sures they take to extend them. The duty we owe to truth forbids us to be indifferent to the state of human opinion, or to the changes it may undergo; that duty requires us to mark the causes which are at work for affecting the religious sentiments of mankind, and to use all competent and appropriate means, according to the peculiar exigency of the time, in order that the claims of truth may be always considered and appreciated, and that the changes, which are produced on the religious views of men, may ever be in harmony with truth, and directly conducive to its advancement to that spiritual ascendancy in the world, to which the God of truth hath appointed it.

Let me not be here misunderstood. I ask not for Presbyterians what I do not most cordially concede to every other body of Christians. I think that Episcopalians, Independents, and Presbyterians; Churchmen and Dissenters; that all religious communities-have to do with each other; are entitled, nay bound, to advert to each other's principles, and to keep an eye upon each other's position and movements. I believe that, without this mutual observation, the different branches of the Church of Christ must remain in ignorance of an important part of their duty; and will be unable to contend, in the proper way and at the right time, for the faith once delivered to the saints. The mistakes, the errors, of a Christian Church, are always injurious to the cause of Him who is the Lord of all Christian believers; and therefore does it fall to other Christian Churches to notice, and, if possible, to counteract them. The mere circumstance that an unscriptural tenet is held by a Church, though not propagated beyond the pale of the particular communion, is not devoid of interest to other Churches, nor can it be said to be a thing that in no way concerns them; on the contrary, they have duties that flow from it. When the awakened spirit of proselytism brings forth that tenet from its comparative obscurity, and urges it on the acceptance of Christians at large, it is still more clear that an emergency has come, imposing special duties on other Churches of Christ. Some dogmas there are, too, which necessarily involve a direct and most cruel attack upon other

Churches by the Church that avows them-dogmas which go to wrest from the bodies assailed the comfort of fellowship with the Saviour, and of a share in new covenant blessings, and to rob them of the precious belief that they belong to the Israel of God.

Sir, it is in reference to a tenet of this latter kind that I am at present to engage the Presbytery's attention. I consider myself able to show that such a tenet is held by the Scottish Episcopal Church. Against that Church I do not, at this time, propose to substantiate any general charge of what is called Puseyism. That, I believe, it would not be difficult to do. It might be shown that their views of the sacraments correspond very closely with the views of the Oxford Tractarians. They contend for baptismal regeneration, in the strongest sense of the word; and they strenuously maintain that the character of a sacrifice, "a real and proper sacrifice," belongs to the Holy Supper of our Lord. They permit the use of the communion service of the Church of England; but "the authorized service" of their Canons, and that which must be used at the consecration of their Bishops, is the semi-Popish office, prepared under the auspices of Archbishop Laud, and attempted to be forced upon the Church of Scotland two hundred years ago, and which is known by the name of "the Scotch Communion Office."* Their prevailing doctrines on the vital point of justification, on tradition, and the rule of faith, and on the power of absclution vested in the clergy, will be found to be much the same as those put forth by the Tractarian party; and along with the tenet of "an invisible place, to which the souls of men are conducted when they leave the body, there to remain in what is called an intermediate state, till the general resurrection," their authorities teach that "the Church upon earth, and the Church in Paradise, communicate together, by mutually praying for each other;" and that departed Christians require the prayers of Christians here, "because their present condition is imperfect, and, therefore, capable of improvement; and because they are to be judged at the

* See Canon xxvi. in “the Code of Canons as Revised, Amended, and Enacted" in 1828.

mercy.

last day, and will then stand in need of * But, as I have said, it is not my intention now to take so wide a range as would be necessary for establishing the charge, that the general theology of the Episcopal Church in Scotland is the same as that of the Oxford Divines. I take one point-a single tenet-and shall prove them to be perfectly at one as to it. The doctrine I fix upon is that which relates to the apostolical succession, and which affirms the necessity of that succession, according to a particular and exclusive definition of it, not merely to the well-being, but to the being and essence of a Christian Church. The doctrine is, that an apostolical succession, coming down the line of an uninterrupted prelacy, is so indispensable, that the body of professing Christians which cannot lay claim to it, is not a true Church. In other words, the doctrine is, that there can be no Church, no ministry, and no sacraments, where there is no diocesan Episcopacy. The doctrine is, not that Episcopacy is better, more Scriptural, than any other form of government, or that it is the only form that can warrantably be used; but that Episcopacy is that grand elemental principle in the constitution of any Church, which makes it à Church, which alone conveys to it the vital powers and privileges of a Church, and connects it with Christ and with the benefits of His mediation and sovereignty; and, consequently, that the Scottish Establishment, and such other communions as are nonepiscopal in the diocesan sense, are not churches of Christ, that the powers and privileges of a Church belong to none of them, and, for lack of Episcopacy, they are not a part of the mystical body of Christ.

a

That the doctrine now expressed is embraced in the system of the Oxford theologians, will be seen by the following quotations from the celebrated Tracts for the Times.

"It is not merely because Episcopacy is a better or more Scriptural form than Presbyterianism (true as this may be in itself), that Episcopalians are right and Presbyterians are wrong; but because the Presbyterian ministers have assumed a power which was never intrusted to them.

* Catechisms of Bishops Skinner and Jolly, and Bishop Skinner's Lectures on Lent.

While the Church of Scotland pretends not to a diocesan or prelatical episcopacy, she maintains that she has the episcopacy of Scripture. Her episcopacy is presbyterial, congregational, parochial.

They have presumed to exercise the power of ordination, and to perpetuate a succession of ministers, without having received a commission to do so. This is the plain fact that condemns them, and is a standing condemnation from which they cannot escape except by artifices of argument which will serve equally to protect the self-authorised teacher of religion."-Tract 7, p. 2.

"Herein is the difference between the ministry of such persons as have received this commission from the bishop, and of those who have not received it ;—that to the former Christ has promised that his presence shall remain. But to those who have not received the commission our Lord has given no such promise. A person not commissioned from the bishop may use the words of baptism, and sprinkle or bathe with the water on earth, but there is no promise from Christ that such a man shall admit souls to the kingdom of heaven.""And as for the person himself who takes upon himself without warrant to minister in holy things, he is all the while treading in the footsteps of Korah, Dathan, and Abiram, whose awful judgment you read of in the book of Numbers. (Compare Numbers xvi. with Jude 11.)"-Tract 35, pp. 2, 3.

66

Why should we talk so much of an Establishment, and so little of an apostolical succession? Why should we not seriously endeavour to impress our people with this plain truth, that by separating themselves from our communion they separate themselves not only from a decent, orderly, useful society, but from THE ONLY CHURCH IN THIS REALM WHICH HAS A RIGHT TO BE QUITE SURE THAT SHE HAS THE LORD'S BODY TO

"We

GIVE TO HIS PEOPLE ?" "Nor need any man be perplexed by the question, sure to be presently and confidently asked, 'Do you then unchurch all the Presbyterians, all Christians who have no bishops?" " are not judging others but deciding on our own conduct. We in England cannot communicate with Presbyterians, as neither can we with Roman Catholics, but we do not therefore exclude either from salvation."

The Tract writer does not exclude us from salvation. How happens this? What follows will show.

"We are not to shrink from our deliberate views of truth and duty, because difficulties may be raised about the case of such persons, any more than we should fear to maintain the paramount necessity of Christian belief, because SIMILAR difficulties may be raised about virtuous HEATHENS, JEWS, OR MAHOMETANS."-Tract 4, pp. 5, 6.

In another Tract, the case of Presbyterian Scotland and her children is thus disposed of.

"You say that my doctrine of the one Catholic Church in effect excludes dissenters, nay presbyterians, from salvation. Far from it." "Was not Israel apostate from the days of Jeroboam? Yet were there not even in the reign of Ahab seven thousand souls who were 'reserved' an elect remnant? Does any churchman wish to place the presbyterians, where, as in Scotland, their form of Christianity is in occupation, in a worse condition under the gospel than Ephraim held under the law? Had not the ten tribes the schools of the prophets, and has not Scotland the word of God? Yet what would be thought of the Jew who had maintained that Jeroboam and his kingdom were in no guilt? And shall we, from a false charity, from a fear of condemning the elect seven thou

sand, scruple to say that presbyterianism has severed itself from our temple privileges, and undervalue the line of Levi, and the house of Aaron?"-Tract 47, p. 2.

In this passage, Scotland is compared to the kingdom of the ten tribes, and the religion of Scotland to the apostacy produced by Jeroboam the son of Nebat. Presbyterianism and the worship of the golden calves are represented as alike adverse to the salvation of men's souls, and it is by the mercy of God that an "elect remnant" under both has been "reserved." The same views are given in the following extract from the Lyra Apostolica.

"Oh rail not at our brethren of the North,

Albeit Samaria has her likeness there;

A self-formed priesthood, and THE CHURCH cast forth
To the chill mountain air.

"What though their fathers sinned and lost the grace
Which seals the holy apostolic line?

Christ's love o'erflows the bounds his prophets trace
In his revealed design.

"Israel had seers: to them the word is nigh;

Shall not that word run forth, and gladness give
To many a Shunamite, till in his eye
The full ten thousand live?"

The "self-formed priesthood" of this versifier consists of the parochial ministers of Scotland; you yourself, Moderator, and the brethren of this Presbytery belong to it; and the only Church he can discover on this side of the border is the Episcopal communion, which, in our unhappy country, has been "cast forth to the chill mountain air"! There is mercy for a remnant of us, he says; but the hope of even that entirely rests upon his assumption (of the correctness of which, I am afraid, we cannot be "quite sure") that "Christ's love o'erflows the bounds his prophets trace in his revealed design," which probably means that the blessing of salvation is, in some way to us undivulged and unknown, derivable from Christ by those who are not within the pale of his covenant.

We Scotch Presbyterians are likened to apostate Israel; hear now what is said of antichristian Rome.

Why should the corruptions of Rome lead us to deny her divine privileges, when even the idolatry of Judah did not forfeit hers, annul her temple service, or level her to Israel?”—Tract 47, p. 4.