other hand, view it as accompanied and followed with many evils, either in comparison of a presbyterial government, or of an episcopacy under the control of, and derived from, the presbytery or body of elders. The following reasons appear to us to be subversive of the high pretensions of churchmen, in reference to the divine right of their bishops :

4. They attempt to derive this succession from the apostles, through the Church of Rome. That this is inconsistent, we prove by the following reasons:-1. The Church of Rome, in her ordinations, never endowed any man with episcopal authority with the intention of leaving their communion; and without the intention in the person officiating, no ordination, according to them, could be valid. 2. The English reformers were all excommunicated by the pope, and, of course, their succession was cut off; especially viewing succession to be uninterrupted, which is the general idea attached to it by its assertors.

5. In several instances this succession in the English Church was actually broken. The following are given as specimens:—

The case of Archbishop Parker.—He was the first archbishop of Canterbury under Elizabeth, on her accession to the throne; all the bishops except one, to the number of fourteen, were deprived by her because they would not take the oath of supremacy, being all of them firm papists. Dr. Matthew Parker was consecrated archbishop of Canterbury, at Lambeth, by some of the bishops that had been deprived in the reign of Mary, for none of the present bishops would officiate. The persons concerned in the consecration were Barlow and Scory, bishops elect of Chichester and Hereford; Miles Coverdale, the deprived bishop of Exeter; and Hodkins, suffragan of Bedford. The archbishop was installed December 17th, 1559, soon after which he consecrated several of his brethren, whom the queen had appointed to vacant sees; as Grindal to the bishopric of London, Howe to Winchester, Pilkington to Durham, &c. The Roman Catholics urged the unlaw. fulness of the proceedings against the new bishops, who began to doubt the validity of their ordinations, or at least their legal title to the bishoprics. The affair was at length brought before parliament, and, to silence all future clamors, Parker's consecration and that of his brethren were confirmed by the two houses, about seven years after they had filled their respective sees, and had, during that time, ordained numbers of persons to deacons' and elders' orders.

To this ordination it may be objected, 1. The persons engaged in it had been legally, and, indeed, ecclesiastically deprived in the last reign, and were not yet restored; and Coverdale and Hodkins never exer. cised their episcopal functions afterward. 2. Because the consecra. tion ought, by law, to have been directed according to the statute of the 25th of Henry VIII., and not according to the form of King Edward's ordinal, which had been set aside in the late reign, and was not yet restored by parliament. 3. The parliament, by this act, assumed the right of validating an irregular or null appointment to the ministry; and, although a civil body, they assumed the highest act of the ministerial or ecclesiastical functions. 4. How an act of parliament could have a retrospective view we cannot tell, so as to make valid the various ordinations irregularly performed during the space of several years previous. 5. What can we say to the unlawful ordinations that took place during these several years of officiating? These, surely,

must have corrupted the church, and made a breach on the regularity of succession. (See Neal, vol. i, p. 133.)

The case of Archbishop Juxon, in 1663 or 1660.-Immediately after the protectorate of Cromwell, the succession of the Anglican Church was in imminent danger. Many of the bishops at the protector's death were dead, and in a few years there would be none to consecrate; and thus the succession must be broken unless they could receive it anew from Rome, a thing not to be expected, or admit of ordination by presbyters. This induced some of the ancient bishops to petition the king to fill up the vacant sees with all possible expedition, in which they were supported by Sir Edward Hyde, chancellor of the exchequer, who prevailed on the king to nominate certain clergymen for these high preferments. It was necessary, however, to carry on this design with great secrecy, lest the governing powers would secure the bishops, and by that means put a stop to the entire proceedings. But the greatest difficulty was, to do it canonically, when there were no deans or chapters to elect, and, consequently, no persons to receive a congé d'elire, according to former custom. Several expedients were proposed for remedying this difficulty, the most prominent of which are the three following:

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The first plan was that which was proposed by Chancellor Hyde, and was as follows:- "That the proceedings should be by a mandate from the king to any three or four bishops, by way of collation, upon a lapse, instead of the dean and chapter's election. But it was objected, that the supposal of a lapse would impair the king's prerogative more than the collation would advance it, because it would presuppose a power of election pleno jure, (of full right,) in the deans and chapters, which they have only de facultate regia, (from royal authority ;) nor could they petition for such a license, for most of the deans were dead, some chapters extinguished, and all of them so disturbed that they could not meet in the chapter-house, where such acts generally are to be performed." Such was Chancellor Hyde's plan.

Dr. Barwick proposed, "That his majesty should grant his commission to the bishops of each province respectively, assembled in provincial council or otherwise, as should be most convenient, to elect and consecrate fit persons for the vacant sees, with such dispensative clauses as should be found necessary upon the emergency of the case, (his majesty signifying his pleasure concerning the persons and the sees ;) which commission may bear date before the action, and then afterward upon certificate, and petition to have his majesty's ratification and confirmation of the whole process, and the register to be drawn up accordingly by the chief actuary, who may make up his memorials hence, and make up the record there." This was the second plan.

The third way was that proposed by Dr. Bramhall, bishop of Derry. It was the method used in Ireland, where the king has an absolute power of nomination, and, therefore, no way seemed to him so safe as consecrating the persons nominated to void sees in Ireland, and then transferring them to the vacant sees in England; which, he apprehended, would clearly elude all those formalities which seemed to perplex the affair.

To terminate the difficulty, Dr. Wren, bishop of Ely, and Dr. Cossius, bishop of Petersborough, were in favor of the second plan, recom

mended it to the court, and which was accordingly adopted. (See Neal, Hist. Pur., vol. iv, c. iv, p. 228.) Such were their narrow views as to suppose the essence of Christianity, and the essence of all divine ordinances, depended on the transmission of ecclesiastical power in an unbroken chain from the apostles.

The case of the non-jurors.-In the reign of King William III., and in the year 1689, the divisions among the friends of prelacy ran high, and terminated in that famous schism in the English Church which has scarcely yet been entirely healed. Sancroft, archbishop of Canter. bury, and eight other bishops, viz., Lloyd of Norwich, Turner of Ely, Kenn of Bath and Wells, Frampton of Gloucester, Thomas of Worcester, Lake of Chichester, Cartwright of Chester, and White of Peterborough, deemed it unlawful to take the oath of allegiance to the new king, because they considered James II., though banished from his dominions, their rightful sovereign. In consequence, because they would not acknowledge the title of the new king to the British crown, King William, as supreme head of the church, and as sovereign ecclesiastical judge, deprived them of their sees, and put others in their place. The new bishops were Tillotson, Moore, Patrick, Kidder, Fowler, Cumberland, &c. Several peers, and about four hundred of the parochial clergy, were among the non-jurors. The deposed bishops and clergy formed a new Episcopal church, entirely separated from the established church. They were called non-jurors because they refused to swear or take the oath of allegiance to William. They maintained that the church was not dependant on the jurisdiction of the king and parliament, but was subject to the authority of God alone, and empow. ered to govern itself by its own laws; and that, consequently, the sentence of deprivation pronounced against them by the great council of the nation was destitute of justice and validity; and that it was only by the decree of an ecclesiastical council that a bishop could be deprived. They also maintained that those who were put in their places were unjust possessors of other men's property, and were schismatics in the church; that all who held communion with them were charge. able with schism; and that this schism is a most heinous sin, and that grievous punishment must fall upon their opponents unless they would return to the bosom of the non-juring church, from which they had causelessly departed. (See Mosheim, cent. 17, sec. 11, Part ii, c. ii, No. xxvi. Also New-York Churchman of March 25th, 1837, for an article from the British Critic on this subject.)

Sancroft, while the case was pending, in order to prevent the approaching schism, issued a commission, giving his authority for the consecration of bishops and pastors to the bishops of London, St. Asaphs, and others. It was under this commission that Burnet was consecrated bishop of Salisbury by Compton. Archbishop Sancroft, however, afterward recalled this, and consigned the same powers to Lloyd of Norwich, one of his deprived brethren. A schism was thus formed in the heart of the Anglican Church. There were two distinct communions: the one under the old metropolitan, Sancroft, and the other under the new one, Tillotson. The state of the matter is clearly this: that the non-jurors, according to the primitive church and Scripture, were the regular church. But then the Church of England does not derive her succession through bishops or the clergy, but through

the parliament and the king; and their boast of apostolical succession through bishops is utterly incorrect, when their succession is regal succession through popes and bishops, or prelates; for it is a glaring instance of misnaming to call the English diocesans bishops. They are properly prelates; i. e., persons preferred or raised above the ecclesiastical supervision of the pastors. The case, therefore, of the nonjurors furnishes another instance of a breach in the succession of the English Church, from which all the wisdom and learning of her ablest sons can never clear her.

Miserable indeed must the state of the Christian world be when a bishop cannot be chosen without a royal mandate, and the nominal or farcical election of a dean and chapter; when, for many hundred years after Christ, there was no such thing in the world as a congé d'elire, or permission to elect in this manner: and if the validity of all sacerdotal ministrations must depend on an uninterrupted succession from Peter, through prelates, popes, kings, and parliaments! And this is peculiarly strange, in regard to the papacy, when, in a succession of fifty popes, not one pious man sat on the throne; that there had been no popes for some years together, and, at other times, two or three at once; and when there had been between twenty and thirty schisms, one of which continued fifty years, the popes of Rome and Avignon excommunicating each other, and yet conferring orders on their several clergy. It would reduce Christianity, indeed, to a low standard, to require its heavenly character to undergo a genealogical examen through such ancestors as popes and apostate bishops up to Christ its heavenly founder.

6. The Church of England, in admitting the validity of ordinations by presbyters, overturns her assumed succession by bishops only.

(1.) Those who had been ordained in foreign churches in the reign of Mary, were admitted in Elizabeth's reign to their ministerial offices and charges, as well as those ordained in England; and, to legalize this, an act of parliament was passed in the thirteenth year of the reign of Queen Elizabeth, allowing of ordination of presbyters without a bishop, on their subscribing the articles of faith. Both houses of parliament would not probably pass such an act, unless the principle of it had been approved of by the most influential divines and churchmen. The thing, however, was disallowed by some bishops in this reign, as well as at the restoration of King Charles I. But what can bishops or clergy do if the parliament undertake to regulate the church; nay, should they even undertake to change altogether the established religion? (Neal, vol. i, p. 237.)

(2.) The recognition of presbyterial ordination as valid was several times made by the English Church in the reception of ministers of the Church of Scotland, which is strictly Presbyterian. The reformation of this church commenced in 1560, and was, at its first organization, a Presbyterian Church. In the year 1610 prelacy was violently intro. duced, against the sense of the nation; and, in the same year, Spotiswood, Lamb, and Hamilton, presbyters by presbyterian ordination, were consecrated bishops in London by some English prelates, and, on their return home, imparted the episcopal office to a number of others. Archbishop Bancroft consecrated them, without requiring them to be previously ordained as priests; expressly delivering it as his opinion, that

their former Presbyterian ordination was valid. Furthermore, the bishops agreed that the body of the Presbyterian clergy should be considered as regular ministers in the church, on consenting to acknowledge the bishops as their ecclesiastical superiors, without submitting to be reordained; and this arrangement was actually carried into effect. Nor is this all. Many of the clergy and people removed from Scotland to the north of Ireland, where the clergy, who were all Presbyterians, were received as presbyters or priests in the established Church of Ireland without reordination. The Church of Scotland remained episcopal till 1639, when prelacy was abolished and bishops deposed. On this occasion three of these prelates renounced their episcopal orders, were received by the Presbyterian clergy as plain presbyters, and officiated as such while they lived. The rest were either excommunicated from the church, or deprived of their ministerial functions. In the year 1661 episcopacy was again introduced into Scotland, at which time the same plan was agreed on which took place in 1610, though a much smaller number of clergymen submitted to its terms. At the Revolution in 1688, episcopacy was again laid aside and Presbyterianism restored. At this time four hundred episcopal clergymen came into the Presbyterian Church, acknowledged the validity of her orders and ministrations, and were received as ministers. (Miller's Letters, let. vi, p. 140. Neal, vol. ii, p. 82.) From the foregoing we learn that the validity of Presbyterian ordination was acknowledged, at least as late as 1661, by the Church of England, which was more than a hundred years after her organization as a church.

(3.) Our readers may be pleased to see the following. It is a license granted April 6th, 1582, to the Rev. John Morrison, a Presbyterian minister. It was granted by Grindal, archbishop of Canterbury, through Dr. Aubrey, his vicar-general, to the Scotch divine, permitting him to preach throughout his province. "Since you, the said John Morrison, were admitted and ordained to sacred orders and the holy ministry by the imposition of hands, according to the laudable form and rite of the reformed Church of Scotland, we, therefore, as much as lies in us, and as, by right, we may, approving and ratifying the form of your ordination and preferment, done in such manner aforesaid, grant unto you a license and faculty, that in such orders, by you taken, you may, and have power, in any convenient places, in and throughout the whole province of Canterbury, to celebrate divine offices and to minister the sacraments," &c. This is a full testimony, by the highest dignitary of the English Church, that presbyterial ordination is valid. He even calls the form a laudable one, and considers Mr. Morrison as authorized not only to preach and celebrate divine offices, but also to administer the sacraments. In later times the archbishop would be pronounced a schismatic, and Mr. Morrison would have to receive a reordination; but the present is not the reformed Church of England precisely.

(4.) The English Church received and corresponded with the reformed churches who held to presbyterial ordination. Several eminent divines of these churches were received into, and obtained benefices in the church and universities. They were received, too, in the precise ecclesiastical character which they held at home, viz.: that of presbyters without any reordination, and, for want of it, laboring under no disability. Modern churchmen, however, have learned to profane