AND

NOT PRELACY

THE

SCRIPTURAL AND PRIMITIVE POLITY,

PROVED FROM THE TESTIMONIES OF

SCRIPTURE, THE FATHERS, THE SCHOOLMEN, THE REFORMERS,
AND THE ENGLISH AND ORIENTAL CHURCHES.

ALSO,

THE ANTIQUITY OF PRESBYTERY;

INCLUDING AN ACCOUNT OF

THE ANCIENT CULDEES AND OF ST. PATRICK.

BY THOMAS SMYTH, 18 (873

AUTHOR OF LECTURES ON THE APOSTOLICAL SUCCESSION, ECCLESIASTICAL
REPUBLICANISM, ECCLESIASTICAL CATECHISM, ETC.

"Show them the form of the house and the fashion thereof, and the goings out
thereof, and the comings in thereof, and all the forms thereof, and all the ordinances
thereof, and all the laws thereof: and write it in their sight, that they may keep the
whole form thereof, and all the ordinances thereof, and do them."-EZEK. xliii, 11.

GLASGOW :

WILLIAM COLLINS, 7, SOUTH FREDERICK STREET.
EDINBURGH OLIVER AND BOYD; WILLIAM WHYTE AND CO.;

W. OLIPHANT AND SON; AND JOHN JOHNSTONE. DUBLIN: W. CURRY, JUN., AND CO.
LONDON: WHITTAKER AND CO.; HAMILTON, ADAMS, AND CO.; AND
SIMPKIN, MARSHALL, AND CO.

1844.

PREFACE.

As a sufficient demand has been made upon the patience of the reader, in the body of this work, it will not be increased by any lengthened preface. All that will be done, therefore, will be to offer a few words of explanation.

As to the necessity for the work, nothing need be said. This is now universally admitted. A renewed and thorough discussion of the great principles involved in the exclusive assumptions of prelacy is forced upon us by the often and repeated assaults made by this bold enemy, upon the rights and privileges of all other Christian denominations. The conviction is therefore general, that this controversy must become the leading topic of the age. Manuals are needed, ecclesiastical catechisms are needed, tracts, sermons, and discourses are needed, and treatises like the present are also needed. The one does not supersede the other, nor render it the less necessary. Let every man, in his place, and according to his opportunity, come up to the help of the cause of truth, charity, purity, and liberty, against a power which is once more forging for us the chains of spiritual despotism and superstition.

The aim of this work is catholic, and not sectarian. The author appears as the advocate, not of a party, but of all non-episcopal denominations. He includes under the term presbytery, those generic principles which are common to Congregationalists, Presbyterians, Reformed Dutch, Lutherans, Baptists, and Methodists. In some points he will be found differing with members of each of these bodies, but most generally he hopes to be found agreeing with the liberal minded of them all. He would reclaim for all these parties the application, in a wide sense, of the term presbytery. He would thus hope to draw closer the bonds of Christian truth, harmony, and affection, by which we are leagued together. This work he offers to them all as a peace-offering-an Irenicum—and a challenge to greater union and coöperation againt our common foes. Our differences are few compared to our points of agreement. They are as nothing, when once contrasted with those walls of separation by which prelatists and Romanists would exclude us from any inheritance in Israel. The Philistines are upon us. They have vowed the destruction of our citadels. They build their hopes upon our disunion. Divided we fall, but united we are sure of victory. Shall we not then rally around the standard of our common principles, for the defence of our common rights, and pour our united forces upon our common enemies? If this work shall in

277244