who differ from us, in opinion or in practice, on these subjects.

"II. These assemblies ought not to possess any civil jurisdiction, nor to inflict any civil penalties: Their power is wholly moral or spiritual, and that only ministeral and declarative. They possess the right of requiring obedience to the laws of Christ; and of excluding the disobedient and disorderly, from the privileges of the church. To give efficiency, however, to this necessary and scriptural authority, they possess the powers requisite for obtaining evidence and inflicting censure: They can call before them any offender against the order and government of the church: They can require members, of their own society, to appear and give testimony on the cause; but the highest punishment to which their authority extends is to exclude the contumacious and impenitent, from the congregation of believers."

marked with

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In these chapters, every line is wisdom, moderation, and charity. far from asserting that no church is name of a church of Christ, but our own, that the contrary is clearly and unequivocally acknowledged. They are so far from maintaining, that there is no salvation out of the pale of our church, that they could scarcely have found words more strongly to express an opposite opinion, without running into unlimited latitudinarianism. They make the visible church to consist of all those throughout the world, who profess the true religion, together with

their children; and, lest the phrase, the true religion, might be construed to mean an exact conformity with our own standards, they declare that they consider as included in the visible catholic Church, many churches less pure than their own, and that they freely "embrace in the spirit of Charity, "those christians who differ from them, in opinion, "or in practice, on these subjects." They go on to state, that this visible church is the kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ, the house and family of God, out of which there is no ordinary possibility of salvation; thus making express provision for the exercise of mercy in ways extraordinary, and therefore unknown to us. Could any thing be more guarded or remote from bigotry? These gentlemen, however, insist, that in the chapter of the Confession of Faith, (Chap. 27.) which treats of the Sacraments, it is formally declared, that "neither of "the sacraments may be dispensed by any other "than a minister of the word lawfully ordained." But what is this to the purpose? Who is a "Minister of the word lawfully ordained?" If any preceding or subsequent passage in our public standards, had asserted, or even intimated, that no minister is lawfully ordained, but one who has been set apart exactly in our mode, there would be some pretext for this cavil. But no such assertion or intimation, nor any thing that resembles either, is contained in the whole book. It prescribes the course of study, and the kind of trials which candidates for the ministry, in our church, shall be re

quired to pass through, and it also directs the mode of their ordination: but it pronounces no sentence of invalidity on other modes of conducting these important concerns; nor does it give a hint, from which, by fair reasoning, such a sentence can be deduced.

But this is not all. While the language of our Confession of Faith, and Articles of Government, is catholic and charitable in a very remarkable degree, their history illustrates and confirms their language. They were drawn up by the Westminster Assembly of Divines, than which a more venerable body of ministers never convened. This illustrious ecclesiastical Council consisted of more than a hundred divines, besides the lay members. And it is remarkable, that all of these divines, excepting about seven or eight, had received Episcopal ordination, and no other. Is it credible that these men, assembled as ministers, judicially deliberating and acting as ministers, could have intended to pronounce their own ordination null and void? Or that they would frame articles declaring all such ordinations in future invalid? No; such a sentence was never pronounced; and I may confidently assert, was never thought of by a member of that assembly. While they declared the Presbyterian form of church government to be the apostolic and primitive plan; they explicitly acknowledged the validity of Episcopal orders and ministrations. And the same has been the language and the conduct of every Presbyterian church that ever existed on earth.

Ministers Episcopally ordained have frequently applied to be received into Christian and ministerial communion with Presbyterian churches, both in Europe and America. But did Mr. How ever hear of one of them being re-ordained? I will venture to say he never did. Ministers have offered themselves to the church to which I have the honour to belong, not only from the Episcopal, but also from the Methodist and the Baptist churches. But was a re-ordination ever attempted, in any one of these cases? I can confidently affirm that no such case ever occurred; certainly none ever came to my knowledge. In every instance in which it was ascertained that the minister applying to be received, had been regularly set apart to the sacred office, by the imposition of the hands of men authorized to preach and administer sacraments in their own church, he was freely received, and his ordination sustained as valid. Does this look like pronouncing our precise form of church order indispensable to a regular ministry, to valid ordinances, or to final salvation? Had we been accused of being zealous advocates for the doctrine of Purgatory or Transubstantiation, the charge would have been equally true, and equally creditable to the candour of its author.

But perhaps Mr. How will plead, that, although our church, in the language of her public standards, is, on the whole, liberal and conciliatory; yet that other branches of the Presbyterian body, particularly those with which Dr. Mason, and Mr. M'Leod

are connected, go the whole length of asserting the exclusive validity of the Presbyterian ministry and ordinances. Such is one of the arts to which this gentleman resorts, when he cannot find materials enough in our Confession of Faith, to satisfy his insatiable appetite for proscription and excommunication. But neither will this subterfuge avail him. He accuses others as unjustly as he accuses us. It is not true that the most high-toned Presbyterians on earth, go any thing like the length, in maintaining the necessity of our particular mode of constituting the christian ministry, that this gentleman and his friends do in asserting the exclusive validity of Episcopal ordination. And, although both Dr. Mason and Mr. M'Leod may hold some opinions concerning the Christian church in which I do not entirely concur with them; yet there cannot be greater injustice than to speak of them and their writings in the manner in which Mr. How has permitted himself to do. To what this mis-statement of their opinions is to be ascribed, it becomes not me to say. I dare not impeach the integrity of Mr. How. For acquitting his honesty at the expense of his understanding, he would not thank me: And to suppose that he has allowed himself to speak with so much positiveness of their tenets, without any acquaintance with them, would be as offensive as either.

But are there not some Presbyterians who hold that their form of church government was the apostolic and primitive form? Undoubtedly, many.