CHAPTER VI.

THE CHRISTIAN MINISTRY EXISTING IN THREE ORDERS.-ADMISSIONS OF OPPONENTS.

BEFORE entering upon the subject of the present chapter, we wish to state precisely the nature and value of the argument now to be presented. It is not an argument, on which, so far as we ourselves are concerned, we lay the smallest stress. We do not build up a system of religious faith and worship for the salvation of our souls on the reluctant admission of opponents, wrung from them as an unwilling tribute to the truth of God. We stand on what we believe to be higher, holier, and stronger ground than this. On the contrary, even against the unbroken testimony, and the strongest and most earnest remonstrances of our opponents borne for a thousand years. Still our own duty would remain the very same that it is now. would rely upon the authority of God's Holy Word commended to us also by the testimony of the early Catholic Church, "the pillar and ground of the Truth." It is not for ourselves, then, that we enter upon the subject of the present chapter. We have a different object in view.

Still we

It seems to be supposed at the present day, by a large class of persons, that at the Reformation, a considerable portion of the Reformers, and especially those upon the Continent of Europe, being unshackled by entanglements with civil government, and more than all, having imbibed clearer views of God's truth, rejected the Episcopacy, and embraced the Presbyterian system as a matter of duty and conscience. And so in the same strain it is common to hear men speak of the English Reformers, as having retained the Episcopacy and Liturgical worship only to render the pure truths of the Gospel less offensive to a proud and haughty Court. And so the trappings of royalty, and the gaudy equipage of an aristocracy, on the one hand, and the Liturgy and the Episcopacy on the other, are both mentioned at one breath as if there was some necessary connection between them.

Now we have no wish simply to spoil so much empty declamation, or to deprive a certain class of popular declaimers, of a subject which we suspect is becoming somewhat threadbare or stale; but yet, as a searcher of truth, it may be our duty to expose a most egregious error upon this subject, and show what really were the sentiments of the Continental Reformers, on the subject of the Christian ministry, and show why, as a matter of simple fact, they did not organize their societies under an Episcopal ministry. We are capable of showing, and we' shall show, that those men, so

far from regarding Episcopacy as a corruption of Christianity, or an innovation upon Apostolic Institutions, actually acknowledged its Apostolic character, and that they lost it, only on what they believed to be the ground of absolute necessity. Again another introductory remark we desire to make. The men of whom we shall speak, and who were prominent actors in the scenes to be brought before us, were not ignorant men. "There were giants in the earth in those days." They possessed every important facility for the study of Ecclesiastical order and government, and what is more, they brought to the work of investigation, minds imbued with a sense of the importance of the subject. They went back to the fountains of ancient learning, with an ardor, reverence, and perseverance, which ought to put to blush the ignorant self-conceit of the present age. Modern times are distinguished (justly so) for discoveries in a few branches of physical science, but they are behind past ages in some of the nobler arts, and especially are they deficient in that reverence for antiquity, which is justly due. There is abroad, an actual disrelish, even contempt, for the wisdom of past ages, even though it have the authority of the inspiration of the Holy Ghost. The inspired Apostles have come to be regarded as "poor misguided fishermen," and even Jesus Christ, it is said, may come to be eclipsed by some of his own followers, as the human mind shall advance with the spirit of

the age. With this mad spirit of infidelity (and such it really is) we claim to have nothing to do, otherwise than to wash our hands of its guilt, and bear our most solemn and earnest testimony against it.

Our object, in the present chapter, is to show in what light those men regarded Episcopacy, who are now looked back upon as the founders of the Non-Episcopal system; and that, so far from bearing witness against it, they left their most decided testimony in its favor. Against the unholy usurpations of Rome, they remonstrated. But an Episcopacy, such as then existed in England, and as now exists both there and in this country at the present day, they thoroughly approved, and were most anxious to retain.

A few of the leading men, most conspicuous in the work of the Reformation on the Continent, will now be quoted.

L. First, we will appeal to the testimony of the celebrated John Calvin. He was replying to the reproaches of the Romish Cardinal, Sadolet, and says:

"That the discipline which the ancient Church used, is wanting in us, we ourselves do not deny." -Ad Car. Sad. Resp.

Again he says: "I know how many things might be required, as lacking in us. And truly, if God should presently summon us to a reckoning, our defence would be a difficult one."-De Ref. Eccl.

And again, in a work in which he was treating particularly of Church policy, he says:

"It will be profitable, in these questions, to review the form of the ancient Church, which will exhibit to our glance a kind of representation of the Divine institution. For, although the Bishops of that time promulgated divers Canons in which they may appear to set forth more than is expressed in the Sacred Scriptures, yet, with such heedlessness did they arrange their whole system, according to that one prescript form contained in the Word of God, that you may easily perceive that they held, in this particular, almost nothing, which varies from that word."-Citat. ap. Hadrian, &c., p. 87.

Again he says: "This order of Government some have termed hierarchy; an improper name, in my judgment, and certainly not to be found in the Scriptures. But if, omitting the phrase, we shall consider this thing itself, we shall find that those ancient Bishops sought to frame no other mode of Church Government, than that which God hath prescribed in his word."-Cal. Ins. Lib. iv., Cap. iv., Sec. 4.

So also, in writing to a former friend, but recently consecrated Bishop in the Romish Church, he says:

"The Episcopate itself had its appointments from God. The office of a Bishop was instituted by the authority, and defined by the ordinance of God."-Vet. Am. Nunc Prae. Ep.

And again, and strongest of all, in that unambiguous passage: