question, whether there are satisfactory grounds for supposing that Episcopacy was divinely instituted."-Tract II. pp. 26, 27.

"We beg to state our humble opinion," say these clergymen and laymen of the Scottish Episcopal Church, "that a saving belief in the Lord Jesus Christ necessarily implies an active obedience to" Episcopacy! Apt scholars they of the venerated Jolly, whose undisguised doctrine it was, that, "in order to be Christians," we must turn Episcopalians! Nor let us flatter ourselves that the scandal of such a tenet will lead them to abandon it. They are prepared to hold it fast, and to avow it boldly.

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we are continually assailed with the senseless allegation, that it is absurd that God would make man's salvation to depend, to any extent, on the receiving of sacraments, and such like; and that even if he did, it is not to be supposed that he would render it necessary to receive those sacraments from a particular order of men. Now, this is nothing more or less than downright infidelity; it is just as if men said, we refuse to be saved at all, unless we can perceive the propriety of the means proposed."-Tract II. p. 41.

Before we send these gentlemen off the stage, let us hear their parting exhortation:

"Under all the circumstances above detailed, it is surely worth the consideration of our countrymen, to whatever sect they may happen to belong, whether they ought not to sacrifice their trifling peculiarities, and to return to that Church which was founded on our Saviour as the chief corner-stone, and built on the apostles and prophets to that Church whose glorious martyrs and confessors originally went forth, to overcome the pagan religions of the world, and seal their doctrines with their blood -to that Church which, although it was under the cloud during the dark ages, arose as with the strength of a lion at the time of the Reformation, and shook off the Roman usurpation, by which it had been chained to the ground-in one word, TO THE PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH-the Church of Cranmer, and Latimer, and Ridley, and Hooker, which has outlived to the present hour all the devices of the devil and all the madness of the people, and which is at this moment in the possession of a youthful strength and vigour never previously surpassed. To this Church, we call upon all to adhere; for SHE IS THE CHURCH OF THE LIVING GOD. Of all the Protestant communities, she alone has retained both the doctrine and the fellowship of the apostles; and while others are wasting their energies in connection with systems and opinions suggested by human ingenuity and craftiness, the Protestant Episcopal Church, which is both catholic and apostolic, pursues her way in the good old paths, without giving any countenance to the frivolous conceits of modern Gamaliels. In conclusion- She may,' as the Rev. Dr. Chapman says in his sermon on the Protestant Episcopal Church (2d Ed. p. 320), be calumniated by bigots of severe and con

tracted minds. She may be derided by enthusiasts deranged in their intellects. She may be denounced by sceptics having an evil heart of unbelief.' But neither separately nor combined, by craft nor by violence, will they be able to prevail against her, to undermine her foundations, or level her bulwarks to the ground. By the liberal and unprejudiced, by the sober and considerate, by the wise and good, she will ever be regarded, as a crown of glory in the hand of the Lord, and a royal diadem in the hand of her God. They will perceive that for long ages, he has been her shield and her buckler, the impregnable fortress of her strength, and the lofty tower of her defence. They will appropriate to her, as I have done, the prophetic language of Isaiah's vow; and although its more brilliant accomplishment may be deferred to the days of millennial felicity, then at last will it unquestionably appear, in the sight of men and angels, that her righteousness has gone forth as brightness, and her salvation as a lamp that burneth.'”—Tract II. pp. 47, 48.

I shall trouble the Presbytery with but one extract more. It is taken from a letter, addressed to myself, which appeared lately in the Edinburgh Observer, and was headed in the following way :-"Edinburgh, Tuesday before Easter, March 22, 1842. To the Rev.

Gray, one of the Ministers of the Establishment in Perth." I think it very probable that the writer of the letter is one of the "Scottish Churchmen" who issued the Tracts for all Places and for all Times, and the extract which I am now to read will form an appropriate close to the documentary evidence of Scottish Episcopal opinions.

"The members of the modern Italian sect in Great Britain and Ireland, which calls itself Roman Catholic, are styled in the canons of our Mother Church of England 'Papists' or 'Popish recusants,' and stand, along with your own sect, the Presbyterian, and all other schismatics whatsoever, formally excommunicated and cast from the bosom of the Catholic Church of these realms. (See Constitutions and Canons Ecclesiastical, Nos. III. to XI. inclusive.) I write not these few

lines with any purpose of offending you or the members of the Establishment. If any of the expressions I have used are strong, no candid mind will, I think, deny that you have given me, as an Episcopalian, ample provocation. One word in conclusion. The Establishment in Scotland is nodding to its fall. The wise, moderate, and judicious party, who so long managed its concerns, and, by the splendid abilities of many of their number, threw a lustre over it, which concealed its inherent defects, are now no longer in the ascendancy in its councils. They have given place to a fanatical, vulgar, and underbred majority. Ecclesiastical history furnishes us with few such instances. It would be difficult, I think, to find such a specimen among the clergy of any part of the Catholic Church in any age. Among the schismatics such men have frequently appeared, and your contemporary fellow-dissenters, the Popish Priests in Ireland, afford a remarkable and striking parallel. The respectable classes of society in

Scotland are disgusted at the pretensions of such men among them. The claims to inherent spiritual powers' put forward by them, are laughed at, and an examination into the origin of Presbyterianism is forced upon persons who had never thought on the subject before. That examination, in a calm and enlightened age, must open the eyes of many, as it did those of the Rev. Mr. Marshall of Edinburgh, to the ridiculous pretensions of John Knox, a canonically degraded priest, and a handful of turbulent laymen, to make the Church of Christ in a nation, to usurp those holy and awful functions which Scripture says 'no man taketh upon himself, but which they and their successors have taken upon themselves, and, without the slightest pretensions to a lawful and apostolic call, have pretended, and do still pretend, to exercise in this country. What the ultimate result, sooner or later, must be, in the good providence of the Almighty, there is no room to doubt."

Sir, the materials of this argument are not exhausted. I might go on to adduce yet other publications by Scottish Episcopalians, in which the same exclusive views are expressed, and the same haughty pretensions advanced. But it cannot be necessary. I am not afraid that in any quarter where the evidence which has now been submitted is attended to, one lingering doubt will remain that the point I set out with has been established. Recollect, Moderator, that the Scottish Episcopal clergy, from among whom the swarm of sermons, letters, pamphlets, catechisms, and treatises, which have been under our review, has issued, consist of but from ninety to a hundred individuals-conjoin with the fact this other, that, with the exception of a discourse by Mr. Drummond of Edinburgh, no publication of any sort, containing doctrines of an opposite character, has, so far as I have been able to learn, ever at any time, throughout the whole period of its history, emanated from the Scottish Episcopal communion-in connection with these things, mark the singular but significant law relating to baptism, which forms one of their canons, and which, I have reason to believe, is, at this moment, in full operation—and keep in view, finally, the indication of their principles which we have lately obtained from the Prelates of the body, in Synod assembled ;-consider, I say, all this, and can there be hesitation in identifying Scottish Episcopacy with the tenet, that there is no True Church in Scotland but its own, and, perchance, the church of the papacy that the sacraments of Presbyterians are no sacraments at all-and that the ministers and elders of

the Establishment are without authority, and usurpers of the functions they pretend to exercise?

Probably there will be an attempt to save the credit of Scottish Episcopacy, by representing that Episcopalians do no more than is done by the adherents of other denominations than we Presbyterians are ourselves accustomed to do. We shall, it is likely, be reminded that we ourselves believe and contend that our system is the best, and claim for it the sanction of Scripture, and the warrant of Apostolical example; and why, then, it may be asked, should we murmur because Episcopalians exercise a similar liberty, and think as highly of their system as we think of ours? I answer, that we do indeed prefer, on grounds both of reason and Scripture, our own ecclesiastical principles and constitution; but the apologists of Scottish Episcopacy will do well to remember that that which has appeared in the extracts I have read to-day, and which it is incumbent upon them to justify, is something very different from a similar preference for the prelatical economy. I acknowledge at once that every upright episcopalian must regard church government by diocesan bishops as agreeable to Scripture, and may reasonably be expected to hold that those who reject it are in error, and that Christian communities, in which prelates are not received, have, in so far, departed from the order of primitive times. But Scottish Episcopalians do more; they take vastly higher ground. They say that the society, which has no prelates, is not a church of Christ-that the ministers, who have not been prelatically ordained, are not ministers of Christ-and that the individuals, whom non-episcopalian ministers have baptised, are not members of Christ. They unchurch our denominations, they degrade our clergy, they unchristianise our people. It is vain for them to allege that their opinions are held by all Episcopalians. Even although that were true, it would be no defence. But it is not the fact. If in Scotland there is too much reason for believing that they are all of one mind, we know that in England, in Ireland, and in America, there are numbers, who are as good Episcopalians as they, and who are a thousand times more charitable and brotherly withal. The bishop of Chester

does not agree with them, nor the bishop of Winchester, nor the archbishop of Dublin, nor the archbishop of Canterbury. The excellent bishop of Calcutta has published his abhorrence of their views. Nevertheless these prelates, while repudiating the dogma that the Church of the Redeemer and the Episcopal system are co-extensive, so that the former includes none by whom the latter is not embraced, are strenuous maintainers of the principles and forms that distinguish their commu

nion.

The Scottish Episcopal Church stands alone in its bigotry and exclusiveness. No, not quite alone. The Church of Rome keeps it in countenance; although I know not that even she will go so far as to hold that the people of Scotland are not baptised. But it stands alone among the Churches that call themselves Reformed. The Church of England, whatever she may do, has not joined it as yet. The Episcopal Church in America, there is cause to think, is still farther from the approval of its principles or its spirit.

I know that our own Church has been often accused of narrowness and bigotry. That we have always been free of them I shall certainly not pretend. That in our controversies from time to time with the supporters of a hierarchy, we have never spoken or written unadvisedly, or that we have never given way to acrimonious feelings, and indulged in sinful asperities, against our opponents, I am very far indeed from affirming. I believe that, while vindicating the Scriptural authority of our ecclesiastical system, we have too often exemplified the frailty of man, and broken the law of charity. But there is one thing that we have never done. I say it, Sir, with thankfulness to God,-we have never been guilty of confining His Church to Presbyterians! We have never said, or thought, that Episcopalians, as such, are not within its pale; nor have we consigned Episcopalians to "the uncovenanted mercies of God!" We have never maintained that the baptism of Episcopalians is null, or that Episcopalian ministers are not validly ordained. It is with feelings of no ordinary comfort that I turn from the repulsive theories of Scotch Episcopacy, on the subject of the Catholic Church, to the