom I have recently received the first part of his strictures of M. Moerenhout's work. This he has written during his present

* The Essex Congregational Union.