in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Ghost; and lo! I am with you alway even unto the end of the world."

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If, moreover, we be that one Church, then it must equally follow, that all who separate from it, or refuse to join it, must be guilty of schism; and schism, be it remembered, is as much condemned in holy Scripture as false doctrine; and in our liturgy we pray, From all false doctrine, heresy, and schism, good Lord, deliver us.'

"The difference between us and the Protestant sects is not, then, a mere difference of form and Church government, as some are fond of asserting. Were that all it would not perhaps be worth contending about. But it involves a much higher principle-the principle namely of the apostolical succession, which we conscientiously believe to be essential to the office of the priesthood.

"And observe, my brethren, what is the consequence of departing from the rule I have just mentioned, as to the persons who are empowered to ordain, and to administer the Sacraments. You cannot substitute any other safe or intelligible rule in its place; you are immediately at a loss to know by whom these divine ordinances are to be administered; for if you admit the spiritual authority of any one of the modern sects, you cannot consistently deny that of another, since they all rest upon the same sandy foundation, and are all equally dissevered from the original Church. And thus you are driven to the unavoidable conclusion, that the ordinances in question may be administered by any one, which is tantamount to admitting that the whole order of the priesthood may be at once abolished.

"But this claim on our part to be THE TRUE CHURCH is thought by some to savour of uncharitableness towards others. To this we answer that there is no uncharitableness in contending earnestly for the faith once delivered to the saints.""-Pp. 7, 8, 9.

There is a sermon by Bishop Russell, the author of the History of the Church in Scotland, which sermon was preached in 1830, and went into a third edition in 1839. The title is, The Historical Evidence for the Apostolical Institution of Episcopacy. Dr. Russell is a man who combines too much prudence with his eminent gifts, to let him announce, in any unguarded or very offensive way, the exclusive opinions which are prevalent in his Church; and the sermon was preached at a time when Episcopalian pretensions were less ostentatiously paraded than they are now. Therefore the language is cautious, and generally unassuming. But still the lofty claims of Scottish Episcopacy may be discerned in it. The Bishop says:

"The essential difference (between Episcopalians and other sects), I say once more, respects the power of conferring orders-a power which we believe to have been originally vested in the bishops, and, during 1500 years, to have been exercised by them exclusively so exclusively,

at least, as to imply that no ordination was held valid at which a bishop did not preside and officiate."-P. 40.

And again :

—" the apostolic institution from which the clergy derive their authority to minister at the altar, and which confers the stamp of validity upon their ministrations, is THE FIXED AND IMMOVABLE ROCK UPON WHICH THE CHURCH IS BUILT, and against which we must never allow either ignorance or caprice to prevail.”—P. 46.

In connection with the principles he unfolds, the Bishop makes the following declaration :

"I state these things, my brethren, not to unchurch other societies— for with others we have no immediate concern-but solely to explain the grounds upon which every episcopal communion is established," &c.— P. 46.

A cursory reading of this may leave the impression that the doctrines, which Bishop Russell teaches in his sermon, are denied to unchurch other denominations. But that is far from the meaning which the language really carries. The Bishop, it is true, seems to be anticipating an objection to the effect that his doctrines unchurch non-episcopal communities. But he does not say that the objection is unfounded. He skilfully passes away from the objection, and evades the point as to whether his doctrines unchurch other bodies or not; and makes a declaration as to the end which he himself has in view. The objection is, "you advance unchurching doctrines." The answer is not, "I deny that that is the character of the doctrines I advance;" but merely, "my doctrines are stated with no unchurching design, but for a purpose totally different." The charge is"The views you state unchurch Presbyterians;" and the explicit and satisfactory reply to the charge is " That is not my reason for stating them"!

Leaving Bishop Russell, the next work I shall quote from is, A Plea for Primitive Episcopacy, as the Divinely Instituted Principle of Unity among the Disciples of Christ. By the Rev. W. C. A. Maclaurin, M.A. Minister of the Chapel of the Holy Trinity, Elgin. Second Edition. 1839. Mr. Maclaurin is an uncommonly frank, straightforward man; he is a perfect contrast to Mr. Pratt, whose heavy and wearisome circumlocutions we found it so difficult to escape from a little while ago; he sends not his readers

a-hunting for his meaning through a wilderness of words; he tells us at once what he thinks. It is quite a comfort to meet with him. One is saved the trouble, in the case of such as he, of performing the part of a commentator. All I require to do here is to classify and arrange a few extracts, which will abundantly speak for themselves. Let us first have his views on the validity of the sacraments.

"There is at present a regular succession of ordinations in the Presbyterian churches; but men forget that all is null, because the succession was set on foot by those who had no authority."-P. 131.

"On the plainest principles of reason, those only who can prove their uninterrupted descent, by successive ordination, from the persons commissioned by Christ, have a right to administer the sacraments now; and, when others affect to administer them, the action is nothing more than a bare and ineffectual symbol."-P. 72.

-"sacraments, unlike the moral means of prayer and preaching, depend, for their peculiar efficacy, on that apostolical succession, which is the matter of present dispute."-P. 60.

"Quakers form the only consistent modern sect. Sagacious enough to see that an order of lawfully commissioned ministers, without the apostolical succession, is an impossibility, and not choosing to acknowledge this succession, they have abolished all distinction of clergy and laity. In perfect consistency also, they have disused the sacraments, most correctly arguing, that they are altogether null without the grace of a divinelycommissioned order of ministers.”—Pp. 134, 135.

baptism must not be repeated, provided the baptiser have true orders."-P. 39.

Let us next hear Mr. Maclaurin respecting the Church of Christ, and the true branches thereof.

"To hear the men of modern times speak on this subject, one would think they had forgotten, or never knew, that the Anglican Church declares, that from the apostles' times there have been three orders of ministers in Christ's Church; that she asserts the power of priestly absolution, condemned by the other reformed communions as a remnant of Popish error; and that she excommunicates, as infected with 'wicked error,' all who shall assert that separatists from the hierarchy can constitute a true Church."-P. 12.

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Bishop Andrews expressly says that he must have a heart as hard as iron who can deny the name of churches (meaning, as he there does, branches of the Catholic society) to those flourishing foreign congregations who follow the Presbyterian model. I, in common with every other modern high churchman, think the Bishop was wrong, and that there is no hardness of heart in following out a principle."-P. 32.

"the English hierarchy failed in its duty at the time of the union

with Scotland, inasmuch as it consented to recognise—as established by its' supreme governor,' in another part of the united empire-one of the modern anti-episcopal, and consequently anti-catholic sects.”—P. 66.

"The Roman communion is a Church because she has the Apostolical succession, but has no right to her boast of being Catholic, because she has corrupted the Apostolic doctrine and worship, and made false terms of communion. The Scottish Establishment, having thrown off the Episcopal government and succession, cannot strictly and spiritually speaking-be called a Church at all. The Church of England is a branch of the One Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church' of the Creeds, but a corrupt one, inasmuch as she exercises little or no discipline. A good, though homely, illustration of this subject has been given as follows:Supposing the Reformed Episcopal Church to be a sound apple, then the Roman is a rotten apple, and the Scottish Establishment no apple at all, but only the picture or waxen imitation of an apple; and when we call it a Church, we are guilty of a similarly convenient impropriety to that by which we say of such a picture or piece of wax, 'It is an apple,' meaning it is the likeness of an apple; or as children say, it is a make-believe apple. I will only add to this, that the Church of England, from her want of discipline, is the withered apple."-P. 117.

The "rotten apple" is the Church of Rome; the "withered apple" is the Church of England; the waxen, "make-believe," apple is the Church of Scotland; where shall we find the fresh, sound, healthy apple? Mr. Maclaurin modestly refers us to the biographer of Bishop Horne, and from him we shall get the apostle Paul's opinion upon that point!

"From the present circumstances of its primitive orthodoxy, piety, poverty, and depressed state, he (the biographer of Horne) has such an opinion of this Church as to think, that if the great apostle of the Gentiles was upon earth, and it were put to his choice with what denomination of Christians he would communicate, the preference would probably be given to the Episcopalians of Scotland as most like to the people he had been used to."-P. 123.

The Rev. David Aitchison, "Presbyter of the Church in Scotland," whom I have already had occasion to mention, published, last year, a pamphlet entitled, The Truth with Boldness. Mr. Aitchison is full of compassion for his Presbyterian countrymen, and pours out his soul in vehement remonstrances and pleadings on the subject of their schismatical separation from Christ and his Church. He is grieved to the heart at the calamitous circumstance that a body of "Dissenters" should be nationally established in Scotland; and he implores the adherents, one and all, of Scottish Dissent, whether of that branch of it which is by law established, or of that

which is not, to renounce their schism, and "to seek, by obedience to the angels," i.e. the Bishops, "reconciliation with the one Catholic and apostolic Church." But let Mr. Aitchison speak for himself.

"Not to know Episcopacy merely, but to practise it, is the bounden duty of every faithful son of Holy Mother Church; and whoever would seek to enter within her pale, let him thus think of Episcopacy. Let him esteem it not as an establishment, not as a religious denomination, but as the spouse of Christ-the bride of the Lamb, without blemish and without spot-of the Lamb of God which taketh away the sins of the world."-P. 44.

"To the political Dissenters, or to those who uphold the present system solely because it is an Establishment, without any reference to whom it owes its establishment, I fear it is in vain to appeal: but to those whom the accident of birth has made Dissenters, and are not wedded to their systems, but from want of reflection are in dissent, I do appeal, and that not without hope that they will, in good earnestness, set themselves to enquire whether these things be so."-P. 38.

"Could I for one moment suppose the Presbyterian system, now humanly established in Scotland, was the one Catholic and Apostolic Church, however painful to resign our liturgy, I would immediately forsake Episcopacy, and be a Presbyterian. I dare not be a schismatic, I dare not live an alien from the household of faith, I dare not follow in the gainsaying of Korah, and without authority offer sacrifice unto the Lord." -P. 65.

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-they (the seven angels of Asia) were not, to use a common expression, angels of an Established Church, but were planted there by Almighty God, for the express purpose of opposing the then established religion, which was idolatry; and, therefore, they were angels de jure divino, not, de jure civili. Exactly similar to these in their position are the successors of the angels in Scotland-bishops de jure divino, but not, de jure civili. The people rose in rebellion against them in 1689, expelling them from their thrones; and this crime of the people the state ratified and confirmed. But though the Bishops were robbed of their temporalities, God did not suffer them to be removed; and though they and their successors underwent the most dreadful persecution, though in 1747 the clergy of Scottish orders were proscribed, yet God was with them, and their successors still bear spiritual rule in Scotland. If, then, the professed Christians in the cities of the seven Asiatic Churches, whether the faithful or heretics, were by God required to be obedient to the angels, who were not by human law established, are not the people now in Scotland, by the same rule and by the same divine law, be they the faithful or be they dissenters, established (by law I mean) or non-established, equally bound in obedience to their bishops?" "What man, were a friend to tell him that the food he was about to eat was unwholesome, would, instead of thanks, break out into railing and abusive language for the well meant caution? And is it not equally ungenerous, to make the same return to those who, being fully persuaded in their own minds, honestly endeavour to prove the unwholesomeness and wickedness of the present religious