trations of the Levitical priesthood, than of the pastors and teachers whom Christ gave "for the perfecting of the saints for the work of the ministry. 13".

un

Momentous consequences followed from the substitution of a vicarious priesthood. No church without a bishop, apostolical succession, divine right, the exclusive validity of Episcopal ordination, baptismal regeneration, the mysterious efficacy of the sacraments, the grace of Episcopal benediction and confirmation ;-truly these are awful mysteries; and they affect more or less the whole economy of grace. The natural and logical results of such a faith are seen in the movements of the Oxford Tractarians. The great object of these " protestantizing" reformers is, to re-instate in the church the prelatical ministry of other days, and to restore a vicarious religion with its endless absurdities and superstitions. Thus "the character of the church of Christ is changed. She is made to stand in the place of the Redeemer, whose work is His atonement is incomplete, his righteousness insufficient. Ceremonies are multiplied, and the kingdom of God is no longer righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost. The office of the ministers is of course entirely changed and their true character lost. Thunders more awful than those of Sinai are heard.. All is discouragement: the object of the Christian ministry in their hands being apparently to try how difficult, how painful, how uncertain the Christian's course can be made with that ministry, and how impossible without it!

"In a word, their steps are dark, their ministrations mysterious; suited rather to the office of a priest of some heathen mythology than of ambassadors from Christ, ministers of the everlasting gospel, whose feet are beautiful upon the mountains, as those that bring glad tidings, that publish peace.

13 Behold almost a whole convention moving off in a body to prostrate themselves before their bishop, and receive his blessing. Such are the superstitions connected with the perversion of the benediction.

"The aspect which it wears towards those of other communions is fearful in the extreme. No purity of faith, no labor of love, no personal piety, no manifestation of the fruits of the Spirit, will avail anything. Though steadfast in faith, joyful through hope, and rooted in charity, they pass not through the eye of this needle, and shall not see the kingdom of God."

The great evil of such a system is, that it is a religion of forms, of mysterious rites and awful prerogatives. Heaven in mercy save us from a religion which substitutes these things for the gospel of the grace of God, through Jesus Christ our Lord. To Episcopacy in any form, the one great objection which includes almost all others is this-it unavoidably, if not intentionally, encourages that besetting sin of man,—the innate propensity to substitute the outward form for the inward spirit of religion.

We close, therefore, this protracted view of the Government and Worship of the Primitive Church, with a deepened impression of the greatness of that wisdom from on high, which guided the apostles in adopting an organization so simple and at the same time so efficient in promoting those great ends for which the church of Christ was instituted; which also directed them in the establishment of those simple and impressive forms of worship, which most happily promote the spirituality and sincerity in the worship of God, that alone are well pleasing in his sight. Nor can we resist the conviction, that the substitution of the Episcopal government and worship for the apostolical, was an efficient if not the principal cause of that degeneracy and formality, which soon succeeded to the primitive spirituality and purity of the church. It began in the multiplication of church officers and ceremonies. Everything that could attract attention to religion by its pomp and ceremony was carefully brought to the aid of the church. It had been alleged by the heathen as an objection to the Christians, that they had no solemn rites, nothing attrac

tive, nothing imposing to command the admiration of men. To obviate this objection and reconcile the heathen to the Christian religion, not a few even of these pagan rites, with a little variation, were incorporated into the rituals of the churchAfter this fatal departure from the spirit of the gospel, the progress of declension exhibited in constantly increasing ostentation and formality, was easy and rapid. The elegant and forcible language of Robert Hall is the happiest expression which we can give to our view of this speedy and disastrous degeneracy. "The descent of the human mind, from the spirit to the letter, from what is vital and intellectual to what is ritual and external in religion, is the true source of idolatry and superstition in all the multifarious forms which they have assumed; and as it began early to corrupt the religion of nature, or more properly of patriarchal tradition, so it soon obscured the lustre and destroyed the simplicity of the Christian institute. In proportion as genuine devotion declined, the love of pomp and ceremony increased. The few and simple rites of Christianity were extolled beyond all reasonable bounds; new ones were invented, to which mysterious meanings were attached! till the religion of the New Testament became in process of time as insupportable as the Mosaic law."

APPENDIX.

THE reader will better understand the propriety of calling the Episcopal liturgy "an extract of the mass translated," by comparing some extracts from the Mass Book, with corresponding portions from the Book of Common Prayer. For the sake of comparison they are set in parallel columns.

FASTS.

PREFACE.