these rebels, one and all, come, to fulfil on their part the prescribed conditions to make their submission and receive the

seal of reconciliation and adoption into a new and covenanted relation to God? There can be but one answer, and that is, to the visible church, through her authorized ministry. And what are the officers of the church called in Scripture? • Ministers-stewards of mysteries-ambassadors.' Are not these then agents for a specified purpose, and their work an agency? Stand they not in the gap, as it were, between heaven and hell, on this sin-ruined, death-stricken world, sent of God to win souls to Christ, and pluck sinners from everlasting burnings? Stand they not commissioned to feed the flock of Christ-to prepare, and give to each, his portion from the spiritual treasury of the divine word, and to administer the sacraments of salvation? Have they no stores of admonition, reproof, and censure -no provision of encouragement, comfort, and consolation to deal out, according to the several conditions of their charge, amid the sundry and manifold changes and chances of this mortal life? And in all this, are they not the agents of a higher power-even of him, who hath promised to be with them, in this ardu ous work, to the end of the world?" P. 27, 28.

In objection to the following passage of the bishop-"To be entitled to mercy on the only safe ground, his revealed word, we must be found within the rule which includes it as a covenant stipulation. Of any other state or condition different from this, we can say nothing, because we know nothing. There may be mercy, but it is not revealed, it is no where promised." Farewell Sermon, p. 6-Dr. Rice asserts that it "makes too wide a sweep" for him, and produces as an instance of persons out of the church, but not excluded from the covenant, the inhabitants of Pitcairn-Island. The bishop exposes the futility of the objection by putting the question, "Are they rely ing with a promise? are they unpresumingly relying on covenanted mercies 277

where

producing the passages baptism is joined with faith as a condition of salvation, and observing that theirs is an extreme case, and, as an exception, tends to confirm the general rule, which must still apply with undiminished force to all living within reach of the terms of connexion with the church.

With respect to the unity of the church, Dr. Rice contents himself with misrepresenting Bishop Ravenscroft's opinions, and expressing a contemptuous denial of their accuracy. The following are the bishop's opinions:

"On this doctrine of the church, then, we are instructed from Scripture-First, that it is but one, there is one body." Accordingly we never find it spoken of in these same Scriptures indefinitely, as a church, but definitely, as the church This oneness, however, is not to be understood of any particular location, for in this respect it hath no limit, but the gracious purpose of its divine Founder to gather together in one, the children of God scattered abroad.' Hence it is compared to a vine, which, with but one root, hath many branches."

66

Secondly, we learn from the same source, that the unity of this one body consists in the belief and profession of the one faith or system of doctrine revealed by the one Spirit of God, and once committed to the saints, or associated members of the church of Christ, by the preaching of the apostles; in the service, or obedience to the laws of the one Lord, or Head of the body; in the participation of the same sacraments, as means and therly love and Christian fellowship in pledges of divine grace, and of that browhich we are joined together in the worship of the one God and Father of the spirits of all flesh, and in the one hope of our calling."

"Thirdly, we are instructed from the same word of God, that in this one body or church of Christ, there is but one source of authority for ministering the word and sacraments; and that this au

all

thority is of divine appointment; power is given unto me in heaven and in tions, baptizing them in the name of the earth; go-ye, therefore, and teach all naFather, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and lo I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world,'

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Fourthly, we are taught by the more sure word of prophecy, that unto the church thus divinely constituted and 'built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets' the solemn promise is made, against it; the Holy Spirit given, to abide that the gates of hell shall not prevail with it for ever, to enlighten, convince, comfort, and sanctify the children of God, and that only as we are members of this one body, fruitful branches of this one vine, are the promises of God in Christ to us, yea, and to us, amen."-P. 33, 34.

The bishop's notice of Dr. Rice's

opinion on this subject may serve as a fair specimen of his home-thrusting interrogatories :

"To bring this vital subject, however, into some definite shape-and you to your answer; I ask, on what possible principle is the divine unity of the church of Christ reconcileable with the existing state of the Christian world? Are all the varie

ties of religious profession throughout Christendom true branches of the true church, the one spouse and body of Christ -or, only some of them? Will you an

swer this plainly and directly, and give us the grounds and reasons of your determination, whatever it may be, that we may know the extent of that fraternity which modern Presbyterians manifest for Congregationalists, Independents, Methodists, Baptists, &c. &c.—and may also learn, if it can be communicated, how separation and exclusion are transformed into union and fellowship? In what does the unity of the visible church consist, according to your view of it? Is it in agreement in faith and order, or of faith singly, or order singly? If the unity of the church is not to be referred ultimately to the authority of Christ, originally lodged with his apostles, as the root-to what is it to be referred? Is there another principle or root of unity, as a divine character or mark of the church of Christ, which is equally verifiable and conclusive in all ages, and by all capacities of men? If there be, let us have it, plain and direct."-P. 35.

But the preceding has been but skirmishing; the main battle between the bishop and his Presbyterian reviewer relates to the divine right of the ministry of the church. Forty pages of the bishop's work are devoted to a close and luminous examination of the doctor's views upon this subject, and of the objections which he has taken to the bishop's sentiments on this head in his former publications. It is amusing to observe the endeavours of Bishop Ravenscroft to bring his antagonist to a direct issue on the question. Dr. Rice takes the ground, that the evidence of divine right may be conveyed through more than a single channel; at least, that it is a matter of indifference which of two channels be the true one. From this he is instantly beaten by an exposition of the absurdity of supposing a divided unity, and an evidence not cognizable. Having thus reduced the question to the simple one, Which of two systems of ministerial order, parity or imparily, is of divine

right?-Bishop Ravenscroft proves clearly, that a strict parity is directly contrary to the evidence of Scripture, pp. 37, s. The question then is, Is a ministry of two orders that constituted right in the church, or one of three? as the channel of conveyance of divine The bishop proves, from Scripture, that in the church, as constituted by the divinely-inspired apostles, there were three orders of men invested with Presbyters, styled indifferently Elders, the ministerial office; 1. Apostles; 2. or Bishops; 3. Deacons. But to which of the three orders was the ordaining power committed? is the next and last question to be determined. That the apostles had it, all allow; that deacons possessed it, is asserted by none: the question is, therefore, "Was it committed to the order styled indifferently in Scripture, Elders, Presbyters, and Bishops; or to another order, distinguished by possessing this as well as the other ordinary apostolical powers ?" From the epistles to Timothy, Bishop Ravenscroft proves that authority was given to him over the members and ministers of the church of Ephesus in doctrine; that the apostolic charge was committed to him; that to him was intrusted the choice and government of elders and deacons; that he possessed judicial authority over elders as well as others; and that to him singly was committed the power of ordaining both elders and deacons. The same is shown to have been the case with Titus.Pp. 37-41.

After thus settling the real point in question between Dr. Rice and himself, Bishop Ravenscroft proceeds to notice the objections brought by Dr. Rice to his views, as previously expressed in his published sermons; first, however, noticing the Presbyterian hypotheses, that deacons were not clothed with ministerial powers; and that Timothy and Titus were of an especial order-that of evangelists--and so clothed with the special powers of ordination and government;-both of which he fully and forcibly disproves on Scripture grounds.-Pp. 41, ss.

Dr. Rice's first objection lies in the question, "Does Episcopal, in contradistinction to Presbyterial ordination,

enter into the essence of the church of Christ?"—to give force to which, he urges the case of a lukewarm Christian receiving the eucharist from "an ungodly, fox hunting parish priest," and another of fervent piety taking the communion at the hands of "such a man as Philip Doddridge or Samuel Davies," and asks whether the former has "a warrant to hope for salvation,' while the other "has no scriptural hope of mercy?" Bishop Ravenscroft answers in the words of the 26th article of our church, and adds the following lucid argument :

"But to show the fallacy of this conclusion, and strip the case of its power to mislead the ignorant and unreflecting; I ask you, to what is the recipient of a sacrament to refer for assurance, that the application of water in the name of the Trinity, or the reception of bread and wine as memorials of Christ's death-are sacraments, are means of grace, are valid and effectual transactions with God in the infinite interests of salvation? What is the Presbyterian ground of assurance that the sacraments are sacraments? Step from under your veil, and let us know on what ground your people rely for confidence, that in the ministrations of religion, the sanction of the Almighty is with the actings and doings of those who call themselves his servants and ministers ? We shall then be able to form a just opinion of the effect intended to be produced by this insidiously constructed case. But to sift it thoroughly, and, counteract its injurious tendency; I ask you, what constituted the difference between your pious communicant and either Doddridge or Davies? Whence had either of these a

right to administer to him, which he had

not to administer to them? Was it their

piety or their learning, or the choice of their respective congregations, which made the difference? Was it a compound of all these, with the ordination they had received? Was it their ordination itself?

Was it any confidence or persuasion of mind in the recipient, that they were really lawful ministers of Christ, acting by divine authority? What was it, in your opinion, which gave to the bread and wine, administered as memorials of Christ's death, by Doddridge and Davies, a sacramental character? If you say, as you must do, to keep clear of a greater difficulty, that the divine right conferred by their ordination, constituted the difference between them and the equally pious recipient, I agree with you, provided it was an authorized and scriptural ordina

tion-otherwise, their ministerial acts were worse than mere nullities. Thus

your overwhelming case brings us to where we must for ever resort to ascertain the validity of ministerial acts, viz. the authority by which they are performed. Nor is there in the compass of possibility any other way to determine between a sacrament and the profanation of a holy mystery ordained by Christ himself, and instituted in his church as a means of grace, a seal and pledge of covenanted mercies."-P. 45.

The bishop proceeds to answer a string of queries, in which it is the doctor's object to bring his readers to the conclusion, that there are no human means of establishing the successionthat the Episcopal succession (and indeed any succession) was destroyed by the secession of Protestants from the Church of Rome under a sentence of excommunication-that the Episcopal succession is derived through the contaminated channel of the bishops of. Rome-that the evidence of succession is a matter of indifference to the pious layman-and that there is no warrant for requiring it in Scripture. Each of these erroneous, not to say insidious, insinuations, the bishop solidly disproves with a force of argument not to be resisted, and sufficient to carry conviction to any but one blinded by prejudice and malice.

Dr. Rice's third objection, consisting in the assertion that "the founders of the Church of England did not hold the sentiments" advanced by Bishop Ravenscroft, and that "he is sure that it;" is answered by Bishop Ravensthey are not in the Bible as he reads croft, by producing the words of the reformers in the preface to their Ordinal, and calling on the doctor to prove them guilty of the gross inconsistency if his assertion were correct. With rewhich must be chargeable upon them spect to the non-existence of the bishop's sentiments in the Scriptures, he quotes the able reasoning of Law, in his second letter to the bishop of Bangor, in opposition to the doctor's as sertion.

After answering some repetitions of objections already noticed, and an attempt of Dr. Rice's to represent the bishop as asserting a necessary resemblance of the Christian ministry to the Jewish priesthood, Bishop Ravenscroft

1

goes on to answer the doctor's objection to a claim of uninterrupted succession from the apostles,-that the apostles, as extraordinary officers, endowed with peculiar gifts, could have had no successors. This he does by quoting at some length, from a previously published sermon of his own, a passage, in which admitting, in all its extent, the doctor's proposition as to the cessation of the extraordinary powers, (perhaps to a greater extent than was necessary, or strictly consistent with historical truth, since we know that some, at least, of the extraordinary powers of the apostles did continue in their successors for more than a century,) he deprives it of its force as an objection, by a natural and obvious distinction between their extraordinary powers, adapted to the peculiar exigences of the infant church, and their ordinary ministerial powers, necessary to the existence and government of the church throughout all ages.

Dr. Rice having next attempted to show that the order of presbyters were appointed by the apostles their successors in the government of the church, relying on the interchangeable use of the words presbyter, or elder, and bishop, to support the assertion, Bishop Ravenscroft exposes the miserable fallacy of this quibble upon names, quoting a strong passage to that effect from the writings of that able reasoner, Leslie, and deducing a forcible argument against it from the total absence of any mention of the duties appertaining to the episcopal office in St. Paul's last charge to the elders or bishops of Ephesus (Acts xx.) the very passage upon which the doctor grounded his argument.

Dr. Rice declares, "The indisputable fact is, that at the death of the apostles, there was no Episcopacy in the whole Christian church, but a parochial Episcopacy. There was no superiority of one clergyman over another. But each bishop in his parish had the oversight of the flock committed to his care." The bishop, in answer, adduces, 1st. The example of Timothy, having charge of the church of Ephesus, in which there were certainly several inferior pastors or "bishops,"

as the doctor chooses to call them; 2d. Titus, having jurisdiction over all Crete, with the churches established or to be established in its hundred cities; 3d. The seven angels of the seven churches in Asia, of which a) it is certain from Scripture, that the church of Ephesus was governed by a dioce san bishop, and b) from the testimony of all ecclesiastical antiquity, assented to by the most learned moderns, (e. g. Mosheim, Comm. Vidal's tr. p. 227, s. quoted by Bishop Ravenscroft,) that the other six were also under diocesan bishops; and, 4th. James, bishop of the church of Jerusalem, in which, from the multiplicity of converts, it is impossible but that many presbyters must have been employed: forming, in the whole, "ten instances, from the New Testament, of distinct and distant provincial churches, consisting of many separate congregations, all episcopally constituted and governed” during the lifetime of the apostles.

The last of Dr. Rice's objections noticed by Bishop Ravenscroft, is that contained in the questions, "Where was the bishop of Rome when St. Paul wrote his epistle to that church? Where was the bishop of Corinth, of Galatia, of Ephesus, of Colosse, of Thessalo nica ?" The bishop replies, by acknowledging that at the time when the Epistle to the Romans was written, that church was without a bishop; which temporary deprivation, however, makes nothing against his cause; and by saying, that for the other churches, "St. Paul himself was their bishop at the times when he wrote to them they were all his own converts, churches of his own planting, and were retained under his own superintendence. This is abundantly evident, not only from the tenor of the epistles, but from the circumstance of an epistle being addressed to them as churches. St. Paul knew too well what belonged to clerical propriety, to have addressed an epistle to any church collectively, that was under the care of its own bishop. Had his apostolic duty required such an interference, there can be no. doubt that, as an inspired man, he would have acted upon the principle adopted by his Divine Master towards