stance of its not having been quoted by the Fathers in their controversies with heretics.

Upon this powerful presumption, in favour of the genuineness of v. 7, arising from the above view of the object of St. John's first Epistle, the force and consistency of the other proofs, adduced in support of it, must depend. Apart from it, they are dubious, and insecure; connected with it, there is an adamantina cohærentia, (as Bengelius styles it,) which cannot be destroyed but by manifest violence. How irresistibly and clearly does the testimony (v. 8) of the witnesses εv Tyn-in the earth-then connect itself, by necessary reference with the preceding witnesses (v. 7) not in the earth (i. e.) in heaven? How evidently, and certainly, does the article ro, added to the iv (v. 8), then refer to the έv immediately preceding ?-and the testimony of God, mentioned v. 9,-to the heavenly witnesses in v. 7? They become as it were fibres from v. 7—which, like those roots of a tree that remain in the surrounding soil, from whence it has been torn-would not only prove that it once truly belonged to that place, but also indicate the violence employed in its removal.

It is now time to advert to the conclusions of the author of the letters, the justness of which the reader must have already pretty correctly appreciated. In the foregoing inquiry we have seen what was the object of the sacred writer-how essential the testimony of the heavenly witnesses was to the accomplishment of that object--and, by consequence, how great is the improbability that they would have been omitted by him. We have also seen that the construction of the whole passage, and the references in the context, necessarily require verse 7, so necessarily that, without it, the passage is as imperfect in its sense, and incorrect in its reasoning, as it is confused, and solecistical, in its grammar. From all this, then, is derived, to my mind, a most convincing evidence of the authenticity of the verse.

We are now, however, to turn our attention to a very different process by which its authenticity is alleged to be made out, and a very different purpose to be served by it. I have already stated the conclusion, adopted by the author of the letters, with respect to the scope of St. John's first Epistle, viz.: that it is to deny the divinity of Christ, and to maintain that he was only a mere man. Upon this conclusion the whole superstructure of his letters rests,-how insecurely, may, I think, be very easily shewn. The Gnostics, we are informed by the author of the letters-held that the Christ was a God, opposite in nature to the Creator; and only dwelt for a season in the man Jesus, or an empty phantom, in his shape. This notion he conceives it was St. John's object to refute, and I concur in that opinion. But it would have been well if the author of the letters had enquired how it was that St. John refuted it-instead of leaping at once to his conclusion-that since the Gnostics held Christ to be a false God-and St. John opposed that opinion-therefore he entirely denied the divinity of Christ. St. John did refute this erroneous notion of the Gnostics, by teaching that Christ's divinity was not opposite to the nature of the Creator, but one and the same with it, inasmuch as he was his only begotten Son. It is a mere begging of the question, then, to conclude, that he denied the divinity of Christ in every sense. He certainly denied the Gnostic

notion respecting it; but the question is, did he intend absolutely to deny Christ's divinity? If it shall be proved that, when St. John affirmed that in the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the word was GOD, and that the word (which was God) was made flesh and dwelt among us; and (1st Epist. chap. v. ver. 20) that Jesus Christ is the true God and eternal life-he intended to deny the divinity of Christ,—then the conclusion, drawn by the author of the letters, will hold good; but not till then. So much for our author's conclusion on this ground. I shall not stop to expose the extraordinary corrections of the sacred text, (his party never can succeed without a corrected text, and they know it,)--the perversion of the usage and meaning of language, and the artful, but worthless, sophistries to which he has resorted as subsidiary to his purpose. If the foundation be shewn to be a mere "petitio;" it is but a waste of time to pick holes in the superstructure, inasmuch as the whole must fall together.

I proceed, therefore, to examine the other ground, on which his conclusion is rested, viz. St. John's condemnation of the Gnostic tenetthat Jesus Christ had not a real body. Here, again, his conclusion rests upon a mere gratuitous assumption. When St. John, in opposition to the Gnostic error, maintains that Jesus Christ had a real body, and denounces those as Antichrist who denied it-(i. e.) who denied that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh-the author of the letters takes it for granted, that the sacred writer also affirmed that Jesus Christ was nothing else but a man; and on this he rests his conclusion. Now, the same sacred writer has expressly taught, that the word was GOD, and the word (which was God) was made flesh and dwelt among

us.

When, therefore, he opposes the opinion of those who denied that Jesus is the Christ, and asserts that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh, it is impossible that it should be his meaning, that Jesus Christ is nothing else but a mere man; because he has expressly asserted that he is also God.

So much for this second ground on which his conclusion rests. When St. John declares that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh, the author of the letters assumes it to be the sacred writer's purpose to prove that Jesus Christ was nothing more than a man;—so that the assumption is made to determine the interpretation, and the interpretation to prove the assumption--a process of reasoning which every Tyro knows to be vicious. It is to reason in a circle. I know not whether the author of the letters imagined this ingenious attempt, upon the passage Jesus Christ is come in the flesh, to be new, and to have been reserved, by his propitious stars, to be essayed by him-to the confusion, of course, of the orthodox, and the joy and triumph of the Unitarians. If such should be the case, I must, I fear, be so cruel as to dispel the pleasing illusion by informing him, that the attempt has already been made; and that it has been attended by a failure so signal, as might have deterred any one-not gifted with an immoderate vanity, or temerity, from renewing it. In the controversy between Bishop Horsley and Dr. Priestley, it was attempted by the Unitarian champion, and exposed, by the defender of the Orthodox doctrine, to the ridicule of even the merest smatterer in logic. To revive, however, exploded arguments with the same confidence as if they had never been questioned, and

even to pretend that they have been drawn from veins of reasoning hitherto unexplored-is no new thing with Unitarians. Nor can the author of the letters escape the imputation of having conspired to support this very disingenuous practice, unless, indeed, he may claim the benefit of ignorance.-[To be concluded in our next.]

ON BISHOP LUSCOMBE'S MISSION.

MR. EDITOR,-Your pages have been already too much occupied upon the subject of Bishop Luscombe's consecration, but still what appears to me the most material objections to the measure have not been submitted to your readers. I will carry them at once "in medias res," by citing from Mr. Hook's Sermon, preached on the occasion, the last of the various purposes which the "Right Rev. Fathers," who carried the "pious design" into effect, intended it to accomplish.

That purpose is thus set forth:--" to convince foreigners in general, and the Roman Catholics in particular, that ours is the primitive faith, and that, with St. Ignatius, we hold it not only necessary "to have one common prayer, one supplication, one mind, one hope," but that it is also necessary "that nothing be done without a Bishop;-that in the words of the same Ignatius, confirmed by the 32d of the Apostolical Canons, it is lawful neither to baptize nor to celebrate the holy Communion without the Bishop,-without, that is to say, the Episcopal sanction -to evince in short our faith, that'sine Episcopo nulla Ecclesia,' without a Bishop there is no Church," (p. 29.)

Upon this passage I have only to remark, that ανευ του Επισκοπου in the first citation, and Episcopo in the last, ought to have been rendered not a Bishop, but the Bishop, and that the gloss upon the intermediate citation, which generalizes "without the Bishop" into "without the Episcopal sanction," can only be explained in the present instance by Horace's remark,

"quandoque bonus dormitat Homerus."

Had the true speciality been given to these citations, they would have cast great doubt upon the proceeding which they are alleged to warrant, and had the appeal to the canons of the primitive church been made more generally, its condemnation would have been complete.

In the very code (viz. the Apostolic) to which reference is made, and at no greater distance than four Canons preceding, (viz. the 28th), it is ordained, "Let not a Bishop presume to ordain in cities and villages not subject to him; and if he is convicted of doing so without consent of those to whom such places belong, let him and those he has ordained be deposed." The same restriction is repeated in the 13th of the Antiochian Code; and thus one specified object of the measure (viz. that of ordination) is nullified, and by the very authority adduced in its support. But the same Antiochian Canon extends its prohibition to the "regulating Ecclesiastical matters which do not concern him," and further ordains, that "if he go" for that purpose" when nobody calls him, all is null that is done by him, and he is to suffer proper punishment for his irregularity and unreasonable enterprise, as being deposed

forthwith by the holy Synod." The 53d and 98th of the African Canons go a step further than this, both of them ordaining "that people who never had a peculiar Bishop be not permitted to have one but by consent of the Provincial Synod, the Primate, and the Bishop to whose diocese the Church belongs"- the former Canon moreover giving this sanction to the ordinance, that it is what "many councils have decreed." This, however, is not all; for the 6th of the Chalcedonian Canons pronounces "null" the ordination of any one "ordained Priest or Deacon, or to any Ecclesiastical office at all, at large:" and the 15th of Leo's Decrees declares, that "they are not to be reckoned Bishops who are not chosen by the Clergy, nor requested by the people, nor consecrated by the com-provincial Bishops according to the judgment of the Metropolitan." These are 66 the Canons of the primitive Church," for the latest of them bears date A.D. 444, and if reference be made to the process directed by our ordinal to be observed in the constitution of Bishops, it will be found to be a faithful transcript of the principles here exhibited. It commences by a certificate from the representative body of the diocese, to the supreme authority wherever vested, of a vacancy having taken place, accompanied by a request for permission to proceed to a new election. Leave having been granted, election ensues, which is followed by confirmation; at which the name of the Bishop elect is publicly proclaimed, and a citation made to the people generally to come forward and offer any objections to him which they may have to prefer. The solemnity is consummated by consecration, where the metropolitan authority is exercised, and the consent of the Episcopal body given to the elevation. I am aware of some exceptions to this order of procedure, where Royal Patents have superseded the whole; but the measure under examination is one in which the consecrating parties exercised their spiritual power unshackled by the state, and appeal moreover to primitive principles for their warrant; and it is the happiness of our Church to have reformed itself after those principles-as Mr. Hook excellently expresses it-" to have kept in check every presumptuous innovation by the authoritative decrees of the four first General Councils-to have abscinded all that was Popish, and to have tenaciously adhered to every thing that was Catholic."

The defects, then, in Bishop Luscombe's consecration are, first, that there was no vacancy in any existing See; nor any creation of a new one by competent authority; that there was no election; no confirmation; and that the whole process commenced and terminated in consecration only. The explanation offered by Mr. Hook of this per saltum elevation to the Episcopate, is, that the "Right Rev. Fathers," who concurred" in the pious design," are to be considered in a two-fold character, as Bishops bound particularly to the discharge of the episcopal functions within the districts to which they have been appointed by Providence, and generally as Bishops of the church at large, to promote the true faith in every place to which their influence may extend. I admit this distinction; but deny that in either character they can legitimately supersede the Canons of the Universal Church, and, in delegating their own office, merge all the preliminary observances, framed for the better securing a discreet and efficient choice, in the completing solemnity of consecration.

I further very much question whether, even in their general capacity, (that in which alone it is pretended that Bishop Luscombe's consecration is to be justified) their authority does extend legitimately to France; because France is a portion of Christ's Holy Catholic Church, integral within itself, and regularly apportioned out to other church governors, and though the errors in matters of faith, which they support and inculcate, cannot be too deeply deplored, and may lawfully be denounced before a competent tribunal-an Episcopal Synod-which has power to depose them, and to direct and superintend a new election; yet till this process has been resorted to, and been carried into fulleffect, any introduction of a co-ordinate power within their respective jurisdictions is a flagrant violation of church unity, and a no less flagrant usurpation; and I cannot see how the parties implicated in it can extricate themselves from St. Paul's censure of "stretching themselves beyond their measure" and " building upon other men's foundations," or from St. Peter's severer reproach of allotrio-episcopising; or, as our version translates the significant term, being "busy-bodies in other men's matters."

Mr. Hook has, himself, remarked upon "the conduct of clergymen who take upon themselves to officiate for a permanency” in France, that" its propriety may be questioned;" and he grounds his exception upon the restrictive terms in which the Presbyteral character is conferred, suspending its functions till a parochial charge has been assigned for their exercise by diocesan authority. And is there not the same restriction in the office of consecration, except that the assignment of the diocese takes place first; and in the very oath prescribed to be taken previously to the episcopal character being conferred, the party's having been" chosen Bishop of the" particular "Church and See" is certified. But the consecrating prelates, in the present instance, specifically declare that they do not send Dr. Luscombe as " a diocesan Bishop in the modern and limited sense of the word, but from a purpose similar to that for which Titus was left by St. Paul in Crete ;" and upon this precedent they assign him "the Continent of Europe" as his province, in whatever nation he may chance to sojourn, and commit to his spiritual oversight not only "British subjects" generally, but "such other christians also as may profess to be of a Protestant Episcopal Church."

When, however, I read in Eusebius (Lib. iii. chap. 4.) that Titus was a diocesan Bishop, placed by St. Paul in the See of Crete, upon the conversion of that island by the Apostle, where, consequently, no Bishop was already presiding; and learn, moreover, from the accurate Cave, that all the ancients, with one consent, testify to this effect; however painful it may be to contravene authority for which I have a most sincere respect, I cannot but observe that the measure is condemned rather than warranted by the reference. Indeed it is a position, in support of which much may be advanced, that the assigning distinct portions of the different kingdoms of the earth to each of those to whom the supreme spiritual oversight was committed, so far from being, as alleged, "modern" in its invention, was coeval with the commission given by our Lord himself to convert the world to christianity. For whatever weight may be attached to that construction of τον τόπον τον ίδιον