as the sovereign, who was the chief object of attack, maintained his power, their visionary plans of universal philanthropy were considered as "fancy s fairy frostwork," or as the day-dreams of an amiable philosophy. The benevolent were captivated, and for some time even the most reasonable men were unwilling that the pleasing images should disappear. The poison spread, till the majority of the people were alienated from their written laws. By slow degrees, Jacobinism began to show itself in a new form. Hailed as the day star of liberty and peace, it streamed as a meteor through the political horizon," perplexing monarchs," and shaking from its horrid train "pestilence and war." Appealing to the poor against the rich, and insidiously separating the people from their government, by declaring war with the palace and peace to the cottage, it inflicted on the existing race of man unheard-of, intolerable evils. In the midst of groans, tears, and mourning, its visionaries looked to the future, and promised to their victims millennial felicity. "Soft smiling, and demurely looking down," the dagger was concealed, till it was buried in the heart.

Is there no parallel? Are not sounding phrases, plausible objects, and plans of extensive, universal good, the only means by which great agitation of the public mind is produced, while a proportionate reverence for the laws is no where excited? Do not our religious philosophers talk loudly of the rights of conscience, of candor and liberality, using every term as a watchword? We cannot object to words, but to the sense in which they are applied. The levelling expressions adopted in our country, however apparently defensible, are intended in the worst and most objectionable sense. The amalgamation of sects, which prevents and annihilates all exclusive attachment to the Established Church, is recommended in the education of our youth, and sanctioned even by some of the Princes of the Realm. We are invited to consider ourselves as Bible Christians, and members of the Universal Church. Quaker, Calvinist, Arminian, Methodist, and Anabaptist, all are Bible Christians, all are members of the Universal Church, and all would deride the man, who would insinuate the propriety of their becoming less attached to their peculiar tenets. The Church alone is refused, by these several sects, the exclusive allegiance and attachment of her sons. This is bigotry, this is intolerance! The French Revolutionists, by advancing new, in opposition to long-established doctrines, effected that disunion in their country, which after many years of silent progress terminated in civil war. So will the liberal projects of the day prove the downfall of our existing institutions, unless we separate the useful from the plausible, and unite fidelity to our establishments with zeal for Christianity.

Neutrality is impossible in the great questions of religion and

politics. All that is not for the Church, must in some measure be against it. The people have been once alienated from the Establishment, and the State fell with its best defender. Is it entirely impossible that these events may recur? that the same pretensions to fervent piety, and the continued repetition of popular objections, may again induce the majority of the nation to withdraw from her communion? Can a minority uphold the Church? Are our very Statesmen so exclusively its friends, as to give us implicit confidence in their vigilance? The Nobility and Gentry are too much interested in the happiness of their posterity, to be indifferent to these questions. The friends of the Establishment in these classes of the community are numerous and active; and if modern liberality, lukewarmness, and candor should prevail, many an honorable head would fall in its defence. As a spiritual society, the Church can never perish : as the ally of the State, the best promoter of loyalty, peace, and truth, its sun may set. I trust, in that hour when the world would see with consternation the overthrow of the purest and best form of professed Christianity, its ministers and adherents may be found faithful. When its last beam of glory shall cease to adorn our political horizon, at once will depart the strength of our present mode of government, our prosperity at home, and possibly, after an anxious and feverish struggle, our superiority and power abroad.

I have thus ventured to call the attention of the public to these important considerations. I now address myself more particulary to the disunited Clergy. I entreat their attention, while I propose an adequate remedy for our ecclesiastical evils. It is an admirable maxim of the common law, that for every wrong there exists a remedy. The evil is always supposed to be contrary to law, the remedy to be found in the law. This maxim is equally applicable to the government of the Church. Our evils originate, not in departure from the letter, but from disregard to the spirit of that episcopal law, to which we have sworn obedience. Episcopacy, rightly understood, as appointed by God, and binding all who acknowledge its authority to certain known duties, is our sole remedy for present evils, and our best defence against future dangers.

The Bible alone is the religion of Protestants: that is, we believe no doctrine which is not fully proveable from Scripture; we receive no rites, or customs, or government, contrary to Scripture. But on what grounds do we believe the Scriptures to be the word of God? Both on their external and internal evidence. Precisely on the same grounds do we hold Episcopacy to be of divine appointment. Its external evidence is the usage of the primitive Church, and its universal adoption in every country where Christianity has been planted. Its internal evidence is its subserviency to the promotion of pure Christian knowledge, and its suitableness to every form of

civil government, especially the monarchical. We believe that the same God who appointed a government for the Patriarchal and Levitical dispensations, would likewise ordain a regular government for the Christian Church. And we have no reason to conclude that the Almighty concealed this government from the Apostles, the primitive Christians, the confessors, and the martyrs, to be first discovered by Calvin, to be afterwards improved into Independency, and finally polished into Methodism. We maintain, on the contrary, that form and discipline, which "always, every where, and by all Christian societies," has been received, without one single exception, from the age of Christ to the fifteenth century after his crucifixion. That is, we maintain Episcopacy.

I am writing to Clergymen, to men who are well acquainted with the whole tenor and scope of the arguments in defence of Episcopacy; and it is not necessary to attempt to prove to them that the practice of the Apostles was the law of Christ. Yet it is essential to the strength of the argument, to mark well the bulwarks, and those immoveable columns, on which the fabric of diocesan Episcopacy is supported.

As Christ was sent by the Father, so were the Apostles commissioned by their Divine Master. Their original powers, which were afterwards enlarged, were superior to those of the Seventy a circumstance evidently proving an imparity among the first ministers of religion. After the Ascension we find the Apostles peremptorily commanding, censuring, and approving. They ordained Priests and Deacons, they visited the Churches, and confirmed the members of the Christian congregations previously baptized. They vindicated their authority, and exerted their power over extensive tracts of country. In their miraculous gifts they have no successors. But as every law of God must continue as long as the necessity exists for which that law was originally given; and as authority was delegated to the Apostles for this simple reason, that without subordination there can be no society; it is plain the duration of authority must be coeval with the Christian Church, or, in other words, will end only with the present dispensation of Christ.

Yet while the offices were preserved separate, so little was the distinction of names regarded in the primitive age, that even Christ himself is called Apostle and High Priest, Bishop and Pastor, Minister or Deacon. It is certain the name of Bishop and Presbyter were indiscriminately applied to the same person. The Apostles themselves were known by the common name of Disciples, which was equally applied to all the followers of Christ: yet it is evident from Scripture, that not all the Disciples censured, ordained, and confirmed. The offices were distinct, the 'name common. The Episcopal successors of the Apostles were for some time distin

guished by this title, which was gradually declined through humility; and the term Bishop, though at first used in common with Presbyter, was at length confined to designate the apostolic office and powers. That Timothy and Titus were invested by St. Paul with episcopal authority, is fully proved from the Epistles addressed to them. They are charged, in the most solemn manner, to execute those duties which appertained only to the apostolical office. The testimony of the fathers of that age, with the universal concurrent evidence of all writers, even among the factions and heresies, from that period till the time of Calvin, abundantly prove the truth of the aphorism, that without a Bishop there can be no Church. Some expressions in Jerome are supposed to be hostile to this general maxim: yet this author acknowledges, that St. Mark, who died six years before St. Peter, was Bishop of Alexandria. Other authors of the early ages have related the succession of Bishops in several dioceses, from the time of the Apostles till their day. Ignatius at Antioch, James at Jerusalem, Polycarp at Smyrna, with many others, were Bishops while the Apostles were still alive. They were ordained by the Apostles, and exercised Episcopal power. The command of Ignatius-" let nothing be done without the Bishop, of all that appertains to the Church "is the common language of Clemens, and the Fathers of that period. In the Epistle addressed to the Hebrews, they are enjoined " to obey those who had the rule over them, for they watch for your souls." The civil magistrate did not watch for their souls, as they that must give account;" he refers to their spiritual rulers, the Bishops of the Church, the ecclesiastical magistrates and guides of the people.

From that time till the present, Episcopacy has been the most general Church Government; and every argument brought against this mode of discipline has been repeatedly and satisfactorily refuted. It is not necessary to prove the utter impossibility that Episcopacy could have been an innovation. The question rather is, what ought to be the application of our belief in this divine institution, to the controversies of the day?

As the great head of the Church has done nothing in vain, we must conclude that the effect to be produced by this institution was intended to be proportionate to the design. Episcopacy is the scaffolding of that Church, which cannot be perfected, till "the top stone be raised with the shoutings of grace, grace unto it." Though neither the sound of the axe nor the hammer is to be heard, a scaffolding is necessary till "the building, fitly framed together, groweth up a complete and holy temple to the Lord." Episcopacy is a spiritual government, administered by spiritual men, for spiritual purposes. Its chief object is the union of the Church, by the prevention of heresies without and schism within. As the

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principles of legislation are the same, whether in religion or politics, we shall better understand the nature of the obligations imposed on us by Episcopacy if we consider the nature of civil government. Episcopacy is to the Universal Church of Christ what civil government is to the world. The earth is divided into countries and districts ruled by independent legislatures, each following its own system of polity, and all bound together by the common law of nations. The universal visible Church, in the same manner, is divided into Christian Societies, independent of each other, and all cemented as the parts of a beautiful temple by the common law of Scripture. In this only lies the difference: every state may fol low a separate system of internal polity, according to the nature of its situation, the circumstances of its people, the extent of its commerce, the character of its enemies, and other considerations. But in a Church, as man is always the same, subject to the same wants, temptations, and passions, aspiring to the same heaven, and pursuing the same objects, the common founder of all Churches appointed one unchangeable system of polity. Many counsellors in a State form a legislature, many Bishops a hierarchy. The legislature of every nation must have a Sovereign, by whatever name he may be known; the hierarchy of every Church must likewise own a superior. The private opinion of a senator is never 'made the rule of obedience to a State, neither is the private opinion of an individual Bishop the standard of Christian faith. The united wisdom only of a legislature, founded upon ancient laws, possesses that authority which demands obedience from the people; so does the united wisdom of the superiors of a Church require obedience from the Clergy. And as a subject, though he conform to the letter of the law, may depart widely from its spirit and meaning; so may a Clergyman, by deviating from the spirit of his professional vows, cause reproach or indifference to that Zion whose prosperity he is bound to secure. More is ever implied than can be expressed, both in the political compact between a civil government and its people, and in the religious compact between a Church and its members. To be a good subject requires not only obedience, but activity in promoting the welfare of a country: and it is incumbent on the faithful servant of God not to be contented with simple conformity to his Church, but to be zealous for its honor and union.

This parallel between civil and ecclesiastical government illustrates the precise degree of that obedience which is required from the Clergy by the Church. Obedience consists in the submission of individual to public opinion, as required by the law to which we have sworn compliance. Thus a member of a senate ought not to consider himself in that individual capacity only, but as a member of a