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fumed, evidently appear, that the opinion of the world can conftitute no ftandard, by which the judgment of any reader of them ought to be determined.

The kingdom of CHRIST, Confeffedly, is not of this world: it was established with the intent, that this world fhould be conformed to it; not that this kingdom fhould, from time to time, be made conformable to the fluctuating opinions of a capricious world. As this kingdom then, according to the account given of it in Scripture, is to endure to the end of time; it is to be expected, that the government of it should correfpond with its nature. no less than with the character of the faith it was intended to preserve, that of being the fame yesterday, to-day, and έσ for ever."

That fuch is the cafe, (we have authority for af ferting) no honeft enquirer, properly qualified, can entertain a doubt. "It is evident (fays our Church, in the preface to her Confecration Service) unto all men diligently reading Holy Scripture, and ancient authors, that from the Apoftles' time there have been these orders of minifters in CHRIST's ChurchBishops, Priests, and Deacons. And, therefore, to the intent that these orders may be continued, and reverently used and esteemed, in the Church of England, no man fhall be accounted, or taken to be, á lawful Bishop, Priest, or Deacon in the Church of England, or fuffered to execute any of the faid functions, except he be called, tried, examined, and ad

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-mitted thereunto, according to the form hereafter following, or hath had formerly episcopal confecration or ordination." On this fupposed unquestionable ground, established by historical proof of the uniformity of the Ecclefiaftical Conftitution for a long fucceffion of ages, the Church of England has proceeded with confidence in her judgment on this important fubject. Hence it is, that in her Canons fhe exclufively appropriates the title of a true and lawful Ghurch to that fociety of Chriftians in this country affembled under epifcopal, government; and determines all feparatifts from it to be fchifmatics; the fin of schism, according to its old and established definition, confifting in a wilful and needlefs fepa ration from a true and lawful church. In praying, therefore, against fchifm in her litany, the Church prays against that fin, which in, the Act for Uniformity, 14, c. ii, is defcribed as attaching to thofe Chriftians, who, following their own fenfuality, and living without knowledge and due fear of GOD, do wilfully and fchifmatically abstain from, and refufe to come fo, their parish churches," &c. .

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With the fame view of the fubject, the visible Church of Chrift (which the Church on earth was defigned to be) is defcribed in our Article to be " a congregation of faithful men, in the which the pure word of God is preached, and the facraments duly administered according to Chrift's ordinance, in all thofe things that of neceffity are requifite to the

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fame."-Art. 19. For, on the ground that a com miffion authorifing the adminiftration of the facraments conftituted an effential part of Chrift's ordinance; as the Apostles could not become stewards of the mysteries of the Gospel, till our Saviour thought fit to make them fuch; and confequently did not administer the facraments previous to their having received a commiffion from him, authorifing them fo to do therefore the facraments cannot, in the judgment of the Church of England, be duly adminiftered according to Chrift's ordinance, but by those ministers, who, being lawfully called and fent into the LORD's vineyard," thereby receive the fame divine commiffion tranfmitted to them from the Apostles, for the difcharge of the fame facred truft. And a commentator on the Apostles' Creed has observed, that those two articles, "the boly Catholic Church, and the Communion of Saints," were inferted on purpose to prevent fchifm; and that that alone is their true fenfe and aim. No fchifmatic, therefore, can with a fafe confcience repeat these two articles; inafmuch as by his fchifm he far too clearly and emphatically declares his difbelief of any peculiar holinefs in the Catholic Church, and his difregard of the duty and the bleffing of a Communion of Saints."*

The question then is, Has the Church of England: judged correctly on this fubject, or not? To the deter minat on of this question, the establishment of her own;

* King on the Creed, 310, 325.

right to the title of a true Apostolical Church of Christ may be thought a neceffary preliminary. Admitting this right to be established, a point which every wellinformed reader is competent to decide for himself, what was fchifm in the days of the Apostles, muft continue to be fchifm ftill. For, on the affumption that the body of Christ, under its appropriate government, remains what it originally was; no circumstances of piety, learning, or wifdom, joined with schifm, can change the nature of the fin.

But we venture to fay, and it is by no means an hafty pofition that we advance, but one that has stood the test of deliberate and repeated investigation, that no ancient historical fact in the annals of mankind is capable of equal demonstration with that of the ori ginal conftitution of the Chriftian Church. Nay, we fay further, that no point of doctrine profeffed in the Church, ftands on equally unquestionable ground with it. For we know of no doctrine, however clearly revealed, that has not, during the progrefs of Christjanity in the world, met with its occafional oppugners. But fuch, for the space of the first fifteen centuries of the Christian æra, was not the case with respect to the Apoftolic Government of the Church. Bifhops, indeed, were occafionally fet up against bishops, and thereby the communion of the Church broken by fchifm; at the fame time that the general pofition respecting the divine origin and establishment of Epif copal government was admitted on both fides. In

fact, the position relative to the Apostolic government of the Church by Bishops, stands confirmed by the teftimony, not of this or that country only, but by the united, and for a long time uninterrupted testimony, of all Christendom. For the first fifteen centuries, no Church of Chrift, in any part of the world, was known to exist under any other government; and it has been only fince that period, which unfortunately gives date to the introduction of a different form, that Episcopacy has met with oppofition from thofe, who have found themselves obliged to write it down, as the only way to discharge themselves from that fin, which must otherwise necessarily attach to a needless separation from it. At the fame time, the attacks that for this purpose have been made on the Epifcopal government of the Church, from the earlieft date down to the present time, have ferved to prove the strength of the ground on which that government stands.

But it is much more eafy to cavil about words, than to argue upon fubjects; to start trifling objections, than fairly to defend them. And this mode of proceeding, the opponents of Epifcopacy well know, is calculated to answer good purpose; because it throws ftumbling-blocks in the way of ignorant minds, with out, at the fame time, furnishing fufficient information to qualify the parties to remove them; and every degree of doubt created, relative to the truth of any cause, becomes a step in advance towards the opposite

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