the Book of Common Prayer, it is not to be understood that such persons mean what they say on that subject, but that, on the contrary, 'each exercising his own judgment,' makes inwardly his own exceptions, and that the tendency to make exceptions is so strong, that it is difficult to fix on any one detail or formulary about which the said subscribers may be said to be agreed. They all protest, both by what they say and what they do, against exception even in the smallest matters, but all have their exceptions nevertheless, and commonly in such abundance, that it is next to impossible to fix upon any thing to which exception is not made! We must confess that we see not how a system of which this may be said can be shown to be-at least so far as its effects are concerned, either scriptural or moral. Can that which operates over so large a surface as a bounty upon insincerity and falsehood, be acceptable to him who desireth truth in the inward parts? We have no wish to make out a case against our brethren of the Established Church on this point, but if they have managed to conceal these enormities from themselves, we must be allowed to assure them that the shrewd men of the world around them are not at all deceived in this matter. Mr. M'Neile may protest against submitting to 'a slavish uniformity,' but these terms describe the system which he would defend, and men who belong to it cannot in consistency, or even in honesty, harbor the slightest exception to it. The obligation resting on such persons, be it remembered, is not merely to use the Prayer Book, but to approve ex animo of all it contains.

Our author's great object in the first lecture, is to expound the scriptural meaning of the word-church. We are told that in its highest sense it means the body of Christ,' the whole multitude to be ultimately saved. To this we make no objection. But the second exposition of the term states, that the visible society which God was pleased to institute among men, consisted first of a circumcised family, enlarged afterwards to a circumcised nation; and that since the day of Pentecost, it has consisted of baptized families, which have enlarged so as to become baptized nations. That circumcised nation, it is affirmed, was the visible church, and these baptized nations are visible churches. It is admitted that these visible churches may include the profligacy of a Ba'rabbas, and the deeper, deadlier hypocrisy of an Annas or Caiaphas; but on the ground that such characters existed in the circumcised nation of the Jews, and from the fact that the Redeemer commanded his disciples to baptize nations,' and to introduce all they could find to the wedding feast, 'both bad and 'good,' it is concluded that a nation, be it constituted of the most depraved of the species to never so great an extent, if it be only a baptized nation, is to be regarded as a legitimate portion of the visible church of God! We are told, indeed, that the true

church was constituted of old, and that it consists still, of devout believers only; but the visible church it is maintained has ever been of the indiscriminate compass just stated.

The evidence adduced in support of these views concerning the proper nature of the church of Christ consists, as we have intimated, of an assumed analogy, and of certain arbitrary interpretations given to some isolated and parabolic expressions. We should have thought that in an attempt to explain the doctrine of Scripture on so important a subject, the plain parts of the sacred records bearing upon it would have been the special object of attention, and that the ascertained meaning of these would have been employed to prevent any misconstruction of the more doubtful. But the reverse of this method has been chosen by Mr. M'Neile. His plan has been to select such passages only as might be made to receive a meaning to his purpose, with a sufficient degree of plausibility to pass for argument with the superficial and the unwary.

We do not say that he has really meant to deceive his readers, but certainly the course which he has pursued is precisely that which we should have expected in a man who did so mean. If water baptism should suffice to constitute a Barabbas, an Annas, or a Caiaphas, members of the visible church, on what authority did Paul command the Corinthians to put away from among them the unclean person, and then again to receive him on the ground of his repentance, and only upon that ground? If the bad and the good, the tares and the wheat, were in this sense to remain together until the end, how came it to pass that the first churches were of a complexion to justify the character given of them in the apostolic epistles? The only visible churches then recognized were described as composed of persons' sanctified in Christ 'Jesus, and called to be saints;' or of those who were regarded aselect, according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, unto 'obedience, and the sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ.' We need not attempt to show that descriptions to this effect are given of all the apostolic churches. If we find any thing deserving the name of exception, it is in the case of the seven churches of Asia, and there exception occurs as calling forth the most striking confirmation of our general principle. Let any man read the addresses of the Saviour to those churches, and then ask himself devoutly whether he who so spoke could possibly have intended that his disciples should regard men, though as profligate as Barabbas, or as hardened in hypocrisy as Annas or Caiaphas, as being in any sense members of his church, simply because they had been baptized. If he spoke as he did of lukewarmness only, how would he have spoken of such offenders? If he threatened churches with extinction because they did not bear a sufficiently decided protest against evil, what would he have said if they had made a kind of

boast of calling all men Christians, even the most flagitious of their race, so long as they chose to talk of their baptism, and to make their own boast of that name?

We scarcely need say that there is nothing of novelty in the view thus taken of the subject by Mr. M'Neile; and the philosophy of the whole matter is not very profound. There were certain worldly ends to be accomplished by making Christianity national, after the manner of Paganism, Mohammedanism, and other false systems of religion, and prejudice, interest, passion, all have prompted men to devise such reasonings as they might in support of so gainful a usage. Never was greater violence done to any document, than has been done both to the spirit and letter of the New Testament by the advocates of this system. Their great aim has been state emolument and ecclesiastical dominion, as constituting the most effective engine of worldly power. Their schemes accordingly have been spread out to the utmost latitude. That all might be made tributary, they have included all. Of such extent was the religious system which prevailed all over Europe about three centuries since. It was adapted with elaborate forethought to enslave both the body and the soul. It availed itself to the utmost of every thing strong in the machinery of civil government, and of every thing terrible in the phantoms of superstition. The priest served the civil ruler, and the civil ruler served the priest; the one wielded the terrors of this world, the other wielded the terrors of the next--and by joining hands they long divided a cruel empire between them. The roots, accordingly, of this combination of power, have their hold deeply in human nature, and are still much interwoven with the social system of Europe. The axe, however, has already fallen once and again at the right point, and will, we doubt not, continue to do so, until its work shall be accomplished.

6

Mr. M'Neile's third exposition of the word church, as applicable to separate congregations or fraternities of believers however small, and wherever convened, is, on the whole, scriptural; but his fourth explanation of the term, as applied to a geographical 'combination' of such churches, would afford us matter for much more discussion than comports with our limits. Here the whole question of diocesan episcopacy, and of that comparative novelty in ecclesiastical history-national churches, opens upon us. On this subject there are some excellent remarks in Dr. Redford's able tract which we cannot forbear to transcribe.

'If I might detain you,' said the lecturer, but a very few moments longer, it should be just to notice two statements made by Mr. M'Neile, which appeared to him of great importance, and which were received by his audience with enthusiastic approbation.

'He said that the Dissenters' theory was, that the elders who came

from Ephesus to meet Paul at Miletus, were the independent pastors of so many independent congregations, or words to that effect. Now I beg leave to say, that the Dissenters' theory of the case is not exactly so, but that the whole body of believers at Ephesus formed only one church in that city; though they had several bishops, and perhaps many deacons, evangelists, and teachers, and that all the office-bearers were included in the term elders. Paul is said to have sent and called the elders of the church. But our theory shall be set aside that we may examine that of the reverend gentleman, which seems to be, that these several congregations, perhaps many, had only one episcopal head, with the inferior clergy under him.

Now Mr. M'Neile greatly triumphed in the clever dilemma to which he thought he could reduce the Dissenters, by supposing that if the apostle John should address an epistle to the angel of the independent church of London, it could excite nothing but doubt, rivalry, and contention; but if it came directed to the angel of the church at London, we (episcopalians) should know at once where to send it.' (Cheers from the delighted audience.) Of course, as Mr. M'Neile admits of one bishop over many churches, and London contains but one lord bishop, the messenger, if Mr. M'Neile had been that messenger, would have taken it at once to Fulham Palace, and all the dissenting bishops might have sought in vain for the privilege of perusing the inspired document.

But, alas, for our worthy friend's theory, it will not stand the test of Scripture, even in reference to this apparently ingenious and adroit argument. It looked astute-it savored of biting humor; but there is, after all, nothing in it. If the lecturer had taken the trouble to consult his Greek Testament, he would have discovered that there were unequivocally more bishops than one in Ephesus. St. Paul, in addressing them on that very occasion, says, Take heed to yourselves, and to all the flock over which the Holy Ghost hath made you bishops' (Acts xx. 28)-ETIXOTOUS-it is really so. There were evidently several, perhaps many, bishops at Ephesus; and yet according to Mr. M'Neile's theory, there could not possibly have been more than one episcopal superintendent over all the clergy, even if Ephesus had been as populous as London, and the congregations of Christians as numerous. Now according to Mr. M'Neile's own theological puzzle, constructed to please Churchmen and confound Dissenters, I desire to know, and I wish Mr. M'Neile to tell us, to which of these many bishops at Ephesus that epistle which Paul did actually send there was delivered? I very much suspect that the difficult case Mr. M'Neile propounds to the Dissenting ministers of London, must actually have taken place on another occasion, when the messenger ordered by the Holy Spirit to be sent to the church at Ephesus by St. John was sent thither. If there were many bishops, how puzzled the poor messenger must have been; and then, moreover, nothing but doubt, rivalry, and contention must have ensued, unless they had all agreed-as very probably the Dissenting ministers of London wouldto have it read in every church as a common admonition, and then there would be an end of all contention.

So we have escaped from the snare he laid for us; and in the net which he spread is his own theory taken. There was evidently no one supreme pastor or bishop in Ephesus, but many bishops, and all are addressed by St. Paul, not as having charge of the clergy, but charge of the flock, or a portion of it, which they are commanded to feed.'

―pp. 43-44.

Whatever meaning, therefore, should be attached to the term 'angel,' as employed in the epistles to the seven churches, it is plain that it agrees as little with the practice of modern episcopalianism as with that of modern independency. Whatever may be its bearing on the notion that all the believers in a large city constituted but one church, it is clear that it cannot be interpreted as denoting that they were all governed by one bishop. We will only add, that where there is a plurality of bishops, one may act as president or chairman, and his office denote neither superiority nor permanence. Mr. M'Neile further cites the language of Paul to Timothy, as implying an authority in him, both in matters of doctrine and discipline, strictly episcopal. If our author had ever graced the ordination of an Independent pastor with his presence, and listened to the matters of the charge usual on such occasions, he would have learnt that there are seasons when this language which strikes him as so admirably episcopal, resounds from the pulpits of the Independent Dissenters' much more strongly than from those of his own Church; and it is only necessary that his patience should be sufficiently elastic to allow of his attending to the whole of such a service, in order to his perceiving, in the fullest manner, how we reconcile the use of such language with a feeling of cautious regard towards the rights of our Christian laity. But such, good reader, is the texture of the argument adduced by our author to demonstrate the SCRIPTURAL standing of the Church of England; by which he promises himself that he shall not only confound all those inconsiderate Dissenters who assert that she has no better resting place than expediency, but cover those recreants among her sons with the same confusion, who are content to defend her upon such low grounds! We have seen that this is not the first occasion, and in relation to this same subject, on which temerity has been mistaken for strength. It may be a little vexing that boldness should thus out-balance discretion, and that power should prove such a loiterer compared with inclination, but things will sometimes move thus unequally in this disjointed world of ours.

Mr. M'Neile commences his second lecture by contending, that it is the duty of the magistrate, not only to protect and uphold Christianity, but that the form of Christianity thus preferred should be that which has been ascertained to be the most scriptural. From the shape, however, in which our Author has left his argument in this place, he does not appear to have looked at the fact, that, ac