rences which they could not have foreseen. The storm they had raised was indeed beyond all human control, and the whirlwind swept them along with it in its course. They had called forth the passions of men, and taken off every restraint from spiritual freedom, and who had power to say→→ "Thus far and no farther shalt thou ge ?" The successive steps too taken by the court of Rome, at last rendered an accommodation impossible, and placed the Lutherans under the ban of interdict, as heretics, whose company the faithful were commanded to avoid. "It would be, therefore, a great mistake to suppose that Luther or his party designed to effect a reformation in the Church; they were driven entirely by the force of circumstances to adopt the course they did. It was not premeditated or desired by them. They would have widely altered the Lutheran system, which was a merely temporary arrangement, if by so doing they could have recovered the communion of the Church. But the opposition of the Roman See thwarted these designs; the Council of Trent rendered them still more difficult; and, in time, the Lutherans forgot that their system was merely provisional, pretended to justify it as ordinary and sufficient, and lost their desire for accommodation with the Roman and German Churches."*

* Palmer's Treatise on the Church, v. i. p. 341. See this point proved in Part. i. ch. 12, sec.1, 2.—It was a favorite remark of Napoleon, that "no man who commenced a revolution, knew where he was going' --and the statement is as true of moral and religious, as of political changes. It is, we think, an error to regard Luther so entirely as creating and moulding the opinions of his age, or by any means contemplating the extent to which he himself would be carried. He was the living development—the speaking voice-of that deep feeling which pervaded all classes of society, and which would eventually have found utterance and produced a reformation, had Luther never existed. The opposition to the Romish Church in France, commenced before the name of Luther had been heard in that country. Of course, after he had taken the bold stand into which he was driven, his reaction upon the people was as great as their action upon him. He presented a centre of unity, and gave direction and aim to their efforts. But no one can thoughtfully read his life, without perceiving, that instead of leading his generation, he was himself borne forward by the heavings of the mighty mass beneath him.

The Reformers fully realised the difficulty of their posi tion, and the necessity of Episcopacy to constitute a Church or a valid ministry. We accordingly find in their writings, repeated declarations in favor of this form of government, and even the distinct acknowledgment of its divine authority. They arrayed themselves, not against this power itself, but against the abuse of it in the Romish Church.

Thus in the Confession of Augsburg, (pars. i. art. 22,) "which Melancthon drew up, holding consultation all the while with LUTHER," it says of Bishops-" The Churches ought, necessarily, and jure divino, to obey them." "The Bishops might easily retain their legitimate obedience, if they would not urge us to observe traditions which cannot be kept with a good conscience. . . . . There is no design to deprive the Bishops of their authority, but this only is sought, that the Gospel be permitted to be purely taught, and a few observances be relaxed." And in the Articles of Smalcand, "drawn up in German by Luther, in his own acrimonious style,” † in denouncing the supremacy assumed by the Pope, he says-"The Church can never be better governed and preserved, than when we all live under one Head, Jesus Christ, and all Bishops, equal in office, though unequal in gifts, are most perfectly united in diligence, concord of doctrine, &c. .. The Apostles were equal, and afterwards the Bishops in all Christendom, until the Pope raised his head above all." (pars. ii. art. 4.)

In the same strain MELANCTHON always wrote. In the Apology for the Augsburg Confession, which he drew up, he says "We have oft protested, that we do greatly approve the ecclesiastical polity and degrees in the Church, and as much as lieth in us, do desire to conserve them. We do not mislike the authority of Bishops-we do here protest that we would willingly preserve the ecclesiastical polity— that it may not be impute to us, that the authority of Bishops is overthrown by us."

Again he says-' I would to God it lay in me to restore the government of Bishops. For I see what manner of Church we shall have, the ecclesiastical polity being dissolved. I do see that hereafter will grow up a greater yranny in the Church, than there ever was before.'

*Mosheim's Eccles. Hist. v. iii. p. 49.

+ Ibid. p. 64

Once more he asks-"By what right or law may we dissolve the ecclesiastical polity, if the Bishops will grant us that which in reason they ought to grant? And if it were lawful for us so to do, yet surely it were not expedient. Luther was ever of this opinion."

REZA, in his treatise against Saravia, says—“If there are any, (which you shall hardly persuade me to believe,) who reject the whole order of Episcopacy, God forbid that any man of a sound mind should assent to the madness of such men.'

We will quote the opinions of but one other of that age. Among those who are now reverenced by the opposers of Episcopacy, there is no name stands higher than that of CALVIN. Yet listen to his testimony. In his commentary on Titus (chap. i. v. 5) he says-" At this time" (that is, in the time of Titus) "there was no equality among the ministers of the Church, but some one in authority and council had the pre-eminence."

Again, he declares-"To every Bishop was committed the government of his own clergy, that they should rule their clergy according to the Canons, and hold them to their duty."*

"In the solemn assembly, the Bishops had a certain apparel whereby they might be distinctly known from other Priests. They ordered all Priests and Deacons with only laying on of hands. But every Bishop, with the company of Priests, ordained his own Priests."†

In his Book, De Necess. reformand. Eccles. he has these words "Let them give us such an hierarchy, in which Bishops may be so above the rest, as they refuse not to be under Christ, and depend upon Him as their only Head; that they maintain a brotherly society, &c. If there be any that do not behave themselves with al reverence and obedience owards them, there is no anathema, but I confess them orthy of it." But especially is his opinion of Episcopacy showr. by a letter, which he and Bullinger, and other learned men. wrote in 1549 to King Edward VI., offering to make him heir Defender, and to have Bishops in their Churches,

*Instit. lib. 4. ch. 12.

+ Ibid. ch. 4. Stryne's Life of Archbishop Parker, p. 140.

as there were in England. Unfortunately, this letter fell into the hands of the Romish Bishops. The following account of it was found among the papers of Archbishop Parker"And whereas John Calvin had sent a letter in King Edward the VIth's reign, to have conferred with the clergy of England about some things to this effect, two Bishops, viz., Gardiner and Bonner, intercepted the same; whereby Mr. Calvin's overture perished. And he received an answer, as if it had been from the reformed Divines of those times, wherein they checked him and slighted his proposals: from which time John Calvin and the Church of England were at variance in several points; which otherwise through God's mercy had been qualified, if those papers of his proposals had been discovered unto the Queen's Majesty during John Calvin's life. But being not discovered until or about the sixth year of her Majesty's reign, her Majesty much lamented they were not found sooner: which she expressed before her Council at the same time, in the presence of her great friends, Sir Henry Sidney, and Sir William Cecil.*

Such then were the opinions of the Reformers on the Continent-the fathers of Presbyterianism. But borne along by the current, they at length violated their own declared principles and clear convictions of duty. Like John Wesley in modern times, impatient of the movings of Providence, they could not wait God's time, and therefore rushed into open schism, and cut themselves off from the Church. And now, for three hundred years, the world has been reaping the bitter fruits of the harvest which they sowed. Strife and dissension, and every form of error, prevail among their followers, and in the lands where once they preached scarcely a trace of their spirit remains. "The first loss drew all others after it. Although the full declension was not seen at once, the mystical, moral, and doctrinal systems perished together. They lingered on as bodies of which the organic frame is maimed; and they died rather by a natural than by a mysterious law. Even after their virtual extinction as Christian Churches, there was, as in the corpse of the dead, a lingering warmth, which made a mocking promise of life; till that too fled, and they were left in the cold torpor of heresy or unbelief."†

* Ibid. p. 14!

Manning's Unity of the Church, p. 285.

From this melancholy picture of inconsistency, and spir(tual desolation, we turn with gratitude to England, where the principles by which they were guided, and the end attained, were all so widely different. There, the Reformation left the whole Church, with its three-fold ministry of Bishops, Priests, and Deacons, unimpaired. Bowing to no mere human opinions, when the views of Luther, Calvin, and Arminius, were quoted to turn her from the truth, she had a ready answer at hand, and a higher authority to quote"Jesus I know, and Paul I know; but who are these?" With a careful hand the errors of doctrine and practice which had crept in, were removed, but nothing was touched which could injure the integrity of the Church. The venerable edifice itself was left unaltered. The dust which had settled upon it, obscuring the beauty of its architecture, was swept away-the deforming additions which the hand of man had made, were cut off-and then, it stood forth as it was in primitive times, in its ancient freshness and beauty. The order of her ministry was not interfered with-all that was pure and ancient in her Liturgy was retained—and from her we have derived the succession of Bishops and the Apostolic ministry. Through her, therefore, we can trace back our orders to the days of the Apostles, and feel that we receive from them that authority by which we minister at the altar.

This, then, is the simple historical account of the Reformation of our branch of the Church, and the origin of those who now declare, that but one order of ministers is necessary, and that Presbyters have power to ordain. They date back only for the last three hundred years. It was in 1594before the changes produced by the Reformation had subsided into quietness-that the learned Hooker, while he rejoiced at the happy lot of his own Church in England, as he heard the assertions made by those on the Continent who discarded Episcopal gvernment, that their own form was primitive, issued to them this challenge-" A very strange thing sure it were, that such a discipline as ye speak of should be taught by Christ and His Apostles, in the word of God, and no Church ever have found it out, nor received it till this present time; contrariwise, the government against which ye bend yourselves be observed every where throughout all generations and ages of the Christian world, no