of an oligarchical presbytery.--Bishop Heber, Sermons in England, Serm. xii.—(O. T. III.)

2.-Succession.

Accordingly the apostles ordained successors to themselves, and took measures for perpetuating in the Church a standing ministry of diverse orders and gradations. In so doing, they showed in what sense we are to interpret our Lord's assurance that "He would be with them always, even unto the end of the world."

We are speaking now, it will be recollected, of what in the language of ecclesiastical history is emphatically called the Church; that which has from age to age borne rule, upon the ground of its pretensions to apostolical succession.-Bishop Van Mildert, Bampton Lectures, Lecture VIII.—(0. T. III.)

Matt. xxviii. 20.-A promise not occasional or temporary, like that of miraculous powers, but conveying an assurance that Christ himself will, in spirit and in power, be continually present with his Catholic and Apostolic Church; with the bishops of that Church, who derive from the apostles, by uninterrupted succession; and with those inferior but essential orders of the Church, which are constituted by the same authority and dedicated to the same service. Bishop Jebb, Pastoral Instructions, Discourse I.

P.

6.

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They (the English reformers) felt that, as the universal consent of all men, in all ages, is allowed to be the voice of nature, so the unanimous concurrence of councils, churches, bishops, and fathers, ought to be received as the voice of the Gospel. Ibid., p. 20..

Authority.

Though I willingly admit that the doctrine of infallibilty, in the dark ages, was happily instrumental in preserving the Catholic verities, I do believe that in more advanced times some far better safeguard may be substituted; the rule of Vincentius Lirinensis, for instance, properly explained and limited. -Bishop Jebb to Mr. Knox, Letter CV. (July 10, 1811.)— See also Appendix to Bishop Jebb's Sermons.

5.-Succession.

Matt. xxviii. 20.-A promise this, which cannot be supposed to have respect to the persons of the apostles alone, who in the common course of nature were soon to be taken from the world, to the end of which the promise itself was to extend. . . . . In conformity with this meaning, the apostles, who were themselves holy men and full of the Holy Ghost, did send other persons; to whom again they gave power and authority to send others, through whom the office of ministers of the Gospel has been handed down in regular and uninterrupted succession from the apostles to the present time.-Bishop Mant, Parochial Sermons, Serm. xxvii.

6. Succession and Authority.

Whilst we are faithful to our ministerial trust, zealous for the salvation of souls, actively and discreetly bent on doing good in every way and unto all within our appointed charge, spending and being spent for the sake of Christ and His Gospel, conforming for conscience' sake to every required ordinance of the Church, and ever in our public ministrations submitting our private opinions to its authoritative interpretation of God's word, as embodied, out of the Scriptures, in its liturgy and articles, we have no need to fear for the cause of truth, which shall ultimately prevail: nor for the stability of

that branch of Christ's Church, which thus appeals for the verity of its doctrine to Scripture and the earliest antiquity, and traces its ministry upwards through the successive laying on of hands unto our Lord himself.-Charge by the Bishop of Barbadoes to the Clergy of British Guiana, 18th July, 1839. Demerara, 1839.

7.-Succession.

He that will discharge aright such a high commission must "not take this honour upon himself, but be called of God as was Aaron”—there must be an obedience resting upon a Divine command. The Apostolical Commission, a Sermon by the Bishop of Calcutta, p. 21, 1834.

An authority there must be, and an obedience on the footing of that authority, in the case of every real minister-an authority external by the voice of those to whom it is committed to 'call and send ministers into the Lord's vineyard," and an authority internal, &c.—Ibid.

Accordingly it is confessed that, in point of fact, for fifteen centuries after the time of the apostles, no government of the Church obtained but that which was administered by ministers who received in direct succession from them the exclusive rights of superintendence and ordination, who were called, in the age immediately following that of the apostles, by the same name as that which distinguishes them from presbyters at present, that of episcopi or bishops.-Ibid.,

p. 22.

It is enough that the office is clearly of Divine institution.— Ibid., p. 24.

Christian Church, in contradistinction from heathenism; apostolical, in contradistinction from modern, unepiscopal forms of government; Catholic, in contradistinction from heresy; reformed, in contradistinction from Roman Catholic corruption.-Ibid., Appendix, p. 38.

Thus did our Reformers fall back upon the word of God as the sole and sufficient rule of faith; while they held that, in the interpretation of that word, the authority of the earliest and purest ages of the Church, the consent of the fathers of Catholic antiquity, was not to be set at nought by each man's private opinion and unassisted judgment; but rather to be carefully sought for, and reverentially followed and received.— The Bishop of Salisbury's Sermon, "The Church the Teacher of her Children," p. 5.

9.-Authority and Succession.

We have learned to look more closely to the origin of our own branch of the Catholic Church; and finding that it was founded on primitive usage, before the corruptions of Romanism had taken effect, we assert more boldly its independence and its antiquity, as well as its purity and its consonance with Scripture. We have learned better to value and more firmly maintain the dignity of our orders derived from the bishops, who are themselves descended in an unbroken and uninterrupted succession from the apostles: and we have learned to insist more strenuously on the virtue and efficacy of the holy Sacraments, administered by those to whom the office of imparting them has been duly communicated.-Charge by the Dean of Chichester, May, 1839, p. 25. (Parker, 1839.)

10. Succession.

The established clergy are the appointed lineal successors of those unto whom the commission just recited was first given by Christ.-Sermon for the National Society by the Hon. and Very Rev. Dr. Pellew, Dean of Norwich, 1838.

11.-Authority.

The Anglican Church, then, imposes upon her clergy that

*That of Matt. xxviii. 19, 20.

they should teach nothing to the people save what is contained in Holy Scripture: but in regard to ascertaining WHAT doctrine is really contained therein, she refers them to the declared and recorded unanimous consent of Catholic antiquity. Doubtless, as that consent has been handed down to us, from the very first, in authorised creeds, and in harmonious expositions of doctrinal texts which so repeatedly occur in all our early ecclesiastical documents.

着

Such a regulation may be very wise, as, with due submission, I venture to think; or it may be very foolish, as, peradventure, another person may stiffly maintain. But, at all events, wise or foolish, judicious or injudicious, it is, in naked matter of fact, the declared regulation of the reformed Church of England.-Postscript to Preface of "The Primitive Doctrine of Justification," by the Rev. G. S. Faber, Prebendary of Salisbury dedicated to the Lord Bishop of Chester; p. xxxvi.

I could have wished on this occasion, did the time allow, to speak of the many other great encouragements which we have as ministers of the Church of England.

First, as being assured of our rightful authority and commission to execute the office of the ministry, conveyed to us through a line of Christian pastors from our blessed Lord, that great Shepherd of the sheep.-Ordination Sermon preached at Ely by the Rev. W. Selwyn, Canon of Ely and Rector of Branstone, on Advent Sunday, 1838, p. 19.

13.-Authority.

The first (qualification) I would specify is the union of a sincere genuine love of personal liberty of conscience with a no less firm conviction of the duty of Christians, as a primary religious obligation, to acknowledge their allegiance to the Church, and to render a hearty obedience to her authority as Christ's representative.-Consecration Sermon by the Rev. J. E. Tyler, 1828, p. 13.