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 conformity" 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 institutions 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 Christian 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

ferring that power in ordination. Forms, canons, sacerdotal rites, absolutions, penances, false doctrine after false doctrine, and one superstitious ceremonial after another, followed in the train, till the Gospel and all religious liberty well nigh expired together. WHAT IS NOW CALLED PUSEYISM, IS THE NATURAL, AND SURE TO BE THE ULTIMATE SYSTEM OF PRELACY. It is but a mingling of the same old elements in the same old way. Superstition goes hand in hand with every advance of the exclusive and monstrous claims of Prelacy. He who forms his anticipations of the future from the history of the past, will readily perceive, that these two conspirators against truth and freedom are only travelling the road which they travelled before, when corruption in doctrine and usurpation of power went hand in hand to take their seat upon the seven hills of Rome. With these remarks we proceed to notice

THE EXCLUSIVENESS OF THE EPISCOPAL CLAIMS.

The Rev. Mr. Wetmore, one of the earliest champions of Episcopacy in Connecticut, did not hesitate to say of the Congregational Churches in this State that "they must necessarily be esteemed abettors and approvers of schism, disorders, and usurpation; contempt of the chief authority Christ has left in his Church;" and that "whatever they may call themselves, and whatever show they may make of piety and devotion in their own ways," they "ought to be esteemed in respect to the mystical body of Christ, only as excrescences or tumors in the body natural, or perhaps as fungosities in an ulcerated tumor, the eating away of which, by whatever means, tends not to the hurt but the soundness of the body."

If such language had been uttered only by a few, or only for some hundreds of times; if it were not truly descriptive of the principles, and the line of conduct pursued by all High Church Episcopalians, with regard to other denominations of Christians, we might pass it by as the raving of bigots; some of whom are to be found in all bodies of Christians, and whose extravagances are not to be regarded as an index to the principles and spirit of the body. But I am sorry to be obliged to say, that this is only a sample of the spirit and bearing assumed by Episcopal Ecclesiastics in general (with some few rare and honorable exceptions), towards all other Christians, save only the followers of the Pope. Incongruous sects" of "Dissenters" is the style adopted by Bishop Brownell with regard to all other Christian denominations. The Episcopal Church he styles "The true Catholic Church." The Episcopal Bishops, in general, no longer style their communion "The Protestant Episcopal Church," but "The Church" intending by that term to deny the right of all other

bodies of Christians to be considered as Churches. The Right Rev. Thomas C. Brownell writes himself Bishop, not of the Episcopal Church IN Connecticut, but "BISHOP OF CONNECTICUT," intending thereby to claim, and actually claiming, exclusive sovereignty by divine right over all Christians in the whole field. So another styles himself not-bishop of a diocese of Episcopalians IN New York, but BISHOP OF NEW YORK; a sovereign by divine right of the whole territory. Another claims to be BISHOP OF MARYLAND; and another has been addressed in a Dedication, by the celebrated Pusey as "GEORGE, LORD BISHOP OF NEW JERSEY" and "Lord George" claims to be the rightful and exclusive Apostle of that domain; as another claims to hold the "VERY SAME OFFICE," in Michigan, "which the Lord Jesus Christ" would hold over Christians in that field, were he personally to come down and undertake to be their ruler. The "Church Almanac," published by authority, talks not of The Protestant Episcopal Church IN America, but of "THE CHURCH OF THE UNITED STATES," intending thereby to deny that there is, or can be, any other Church or Churches in the whole domain. Not long since, an Episcopal minister (Rev. Mr. Watson) spoke in a printed sermon, of the people in the sixty towns in Connecticut where Episcopacy is not planted, as "destitute ones,” "destitute of the sacraments, destitute of a Scriptural ministry, destitute of the Church" and declared that "every inch of the ground" belongs to Episcopacy. Bishop Brownell looks abroad over the tens of thousands of Christians and Churches of all Protestant denominations in this land, and complacently styles them a "Desolation," in the midst of which, "The Protestant Episcopal Church appears as an oasis in a desert." The Bishop and his Presbyters concur in admitting the authenticity of the Papal Church and Priesthood, while they deny the same to all Protestants, save of their own Church. A "Presbyter of Connecticut," in an extensively circulated tract, declares he "cannot regard the confused mass of Protestantism as anything else but a human contrivance, the weakness and folly of man; the result of departing from the divine and primitive institution of Christ." "With as much propriety," he declares, "might we suppose there is more than one Holy Spirit, as to suppose that there is more than one Church." "The Romish Church," he says, "must be regarded as a portion of the Catholic Church, since she pos sesses the Apostolic ministry; her sacraments, though vitiated, are not invalid." But "as to Protestant Dissenters, how can they claim to be a portion of the true body of Christ, when they lack the very foundations of a Church?" "At the same time," he says, "we are free to acknowledge that they exhibit fruits of piety in their lives. We could take example from them,"

we

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doubt not they may be saved; so we believe the heathen may be saved." In the same manner Palmer, whose work is in the highest vogue among Episcopalians, says of other denominations, "They and their generations are as the heathen, we are not warranted in affirming absolutely that they may be saved." Bishop Hobart, in his " Companion to the Altar," says, "Let it be thy supreme care, O my soul, 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 participation of its ordinances at the hands of an authorized priesthood is the indispensable condition of salvation." "Great is the guilt, and eminent the danger of those who, possessing the means of arriving at the knowledge of the truth, negligently or wilfully continue in a state of separation from the authorized ministry of the Church, and participate in ordinances administered by an irregular and invalid authority." Says Bishop Onderdonk of New York, "None but the Bishops can unite us to the Father in the way of Christ's appointment; and these Bishops must be such as receive their mission from the first commissioned Apostles." Other Episcopal writers of standard authority in that Church use such language as this: "The only ministrations to which the Lord has promised his presence, are those of the Bishops who are successors of the first commissioned Apostles." "The real ground of our authority is our Apostolic descent." "An uninterrupted series of valid ordinations has carried down the Apostolical succession to the present day."

"Christ," say the Oxford Tracts, "never appointed two ways to Heaven; nor did he build a Church to save some, and make another institution to save other men. There is no other name given under Heaven among men whereby we may be saved, but the name of Jesus; and that is no otherwise given under Heaven than in the Church." "It is not merely because Episcopacy is a better, or more scriptural form than Presbyterianism,

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but because the Presbyterian ministers have assumed a power which was never entrusted to them. They have presumed to exercise the power of ordination, and to perpetuate a succession of ministers, without having received a commission to do so." "A person not commissioned from the Bishop may use the words of baptism, and sprinkle or bathe;" * "he may break bread and pour out wine, and pretend to give the Lord's Supper, but it can afford no comfort to any to receive it at his hands, because there is no warrant from Christ, to lead communicants to suppose, that while he does so here upon earth, they will be partakers of the Saviour's heavenly body and blood."