'Neglect not the gift that is in thee;' which is said to have been given Timothy by prophecy, with the laying on of the hands of the Presbytery" (1 Tim. iv. 14). This gift' was no other than the trust that had been committed to him, that is, the ministration of the Gospel; and not any office, as that of a bishop. St Paul speaks of this same thing as a grace or a gift. It was, as he says, a 'grace given' to him; and that grace or favour, was, that he should preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ' (Eph. iii. 8). Timothy was separated' for the work of the ministry as Paul was, and that by laying on of hands. To this the reference is no doubt made. Paul was separated' by the laying on of the hands of certain prophets and teachers; and the same thing is probably meant by the Presbytery' in this place: but if it be maintained to be different, then we have another instance of the various modes of appointment that prevailed in the early Church. There is another text on which our successionists build hay and stubble.' It occurs in 2 Tim. i. 6, where Paul exhorts Timothy to 'stir up the gift of God, which,' he says, is in thee by the putting on of my hands.' This gift is evidently different from the other. The expression, stir up,' cannot refer to any trust or work in which he was engaged; it cannot be applied to any office, privilege, honour, or official power. To

stir up anything of this kind is not what can be said to be done with any propriety. It must therefore refer to some inward grace or qualification with which he was endued: and what could this be but some miraculous gift which was thus conferred on him? We read of nothing else of this kind, which was bestowed by laying on of the hands of the apostles; and it is supposed by most, that this was alone bestowed by their hands, there being no instance of its being conferred by any one else. How improper there

VOL. II.

fore it is to refer to this case, in order to prove what is done now by those who ordain. Until they bestow some miraculous gift, this case can be of no avail.

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"The dexterous mode in which our modern successionists mingle portions of Scripture with their own notions, is quite extraordinary; and in this way they make up a great deal of what appears, on first reading, to be quite scriptural: but a little examination will soon discover that it is all a deception. The sending to preach is the work of God, and is ascribed in Scripture to the Father, to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit; but never, as far as I recollect, to men in any situations, or under any circumstances. Christ told his disciples to pray the Lord of the harvest' to send forth labourers into his harvest' (Matt. ix. 38). Christ himself sent his apostles. The Holy Spirit sent Paul and Barnabas. What Christ did in this respect while on earth, the Holy Spirit is doing still. The sending of ministers is now espe cially his work. Now, this explanation,' though wholly scriptural, will not suit our author (Mr. Irons), because it takes away from his fine superstructure the only foundation on which it stands. When explanations and criticisms' are denounced, it is time for people to look about them, for the object can be no other than to defraud them of some truth.

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That it

"It is not with any degree of complacency that our author regards the plea for the inward call.' has often been pleaded falsely, is what none can deny: but a false pretence is no evidence against the thing itself. This inward call is distinctly recognised in our own Church; and it is on the ground of there being an inward. call, that the bishop ordains. The Spirit's work in sending ministers is what our Church most expressly acknowledges. Every candidate for orders is distinctly asked, 'Do you trust that you are inwardly moved by the Holy Ghost to take upon you this

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Scriptures declare! And they are hiddeu there! Is it wrong to call such sayings delirious? They are so most certainly, as well as many others in these Lectures: and it is but right to designate things as they are. How does this author and his associates propose to revive religion in the land? for this is their professed objeet. It is evidently by making use of these treasures of unknown grace hidden in the church!! And what are these treasures? They are, from what appears from their writings, the three following:-Apostolical successionbaptismal regeneration-and the Eucharist-if not wholly, yet as nearly Popish as it can well be! These are the treasures of grace hidden in the church! And to preach these is to preach the gospel! This is surely a new gospel, or rather the revived gospel of the Papists. It is not most certainly the gospel preached by our Saviour or his apostles. May this land be delivered from such Popish and heathenish teachers!

"The whole system is functional and mechanical. The church is an incorporation, endued with extraordinary powers and unknown treasures, formed by a rite to which grace is necessarily attached, sustained by another rite which conveys still higher grace, and administered by a functionary who alone can with any certainty transmit those graces.

And

lest people should judge from apparent and palpable effects, that all this is a mere theory, a wild Popish and heathenish fancy, unsustained by Scripture or by facts, the figurative language of Scripture is used, as by the heretics of the first ages, in a literal sense, wholly inconsistent with its plain declarations; and the strange notion is avowed of there being 'treasures of unknown grace hidden in the church!' They are hidden indeed! People are regenerated, aud yet they are the servants of sin! They who partake of the communion, necessarily partake of the hidden manna, though

destitute of the principle of living faith in Christ! They who are ordained by a bishop are necessarily called and sent by Christ, though they manifest no evidence of being so sent! And what reconciles all these unscriptural and strange things to sobriety and truth? The idea that there are treasures hidden in the church! Well and justly we may say with Irenæus, lib. ii. c. 2. What sort of thing would it be for us, to leave the words of the prophets and of the Lord and of the apostles, and to attend to these heretics, who say nothing that is sane.'"

AN EPISCOPALIAN PRESBYTER.

All this is soundly argued, but it must nevertheless be confessed, that, "The Episcopalian Presbyter," in drawing all his arguments from Scripture, has forgotten the Prayer Book, the Ordination Services, and the Canons, which contradict his reasoning, and favour the "successionists;" for the Scriptures and the Prayer Book do not agree. We find, accordingly,

that his brethren in the Establishment have not failed to remind him of these things; for in the Record of December 10th, "another Episcopal Presbyter" accuses him of "propounding opinions which, if thoroughly carried out, would prove subversive of the whole Christian ministry, and would land us all scarcely three paces distant from the levelling form-rejecting system of the Society of Friends;" and urges that we may hold to belief in "apostolical sanction to the orders adopted by the Establishment, on the same ground as that for infant baptism, and the keeping of the Lord's day."

Again, "a friend to the Record," in that paper of the 13th December, "The conclusions to says very truly, which we must arrive on the perusal of the letters of an "Episcopal Presbyter," amount to these:

"1. That there is no power vested any where (not even was such a power vested in the Apostles), to delegate the authority or confer the office of D 2

minister to any man. (Of course, this is to be understood, " to any man not previously called to that office by the Holy Ghost," otherwise it is an incorrect representation of the sentiments given in the previous letters).

"2. That ordination to the ministry is not essential to the exercise of the office of minister.

"3. That therefore any individual, so that he sincerely preach the truth, may execute the office, God having blessed the ministrations of many such.

"4. That the presence of a duly ordained minister is not even necessary to the administration of the Sacraments, the early Christians having often administered the same without such aid. "These several points your correspondent endeavours to establish by texts derived from Scripture, and from the usage of the early church. Now, Sir, if these things be true, the office which I for one hold, is, as an office, a non-entity, a mere nullity."

Alarming conclusions, indeed, these to the clergy of the Establishment; but such as appear to us inevitably to follow the consistent recognition of the so much lauded axiom,—“ The Bible, and the Bible alone, is the religion of Protestants!"

In a similar dilemma, the editor of the Christian Observer (whose difficulties between these two sections of the clergy are, as we happen to know, extremely perplexing), has, in his last month's publication (pp. 819-827), endeavoured, if possible, to find some happy medium on the tormenting question of apostolical succession. It is really pitiable to see the straits to which he is reduced in answering a question proposed by "Clericus Dunelmensis." "But, in reprehending," says the editor, "the Popish abuse of the doctrine of apostolical succession, we would ever keep in mind its sober and scriptural interpretation; for never can we question that our divine Lord has always had a church, and that our portion of it is of apostolical lineage. But the Romanist view of the doctrine is

superstitious and unwarranted by holy writ; and when espoused by any professed member of the Church of England, it is also as suicidal as it is unscriptural." It would be as curious here to see the "Episcopalian Presbyter" and the editor of the Christian Observer attempting to reconcile their opinions, as it would be to hear the editor of the Christian Observer explaining his idea of "apostolical lineage," without tracing it through the Church of Rome. But, in the next page, the editor goes on to deny the apostolical lineage, which he had commenced with asserting. "The Oxford tract divines," says he, "just gave to Rome all that she asks as a basis for the establishment of her pretensions ; while they undermine those principles upon which the Protestant Reformation was grounded. They say that men's minds have been distracted by multiplicities of opinion: that some infallible way ought to be pointed out for distinguishing the true Church of Christ from all false appearances: that there is one way, and but one: that the question whether a church holds pure doctrine is wholly beside the mark; that the simple and sole question is, Are those who call themselves ministers really qualified to impart the Trinity' in baptism, and so to consecrate the bread and wine in the Eucharist; that by a divine gift,' imputed to every priest at ordination, they convey the actual body and blood of Christ, in such a manner that even 'an insensible person,' having them placed in his mouth, eats and drinks Christ's body and blood, though he does not discern them.....No. 4 of the Oxford tracts, on adherence to apostolical succession,' sustains the same lofty tone. It says that 'we, the ministers of God,' instead of occupying the comparatively low ground' on which Protestant pastors are usually contented to rest the validity of their commission, ought to appeal to that warrant which marks us, exclusively, for God's ambassadors,-that warrant

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which proves that our hands convey the sacrifice; which is as plain Popery as any thing in the articles of Trent."

Now, if the divines of the Oxford tracts were to demand of the Editor of the Christian Observer, how he could hold that the Church of England is "of apostolical lineage" (a gentle word for succession), without admitting the Oxford interpretation of this "lineage," he would find it difficult to answer; and if, in addition to this, he were pressed with the ordination services, the commission given by the bishop to the priest to remit sins, or to retain them, the absolution of the sick in the Prayer Book, and the three great Popish divisions of the English clergy into bishop, priest, and deacon, he would find it more easy to attack the Oxford School, than to defend his own.

In the meantime, the Oxford portion of the clergy having no evangelical scruples to contend with, are daily waxing bolder in their Roman Catholic views. The last number of the British Magazine is exciting the reverential feelings of its disciples in honour of the "Blessed Virgin Mary, the Mother of God," and informs us, "that if the words, Mother of God,' be the exact English equivalent of the term εOTOKоs, then a rejection of these words is justly branded with heresy; εOTOKOг being the term employed by the Ephesine fathers technically to convey their doctrine, and their doctrine being universally acknowledged as true by the Catholic church." A grave discussion then ensues about the meaning of “Deipara," "Dei genitrix," "Dei mater," and the proper terms to be used in speaking of the Virgin; and it is at last decided, that the title, "Mother of God," is to be used in the sense

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Deipara,” and not "Dei genetrix ;" or, at any rate, to use it in that sense, ought not to be stigmatised as heresy !!!"

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In the same number, Mr. Faber is smartly chastised for having put forth

a statement relating to the three orders of bishop, priest, and deacon, not in accordance with the high church notions. The question between the parties seems to be, whether bishops are only different classes or ranks of presbyters, or whether presbyters and bishops are two distinct orders. Mr. Faber contends for "the rank," the British Review for "the order," and states, "that this notion of bishops being a class or rank, and not a distinct order, is in direct contradiction to the doctrine of the Church of England, and the maintenance of this opinion is an offence against the Act of Uniformity, and punishable accordingly (P. 636)." "No one in the least degree acquainted with the opinions. of Bingham, Potter, Hooker, Taylor, Hall, Hammond, Beveridge, Durell, Bilson, or Pearson, can by possibility be ignorant, that the foundation of all their arguments is this, that Scripture and antiquity concur in proving that the apostolic order (i. e. bishops), was instituted by Christ; that it is utterly distinct from the order of presbyters; that the bishops are successors of the apostles in this distinction of order from the order of presbyters; and that the distinction consists not only in jurisdiction which may be delegated, but chiefly in the power of ordaining, which, at no period of the church, was ever permitted to presbyters."

The Council of Carthage, and the Canon of the Council of Hispalis, A.D. 657, are invoked to settle the dispute, and the question is argued by tradition, the Bible of the clergy.

Another paper, in the British Magazine, "On Tradition," is in reply to the Warden of New College, Oxford, and is avowedly a Puseyite article. It is needless to say that it is entirely popish. It acknowledges that "the persons against whom the Warden writes contend for the tradition of the church, the tradition of St. Irenæus, St. Justin Martyr, St. Polycarp, St. Clement, and others."