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no allusion, shows that in this case Clement is speaking of the officers of Christian churches; as plainly as in the other case the context shows that he is speaking of the Jewish priesthood.

Clement of Rome, then, does nothing at all towards identifying the prelate-bishops of the third century with the New Testament apostles. His testimony indeed is quite the other way.

But the epistles of Ignatius! These, the prelatist tells us, say all that can be asked for. If they do -if their testimony is just what the Episcopalian wants in order to make out his case-then, for that very reason, when all the other circumstances are taken into consideration, they are not to be trusted. Ignatius died in the early part of the second century, A. D. 116, or earlier. Just before his death he wrote several epistles. The epistles now extant under his name, if not mere forgeries, are, as all parties acknowledge, greatly corrupted. They exist in two forms, one well charged with Arian opinions and phrases; the other being made conformable to the views of the Athanasian party in the Arian controversy. In either form, the text is corrupt to an indefinite extent; though the Athanasian edition, being the more compendious of the two, must needs be, in that proportion, less corrupt. No mortal man can attempt to reform the text, and give us an uncorrupted copy, otherwise than by conjecture. Now, independently of these circumstances, Ignatius has the appearance of a suborned and prepared witness. The advocates of prelacy have occasion to prove that the bishop of ecclesiastical history is not, according to the most obvious supposition, one of the bench of presbyters, who has been so fortunate as to acquire by gradual usur. pation, a great ascendency over his fellow presbyters, and to appropriate as exclusively his a name to which they have as good a right as he;

and that, on the contrary, he is the true successor and representative of the Apostles, having only laid down that august title out of modesty. To prove this, they call upon the New Testament. That, as we have seen, tells us of bishops and deacons, but refuses to say one word in favor of this transmitted apostleship. Next they call Clement of Rome; he being unquestionably cotemporary with the Apostles, and his epistle being of undoubted genuineness. He gives no testimony for their cause, but much against them; on this point, as on others, he agrees with the New Testament. He knows nothing of any successors to the Apostles except "bishops and deacons." Next they call Ignatius, cotemporary with Clement, though probably younger; and his testimony, professedly some fifteen or twenty-five years later than that of Clement, exhibits entirely another order of things. largely of the bishop, the presbyters, and the deacons. He represents Christian character as consisting to a great extent in the duty of obeying the bishop and reverencing the clergy. He associates the bishop with the altar. He even goes so far in making the bishop God's vicegerent, that Mr. Chapin carefully abstains from quoting his irreverent comparisons. Such a witness brings suspicion upon himself by the very amplitude and unsparingness of his testimony. We cannot avoid inquiring whether he has not been tampered with. Upon making inquiry, we find that on other subjects he is known to have been corrupted, and to have given false testimony; and that whether what he says on this subject is true, must be determined either by the intrinsic probability or improbability of the thing testified, or

He discourses

*Of course we shall not be understood as speaking here of the real Ignatius, the martyr of Antioch, who died in the Roman circus under the Emperor Trajan, but only of Ignatius as personated in these forged or corrupt epistles.

by additional testimony from some other quarter. No cause is firm which depends on such a witness.

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But even if this witness is permitted to testify, and is regarded as as credible, what does he prove. Schooled and prepared as he has been, he has not been trained to say exactly the right thing for those who call him to testify. In the first place, for aught that appears, the bishop in every church, about whom he speaks so much, may have been a Presbyterian bishop; and his "council" have been a may sion" of lay-elders. In the second place, admitting that what he calls "the presbytery" consisted of clerical and preaching elders, officiating in various chapels, and all belonging to one church, we see not how it appears that the bishop was any thing more than a permanent president of that body, the princeps senatús, the first among his equals. In the third place, admitting that the presbyters of whom this Ignatius speaks, were merely Episcopalian priests; and that, in the churches to which those epistles were addressed, the clerical body was already divided into three dis tinct orders, it does not appear from the testimony, that a similar arrangement existed any where beyond the limits of Syria and Asia Minor. And in the fourth place, if we admit that the monarchical principle had already established itself in the churches on the European as well as on the Asiatic side of the Mediterranean, and that every where, even as early as A. D. 115, the bishops had become a distinct order from the presbyters; the main point is, after all, untouched. Ignatius, so far as we can see, testifies not one word to the point on which the Episcopalian argument turns, particularly as managed by Mr. Chapin. He does not say that the bishops of whom he speaks were apostles, or that they had the same rank and authority with the apostles of the preceding age. He com

pares the bishop not with the apos. tles, but with Christ himself and with God the Father; and it is the presbytery which he likens to the "sanhedrim of God" and the "college of apostles." He says indeed, "that as Jesus Christ, our inseparable life, is sent by the will of the Father," so "the bishops, appointed to the utmost bounds of the earth, are by the will of Jesus Christ ;"* but he nowhere alledges a divine warrant, or even an apostolical tradition, for a hierarchy subsisting in three orders. The modern doctrine of transmitted apostleship-and particularly that important part of it which teaches that the prelate-bishop is the same in order and authority with the New Testament apostle, having only laid down his proper title in excess of meekness-does not appear to have been broached in the days when the epistles of Ignatius were written.

The attempt then to set up the bishops of the Protestant Episcopal church in the United States, as having full apostolical authority not only over those who have agreed to conform to the conventional regulations of that respectable body, but over all Christians within these territorial limits-is a failure. The argument in their behalf fails, at the very point at which there ought to be no room for doubt. That old rusty chain of succession, along which the magnetic fluid is supposed to have been transmitted to their persons, seems glorious and golden to such eyes as Mr. Chapin's; but as for us, even though our faith were easy enough to admit that there is no "solution of continuity" under the depth of those dark centuries through which the chain is said to stretch unbroken, we find the first link wanting-the very link on which the whole se ries is alledged to depend-the link which ought to connect the whole with the original and undoubted

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apostles. It is not enough to assert, what nobody denies, that the first bishops, so called in the New Testament, were ordained by the apostles; those are admitted to have been mere presbyters. The inquiry is not concerning a succession from or through New Testament bishops, but concerning a succession of apostles from apostles. It must therefore be proved, not that the apostles ordained bishops and deacons in the churches, and missionary preachers for the work at large, but that they ordained men to the highest of the three orders of the hierarchy; and that they ordained them to be apostles, and, under that name, to exercise in their own persons, and to transmit to other ages all the authority and power which belonged to the original twelve. Till this proof is fairly made out, the succession of prelates is any thing but a succession of apostles.

We promised to say something respecting the Episcopalian doctrine and ceremony of confirmation; but we fear that our readers, wearied with the unexpected prolixity of this article, will be too ready to excuse

us.

Our remarks then on this topic shall be confined to a brief exhibition of some specimens of our author's exegesis.

Confirmation, as it is prescribed in the ritual of the Protestant Episcopal church, is a public ceremony by which persons who have been baptized, and have come to years of discretion, may acknowledge and renew by their own personal act, the obligations involved in their baptism. It is equivalent to that public profession of religion, which a bap tized person makes at uniting with a Congregational church. As rep. resented in the prescribed "order of confirmation," we find little to object to it, except that one part of the form seems to involve, or at least to countenance, the monstrous dogma of baptismal regeneration. But as Mr. Chapin represents it, it

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is an imitation-nay, a shocking parody of that laying on of the Apostles' hands, in connection with which the Holy Spirit was imparted to primitive believers, in the miraculous gifts of prophecy, of healing, and of tongues. For the texts which speak of such a laying on of hands by the Apostles, and which at the same time speak distinctly of the miraculous descent of the Holy Spirit as the accompaniment, (see Acts viii, 14-20; xix, 6,) are his first proof that the Apostles practiced this Episcopalian ceremony. His second proof is found in the word "confirm," where Paul and Barnabas are spoken of as revisiting the churches which they had planted, and confirming" either "the churches," or "the souls of the disciples;" for to him it seems a plain case, that neither a church, nor a believer, can be really confirmed unless by the due performance of some rite of confirmation, which is both "outward and external." His third proof-and it is to this that we would particularly call attention-is found in the language of Paul, where he speaks so strikingly of the earnest," the "seal," and the "pledge" of the Spirit. Let us not pronounce a hasty judgment on this piece of interpretation, however surprising; but let us rather turn to the two passages referred to, and give them a new and deliberate perusal.

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a reference to the performance of some external rite, by which the recipient was consecrated or set apart to the worship of God through Christ, which [external rite?] was to them not the evidence of their Christian character, but a token of it, and not the Spirit, but a pledge of it in the heart."

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The other passage, (Eph. i, 13,) is, "In whom❞—that is, in Christye also trusted," ["as we have done'-see the preceding verse,] "after that ye heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation; in whom also, after that ye believed, ye were sealed with that Holy Spirit of promise, which is the pledge of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession, to the praise of his glory." A well known parallel to this is found in the same epistle, (iv, 30,) "Grieve not that Holy Spirit of God by whom ye are sealed to the day of redemption." Of this passage, speaking so distinctly of that inward, living testimony to the truth of the gospel, which the believer finds in the progressive experience of its power, and in the indwelling of the sanctifying Spirit within him,-our author coolly says that it is "of the same purport," as indeed it is, with the one which he has just before construed into a mere recognition of a ceremony. "The reference [to the external rite of confirmation] is so direct, the allusion so distinct, as to be apparent to the most casual reader." What exegesis!

With what spectacles, it will be asked, does this man read his Bible? When it is so perfectly obvious that in both these passages the Apostle is appealing to that experimental proof of the truth of the gospel, which the believer finds in its quickening and sanctifying effects upon himself by the Holy Spirit promised on the condition of his believingan experience which is at once the only true "seal" of the genuineness of his subjective faith, and the "earnest," the pledge, the begun

fulfillment, the first instalment, of those exceeding great and precious promises which are the object of his faith-when it so evident that Paul means, in both these passages, just what John means when he says "He that believeth hath the witness in himself,”—what must be the condition of that man's mind, who with the Bible open before him can see nothing here but an Episcopalian confirmation? How is it that he contrives to miss the plain meaning of passages so spiritual and experimental? How is it that in defiance of text and context, he is induced to force upon the Apostle a meaning so foreign to his language and His argument? The natural history of this abnormal condition. of a mind not unendowed with common sense, nor unprivileged in respect to information, might be studied to advantage.

Such exegesis originates in the author's false or imperfect concep tions of the genius of Christianity. His mind is full of the visible in religion-the "outward and external." Organization and order, hierarchies, ordinances, rites, liturgies, ceremonies, and vestments, have occupied his thoughts and kindled his enthusiasm, till they rise before him, always and every where, like a morbid hallucination. Thus with him, the visible, or what he supposes to be the visible in Christianity, eclipses the spiritual; and when he reads his Bible, the images that are dancing in his brain seem to dance upon the sacred page. Thus if he finds Christ praying for the redeemed that they all may be oneone in their Redeemer and their God-one in that unity of holy purpose and desire, and that unmeasured communication of the Holy Spirit, in which the incarnate Son is one with the Eternal Father-he construes all that as if the Savior were speaking of an organized and outward unity. Thus, too, if he finds Paul speaking of believers as anointed and sealed with the Holy

Spirit, and as receiving in this fulfillment of a gospel promise a blessed pledge that all shall be fulfilled -this is to him "most evidently," most visibly and palpably, a refer ence to the "external rite" of confirmation.

Such a habit of mind has been aggravated in the present case, if it was not originally induced, by an ill directed study of the Fathers. Our author probably values himself upon his patristic learning. We We give him full credit for having expended much time, and much patient attention, on this particular branch of theological study. We think indeed that he has read the Fathers more than was good for him, unless he had read them in a different way and for a different purpose. He has studied them, but he has not mastered them. On the contrary, they have mastered him, and he has sat at their feet, and humbled his common sense to learn of their ignorance and superstition, till they have taught him to reason almost as childishly, and to misinterpret Scripture almost as wretchedly as they do.

We counsel him, therefore, to eschew the Fathers. To him they have been and will be blind guides. Let him study Baxter rather than Origen, Dwight rather than Irenæus, Chalmers rather than Tertullian. Instead of stumbling on the dark mountains of Clemens Alexandrinus, let him take a course of logic under the archbishop of Dublin. We do not recommend the archbishop's treatise on the kingdom of Christ to his present attention, but only the Logic, for we remember that "strong meat" is not for all, but only for those that are able to bear it. Let him get rid of his patristic logic, his patristic interpretation, and his patristic divinity, and ere long, it may be hoped that the mists which hang over his Bible, dimming its blessed light, and re

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It is not in any hostility to that body of professed Christians of which this author. is a member, and the peculiarities of which he has undertaken to maintain, that we have animadverted so freely on the book before us. We respect that sect, as we respect other sects, not for those matters of organization and form in which it differs from the rest of Protestant Christendom

not for its threefold hierarchy, its printed prayers, its white-robed priests, or the pretense of an exclusive 'validity' in its sacraments but for whatever of simple Christian truth is proclaimed from its pulpits; for whatever of spiritual worship is breathed out towards heaven from its assemblies; for whatever of the power of godliness dwells in the hearts and glows in the lives of its members; and for whatever efforts it is putting forth at home and abroad, in love to Christ, to make known to all men that doctrine of the cross which is the wisdom of God and the power of God to salvation. Episcopalians ought not to imagine that they are assailed, or that we attempt to exclude their church from the visible body of Christ, when we expose the follies and the errors of a book like this. In showing what this book is, we are rendering to them, as a Christian community, a service, for which they ought to be grateful. If such books are to have circulation and authority among them, and are to operate in forming the minds and the hearts of their clergy and their laity, their church must be the suf ferer.

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