I have now sufficiently examined your facts; and it appears clearly from what has been said, that you have not one inch of ground upon which you can rest your foot.

I shall, in my next, make a few observations on what you say with respect to the Apostolical Canons, and the few additional testimonies you give us from writers of the fourth century.

REV. SIR:

LETTER VI.

FIRST, with respect to the Apostolical Canons. I told you, Sir, that I did not quote the Apostolical Canons because I stood in need of them, but merely to show that you were incautious in pronouncing them spurious.

Í observed that Bishop Beveridge had most ably defended those Canons; not as the work of the Apostles, for that, neither he nor any other Protestant writer pretends to maintain, at least that I am acquainted with. But he defends them as a collection of rules and practices, which prevailed in the Church in the second and third centuries. And even Blondel admits that they were compiled in the third century.

But you still think, that, notwithstanding the evidence exhibited by Beveridge, they are not to be depended upon. But ought you not to have shown that the Bishop has not proved his point before you iterated your sentence of condemnation? If we admit suspicions to regulate our judgment, with respect to the genuineness and authenticity of ancient writings, I fear that a great part of them will come under this sweeping kind of proscription. Be this as it may, you should, as a fair disputant, have noticed the few arguments I produced out of Beveridge in favour of their credibility. But instead of that, you shelter yourself under Bishop Taylor, who, from the quotation you give, seems to think that they have been corrupted. If Taylor really thought so, he is certainly very inconsistent, for he quotes them as freely as any man, in his Tract on Episcopacy, and without uttering the least expression of disapprobation. If then you can quote him as condemning them in his Liberty of Prophesying, I can quote him as approving them in his Tract on Episcopacy; and thus his testimony either way becomes perfectly nugatory.

Besides, this mode of determining the genuineness of writings, is never admitted by sound critics. Every thing of this kind must be determined by its own proper evidence, both internal and external. Suppose, Sir, I should take it into my head to deny that there ever was such a siege as that of Troy, and should offer, as the ground of my disbelief, that the very learned

Bryant has written a book to confute the vulgar notion with respect to that event; I suspect that you would laugh at me. But why, in this case, you should laugh at me, and I not at you in the other case, I cannot possibly conceive.

There is, Sir, one canon of criticism admitted by all men of learning, with respect to the sincerity of ancient writings. It is this. When their style, their phraseology, and the principles and practices which they record, correspond with the other writings of the age, then they are deemed genuine and authentic; and nothing less than positive proof that they are the work of a subsequent age, can destroy this internal evidence. Now the Apostolical Canons, at least the first fifty, agree remarkably in these respects with the other writings of the third century; and no positive external proof can be given that they were written at a later period. Nay, Beveridge has given positive proof that they were not written at a later period; and it was for that age I quoted them, without pretending to determine which of them were compiled in the second century, and which in the third. For any thing, then, that I can see to the contrary, these canons must stand against you.

I have now nothing more to do before I close the evidence from the fathers, but to notice a few testimonies produced by you from the writings of the fourth and fifth centuries.

It is an observation that will naturally present itself to the mind of an attentive reader, that you are very ready, on every occasion which you deem favourable to your cause, to quote from authors who wrote in the third and fourth centuries, after you had declared their testimonies suspicious, and therefore not to be depended upon. But if they are suspicious in our case, they certainly must be so in yours. What advantage then can you derive from quoting them, even if they speak what you think they do? What right have you to the testimony of Hilary and Jerome, if we have none to the numerous testimonies from Cyprian and others? Does parity make a testimony good that is in itself incompetent? Or does imparity vitrate what is sound and correct? The weight and force of testimony can be pretty accurately estimated, and therefore neither your judgment nor mine will be valued one tittle more than we can support it by solid proof If the writers of the third and fourth century declare episcopacy to be the government of the Church when they wrote, there can be no doubt that it was so; and the person who does not admit it, does not deserve to be reasoned with: And if they say it was instituted by the Apostles, their testimony has great weight, although not quite so great as in the former case. What then can induce you to disparage the testimonies of those ages, I cannot see, unless it be that, upon the whole, they do not answer your purpose. Your great standard writers admit, that it is a lost case if they go into the third century, and that episcopacy had an origin very near the times of the Apostles. Yet your superior sagacity discovers evidence where they

could see none; and your determined adherence to what they would have deemed unreasonable, prolongs a controversy that might be settled in a few pages. This is to be lamented; but I see no remedy for it now. I must patiently follow you whithersoever you lead me.

There is another thing which ought to be noticed. You say the writings of the third and fourth centuries are suspicious. What do you mean by this? You certainly do not mean that there is any suspicion of their genuineness and authenticity. That would be too extravagant, and, consequently, would expose you to the contempt of every literary and reasonable man. What then are those writers to be suspected of? Of incompetency as to intellect? This you certainly will not maintain. Besides, does it require much intellect to know under what form of government we live? Are they to be suspected of combining from the beginning of the third century, and through all subsequent times, to make the people believe they were living under episcopacy, when they had eyes to see and ears to hear that they were not? In the name of common sense then, of what are they to be suspected? Is it that they were not men of truth? Who ever charged them with that? Are they not universally allowed to be men of distinguished virtue and piety? And did not many of them prove it by shedding their blood for their SAVIOUR? What circumstance then is it which obliges us to attach suspicion to their testimony? Will you say that the Church began to be corrupted in the third century? But that allowed, how would it help you? If the Church began to be corrupted, it must be either in doctrine or in discipline, or in both. About doctrine we are not disputing. The corruption then must relate to the discipline. But what writer ever charged the Church in the third century with relaxation of discipline? So far from it, that it is now generally thought to have been too severe; so severe that there is not a Church upon earth that would bear it. Was it that the lives of Christians were not so pure as they were in the second century? It is universally admitted, that the lives of those whose testimonies have been quoted, were distinguished for purity, and that there were myriads of the laity whose lives were equally pure. What is it then that attaches suspicion to the writers of the third century? Was it that there were some rites and ceremonies introduced into the Church in that age, which we do not perceive in the New Testa→ ment? We find that to have been the case in the second century; yet you allow the Church to have been pure at that time. The truth is, that rites and ceremonies, if they contribute to decency and order, promote, instead of lessening the purity of the Church. These are things indifferent, and are left entirely to the authority of every Church, in every age, and every country; and it is arrant fanaticism to maintain the contrary. Are your ministra tions less pure because you wear a gown and band? And are ours less pure, because our ministers, besides these, wear a sur

plice? Is our communion and yours less pure because both celebrate it in the morning, although CHRIST celebrated it in the evening? Have both Churches degenerated from primitive simplicity, because the practice of not washing one another's feet is disregarded, although the SAVIOUR set the example, and enjoined it on his Apostles? Need I go on asking such questions? Surely it is unnecessary. In what respect then was the Church corrupted in the third century? It was not in her doctrines. She maintained every important doctrine of Christianity in its purity. It was not in her discipline, for that was remarkably strict. It was not in the lives of the clergy to any greater degree than in the second century; at least we have no documents by which that can be ascertained. Was it in the lives of the laity? It is natural to suppose that, as they greatly increased in numbers, there would be more numerous deviations from purity; but at the same time there would be an increase of the virtuous and pious. Indeed, the very circumstances of the Church lead us to this conclusion. Few or none embraced Christianity at that time but from conviction; and, as it was at the peril of their lives, they must have preferred the next world to this. No circumstances can we possibly conceive more favourable to virtue and piety, than those attending the Church at that time. Persecutions, even unto death, were frequent; and power, honour, and wealth, were entirely out of the question. Consider all these things, and then say why suspicion is to be attached to the writers of the third century. These things cannot indeed be said to the same degree, with respect to the Church in the fourth century; but if diocesan episcopacy prevailed in the third, it certainly did in the fourth.

Now, Sir, to your testimonies from the fourth century.

1. Hilary, in his Commentary on 1 Tim. iii. affirms "the ordination of Bishop and Presbyter is one and the same." Could he,' you ask, 'possibly have said this, if they had been different orders, and had received a different ordination ?"

It would have been better had you given the whole passage. It runs thus: "After the Bishop he places the ordination of the Deacon. Wherefore? but that the ordination of the Bishop and Presbyter is one. For they are both Priests, but the Bishop is the first, or chief Priest; for though every Bishop is a Presbyter, yet every Presbyter is not a Bishop. For he is Bishop who is first among the Presbyters. Finally, he signifies that Timothy was ordained a Presbyter, but because he had no other before him, he was a Bishop." Here Hilary means one of two things. Either, that the Bishop of his day had not a different ordination from the Presbyter; or that he had not, when St. Paul wrote his first Epistle to Timothy. If the first, then he contradicts numerous testimonies to the contrary, both in his own age and in the age of St. Cyprian. But if his meaning be, that the ordination of a Bishop and Presbyter in the time of the Apostles was the same, then he says just what we say; for a Bishop and

Presbyter being two names for the same officer, of course there was but one ordination. But Hilary does not infer from the community of names, that there was not an officer in the Church at that time superior to the Bishop or Presbyter, for he very well knew that the Apostles were superior, and consequently, that there were three orders in the Church; so that Hilary either way is of no service to you.

As to the rest of the passage, it is pointedly in our favour. "The Bishop," he says, "is the first or chief Priest;" the first, not merely in point of seniority, but in order and authority; such as the chief Priest was in the Jewish Church. For though he was a Priest, yet all that order were not High Priests, nor did they succeed to that office in the way of seniority; just so, says Hilary, "though every Bishop be a Presbyter, yet every Presbyter is not a Bishop."

Several of the testimonies which I quoted from Hilary in my second letter, set his sentiments in a clear point of light. He says, "In the Bishop are all orders contained, because he is the prince or chief of the Priests." Now, if there was but one clerical order in the Church, would not Hilary talk like a fool when he says, "All orders are contained in the Bishop ?"

It is then evident, without any further quotations from Hilary, that he is decidedly prelatical.

Your next quotation is from Chrysostom, XIV. Hom. on Acts vi. You quote him as saying that, " in his time, such Deacons as the Apostles ordained were not in the Church." But what has this to do with diocesan episcopacy?

Your representation of Chrysostom is, I find by consulting the place, not correct. The whole passage runs thus: "What dignity then did they (the seven, commonly called Deacons) hold, and what ordination did they receive, is now to be learned. Was it the ordination of Deacons? This was not in the Church, but belonged to the economy of Presbyters. But as yet, there was no Bishop except the Apostles. Whence, I think, neither the name of Deacons nor Presbyters, was at that time clear and manifest; but presently, or soon after, they were ordained by that name."

After considering this passage as attentively as I possibly can, the meaning appears to me to be this-That in the opinion of Chrysostom, the seven were not ordained to the Deacon's office, as it was afterwards when St. Paul wrote his Epistles, and in the succeeding ages; for the office of a Deacon and of a Presbyter was not instituted at so early a period by those names, but several years afterwards. This probably is the meaning of the passage. But not choosing to depend on my own judgment, I have turned to Bishop Taylor's Tract on Episcopacy, and I find that he has much the same opinion of the passage that I have. "What dignity had these seven here ordained? Of Deacons? No; for this dispensation is made by Priests, not Deacons." This is the expression in which the obscurity lies. The Bishop