some remarkable instances, how little they really cared for it. The following is the complaint of Tertullian in the second century:"It may be right here to add some account of the practical system of the heretics, how futile it is, how altogether earthly and human; destitute of weight, of authority, of discipline as well agreeing with their system of doctrine. First, who among them is a Catechumen, who a complete Christian, is a thing uncertain; they come to church: hear the sermon, join in the prayers, indiscriminately even should heathens chance to come in, they will throw their holy things to the dogs, and their pearls (which, indeed, are but counterfeits) before swine. They hold the overthrow of discipline to be [Christian] simplicity; and our reverence for the same, meretricious art. Every where, and with all kinds of persons, they affect to be on good terms. For it makes no difference to them how they disagree in their own expositions, provided they can but unite for the overthrow of one thing, viz. TRUTH. All are puffed up all profess knowledge. Their Catechumens become complete Christians before they have quite learned their lessons. The very women among the heretics, how forward are they! daring to teach, to dispute, to exorcise, to make show of gifts of healing: perhaps, even to baptize. Their ordinations are off-handed, light, variable: sometimes mere novices are raised by them to Church office, sometimes men engaged in worldly business, sometimes deserters from our ranks; whom they hope to make sure of by the compliment, having no reality" [of spiritual power] "to offer. In fact, promotion is nowhere so easy as in the camp of rebels; since the very act of being there is rewardable service. Accordingly, one man shall be their Bishop to-day, another to-morrow; to-day a Deacon, to-morrow a reader; to-day a Presbyter, to-morrow a mere layman. For in laymen also they will vest the powers and functions of the Priesthood."

As an instance of what is thus generally stated by Tertullian, take the behaviour of Novatian, Presbyter in the Church of Rome, who, about the year 252, was the founder of a sect which professed especial strictness of moral discipline. The testimony concerning him, of his own Bishop, Cornelius, a prelate of the

highest character in the Church, is as follows:-"Never in so short a time was so great a change seen, as we witnessed in Novatian. He was continually pledging himself by certain fearful oaths, that the Bishoprick was no object to him: and now, on a sudden, as it were by some stage trick, he comes forward in public a Bishop! Reformer as he is of doctrine, and champion of pure Church principles, having entered on a scheme for making himself a Bishop, without Divine sanction, by underhand means, he selects two, as desperate as himself, and sends them into certain small and insignificant dioceses of Italy: where, lighting on three Bishops," (the requisite number for consecration,) “men rustic, and very simple, he persuades them to come with all speed to Rome, as though by their mediation some present dispute in that Church might be composed. Being there come, he surrounds them with men like himself, provided for the purpose; and at a late hour, after a full meal, when they were off their guard, compels them to make him Bishop, by I know not what imaginary and vain ordination."

Is it not plain that this person would have rejected the episcopal succession at once, if he could have compassed his ends without it? So far, therefore, he is an instance of the fact, that disrespect to that succession is a part of the heretical character. And although it is not exactly to the present purpose, I cannot refrain from adding also a circumstance which betrays his mind regarding the sacraments of CHRIST. Having set himself up as a schismatical rival to Cornelius, the true Bishop of Rome, this was his method of securing to himself partisans: in the act of solemnizing the holy Eucharist, "when he had made the offerings, and was distributing to each communicant his portion, and conveying it to him, he compels the unfortunate men, instead of giving thanks, to utter the following oath: he holding both their hands, and not letting them go until they repeated the words of asseveration after him and these are his very words :'Swear to me by the body and blood of our LORD JESUS CHRIST, that thou wilt never forsake me, and return to Cornelius.' Nor is the poor man allowed to taste, before he shall have thus pronounced an imprecation on himself. And when he receives

that bread, instead of saying, Amen, he is made to say, I will never return to Cornelius."

It is frightful, but surely it is very instructive, to see how one kind of profaneness thus draws on another. Contempt of Apostolical authority was joined, we see, in this case, with contempt of the Sacraments of CHRIST. In the worse case which followed, that of Arius, the same evil temper led, as every one knows, to a direct assault on the holiest truths of Christianity. The immediate occasion of Arius' promulgating his blasphemy, is said to have been his vexation at failing to succeed to the episcopal throne of Alexandria. This exasperated him so, that he laid in wait for an opportunity of disturbing the person preferred to him, Alexander, a man of true primitive energy. And he took occasion from certain expositions of Scripture, in which, as he, Arius, pretended to think, the Bishop had too much magnified the Son of GOD. The first spring, therefore, of his heresy was a rebellious and envious feeling towards his Bishop. And although for the same reason, probably, as Novatian, his followers never renounced the Apostolical succession; their proceedings were marked all along by a thorough disdain of Apostolical privileges. Witness their unscrupulous use of the civil power, or even of the fury of the populace, wherever it suited their purposes to carry an episcopal election, or control a synod, by such means witness again the license they encouraged of profane and libellous scoffing, both in prose and verse: by which, added to their improper appointments, they gradually depreciated the character of the most sacred office; so that it is quite melancholy to read the accounts given of what Bishops were at Constantinople in 381, as compared with what they had been at Nicæa, about sixty years before. All was no more than might be expected from a party, whose first overt proceedings are thus related by an eye-witness. "They could not endure any longer to remain in submission to the Church; but having builded for themselves dens of thieves, there they hold their meetings continually, by day and by night exercising themselves in calumnies against CHRIST and us. They try to pervert those Scriptures which affirm our LORD's eternal Godhead and unspeakable glory with

...

His FATHER. Thus encouraging the impious opinions of Jews and Heathens concerning CHRIST, they lay themselves out to the uttermost to be praised by them: making the most of those points, which the unbelievers are most apt to ridicule; and daily exciting tumults and factions against us. One of their methods is, to get up actions at law against us, on the complaint of simple women, disorderly persons, whom they have perverted. Another, to expose the Christian profession to scorn, by permitting the younger persons among them to run irreverently about all the streets :" i. e., as it would seem, from one conventicle to another. . . . "And while they thus set themselves against the Divinity of the Son of GOD, of course, they shrink not from uttering unseemly rudeness against us. Nay, they disdain to compare themselves even with any of the ancients, or to be put on a level with those, whom we from children have reverenced as our guides. As to their fellow-servants of this time, in whatever country or Church, they do not consider a single one to have attained any measure of true wisdom: calling themselves the only wise, the only disdainers of worldly wealth, the only discoverers of doctrinal truth; to themselves, they say, alone are revealed things which in their nature never could have come into the mind of any other under the sun."

Such were the original Arians, the first powerful impugners of the Divinity of JESUS CHRIST; such their conduct towards their Bishops, and their reverence for the Apostolical authority. The list of examples might be greatly enlarged; but it is time to go on to more modern times, and see what the result has been, where that was done, (I do not say from motives like theirs,) which Novatian and Arius clearly would have done if they had dared.

The largest experiments yet made in the world on the doctrinal result of dispensing with episcopal succession, are the Lutheran Churches of North Germany, the Presbyterian or Reformed Churches of Switzerland, Holland and Scotland, with their offshoots in France, Germany, England and Ireland, and the Congregational or Independent Churches, in this island, and

in America. I am not now going to dispute the necessity of what was done at the Reformation, (although it would be wrong to allow such necessity, without proof quite overwhelming,) but simply to state, as matter of fact, what has ensued in each instance, in regard of the great doctrine of our LORD's Incarnation.

First, in North Germany, whatever may be supposed the cause, it is notorious that a lamentable falling off from the simplicity of evangelical truth prevailed during a considerable part of the eighteenth century. Views prevailed, which are commonly called Rationalist: i. e., which pretend to give an account, on principles of mere human reason, of Christianity and every thing connected with it. Of course the union of GoD and man, in the Person of JESUS CHRIST, was an object of scorn to a nation so led away by "philosophy and vain deceit." But it is a point well worth remarking, that, according to some who know much of German literature, the mischief was occasioned in good measure by the importation of Deistical books and opinions from England: books and opinions which England herself had rejected. Why so great a difference in the reception of the same error by two kindred races of people, lying very much under the same temptations? Is it unreasonable to suppose that the Apostolical succession and safeguards arising out of it, which England enjoys, had something to do with her comparative exemption from that most alarming error?

The next which occurs is the case of the Church of Geneva:

and it is, indeed, a most startling case. It appearing at the time morally impossible to get a sufficient number of episcopally ordained Pastors, Calvin was induced to neglect the Apostolical Commission in his plan for the reformation of Geneva; or rather, to search holy Scripture for a new view of that commission, which might make him quite independent of Bishops. In so doing, he made out for himself the platform of Presbyterian Discipline. Having once established that as of exclusive divine right, he precluded himself from taking advantage of the avenue for returning

1 Pusey on the Theology of Germany, part I. p. 124.