enlightened and truly Scriptural views contained in our Confession of Faith:

"The catholic or universal Church, which is invisible," says the Confession, chap. xxv. "consists of the whole number of the elect that have been, are, or shall be, gathered into one, under Christ the Head thereof; and is the spouse, the body, the fulness of Him that filleth all in all.

"The visible Church, which is also catholic and universal under the gospel (not confined to one nation, as before under the law), consists of all those throughout the world that profess the true religion, together with their children; and is the kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ, the house and family of God, out of which there is no ordinary possibility of salvation.

"Unto this Catholic visible Church Christ hath given the ministry, oracles, and ordinances of God, for the gathering and perfecting of the saints in this life, to the end of the world; and doth by His own presence and Spirit, according to his promise, make them effectual thereunto.

"This Catholic Church hath been sometimes more, sometimes less visible. And particular Churches, which are members thereof, are more or less pure, according as the doctrine of the gospel is taught and embraced, ordinances administered, and public worship performed more or less purely in them.

"The purest Churches under heaven are subject both to mixture and error; and some have so degenerated as to become no Churches of Christ, but synagogues of Satan. Nevertheless, there shall be always a Church on earth, to worship God according to His will.”

These, Sir, are the doctrines of the Church of Scotland. I think we have no occasion to be ashamed of them. They will bear a comparison with the sentiments of those who speak of " Episcopacy as the spouse of Christ and the bride of the Lamb," and make the Church of God, the heirs of His promise, and the partakers of His covenant, to consist of such alone as submit to prelatical government. The following article on Episcopal ordination was ratified by Act of the General Assembly, 1645, when Presbyterianism was in the zenith of its power:

"If a minister be designed to a congregation, who hath been formerly ordained presbyter according to the form of ordination which hath been in the Church of England, which we hold for substance to be valid, and not to be disclaimed by any who have received it, then, there being a cautious proceeding in matters of examination, let him be admitted without any new ordination."

I do not believe that there will be found, in our Church, a single minister who does not most entirely concur in the doctrine which this article lays down and no amount of arrogant pretension, on the part of Episcopalians, will ever, I trust, tempt one of us to waver in maintaining it.

Let it no more be said that Scottish Episcopalians do but say of us what we say of them. It is directly opposed to the fact. We unchurch not them; but they unchurch us. We deny not their baptism; but they deny ours. We acknowledge the validity of their ordination; but they condemn us as usurpers of the priesthood, and class us with Korah, Dathan, and Abiram!

We cannot regard it as other than mysterious in the Providence of God, that a new controversy like this should be arising to shake still more an already distracted and agitated kingdom; a controversy, which involves a nation's religious hopes, and which calls us to the defence, not of this or of that supposed privilege of Christianity, but of the title of our ancestors and ourselves to the very name of Christians; a controversy, in which it is not a point of ecclesiastical order, however important and indispensable, that is denied us, but in which we must resist the attempt to nullify our gospel ordinances, to cut off our communion with the Saviour, and to plant in our souls the gloomy belief that we have not, and cannot have, any part or lot with the Israel of God; a controversy, in a word, which does not merely seek to make us least in the kingdom of heaven, and to appoint us the crumbs that fall from the children's table, but which cruelly aims to cut us off altogether, to pluck from our hands the bread of New Testament grace, and to give us in its room the stone of uncovenanted mercy. It is, I say, mysterious; but God's will be done. We imagined we had enough to do, without the addition of so exciting and momentous a warfare. But we knew no better. If He be in the midst of us, help will be vouchsafed, and strength will be given for the emergency. The wrath of men shall praise Him, and the remainder will be restrained. On our assailants there lies a responsibility, which it is less needful for us than for themselves to weigh deeply. They are forcing on their countrymen the consideration of claims, from the struggle connected with the disposal of which no man can tell what events may proceed. They have taken it upon them to raise questions which may not disturb the peace of Scotland alone-questions which, before they are settled, may produce effects on the re

ligious state of the empire, which none will have more reason than those who broached them to bewail. Our

duty is a plain one. We may not shrink, because new adversaries are crowding into the field, and because there await us prolonged and deadly conflicts in behalf of all that as Protestants and Scottish Christians we count dear. We must prepare for the coming trial. We must quit us like men, and be strong in the Lord. That God, who forsook not our fathers, during twenty-eight years of suffering from prelatical persecutors, will remember the congregation which He purchased of old— the rod of his inheritance, which he redeemed-this Mount Zion, wherein He did dwell!

APPENDIX.

SCOTTISH EPISCOPALIANS hold that the Presbyterian people of Scotland are not baptised. Their principle is, that baptism is invalid and null, when dispensed by a minister who has not been prelatically ordained. The clergy of this country have not received prelatical ordination, and therefore they conclude that the baptism our people have received is ineffectual-equivalent to no baptism at all. In reference to this matter, I propose here to give a short argumentum ad homines: and what we say to Scottish prelatists is this, if we are not baptised, you are not baptised. If our baptism must be condemned as invalid, so must yours. By destroying our baptism, you demolish your own.

In going on to the proof of this, there is a postulate, which will not, I suppose, be refused; viz. that the prelatical ordination or consecration of an unbaptised person, that is to say, of a person who, according to the principles of Scottish prelatists, is not a Christian, and not a member of the Church of Christ, must be invalid and null. For example, if Bishop Alexander, at Jerusalem, should lay his hands upon a Turk, without baptising him, Scottish prelatists would hold the act of ordination to be invalid; or if Bishop Alexander himself, who was originally a Jew, had received his episcopal consecration without being previously baptised, he would be no canonical bishop, and could not validly exercise any function of the episcopate.

.G