order (viz.) the distinguishing character of the Metropolitan, of the Archbishop or Patriarch, had its rise in the necessities and customs of the Church, and not from divine appointment. And this Sir, is what every Episcopalian declares.

Unhappily perhaps for the Church, after the Roman empire became Christian, some undue privileges were conferred on some Bishops, by the civil power in large Cities, and these privileges, have in many instances, been a scourge to the Church. I believe it to be such on the Island of Great Britain now. It was this pre-eminence of place-of privilege, which the civil power conferred; this was the pre-eminence against which Gregory exclaims; and against which every man may exclaim, and still be a confirmed and zealous Episcopalian.

In the English Church, there are particular titles, privileges and powers, conferred on certain Bishops by the civil power, and in this way the church and kingdom are united. This was formerly the case in Rome,and of this Gregory complains. But these titles, powers, and privileges form no part of Episcopacy, as such. It is only a mixing of the government of the church with the civil government of the particular country where

it happens to be stationed-But this is an addition of civil powers to the divine priesthood, which in no sense belongs to it. Against this many Episcopalians have exclaimed in every age, since the priesthood has condescended to be thus tramelled. But non-Episcopalians, in quoting these remonstrances, against civil power and titles, to disprove the divine institution of Episcopacy; make not only Origen, but almost every other writer of eminence in the past centuries, contradict themselves in the most explicit terms.§

The spiritual Church of England, if I may so speak, and the civil Church of England, are entirely distinct; and I cannot more safely or more perspicuously express this distinction, than in the language of one of the most eminent prelates who has adorned that Church. "To the Prince or to the law, (says Bishop Horsley,) we are indebted for all our secular possessions; for the rank and diguity annexed to the superior order of the Clergy; for our secular authority; for the jurisdiction of our courts; and for every civil effect which follows the exercise of our spiritual authority. All these rights and honours with which the priesthood is adorned by the piety of the civil magistrate, are quite distinct from the spiritual commission which we bear, for the administration of Christ's Kingdom They have no necessary connexion with it; they stand merely on the ground of human law."*

The spiritual Church of England we are proud to resemble. Palsied be my heart and my tongue, when the one ceases to beat with gratitude to her, and the other to speak her praises. The spiritual Church of England we resemble in all essential points of doctrine, discipline, and worship But with the civil Church of England we totally differ; and the difference consists in nouessential points of discipline.

* Horsley's charge to his Clergy when Bishop of St. David's.

I shall now adduce a few authorities from the writers preceding the age in which the alledged usurpation took place. If we find Episcopacy then extant and universally received, the question must of necessity be settled, because the evil complained of could not be prevalent before it had an existence. Ignatius who was the disciple of St. Peter, and according to the ancients, was ordained by him, Bishop of Antioch, in the Epistle which he wrote on his way to martyrdom, saith, what is the Bishop but he that hath all authority and

Her spiritual Episcopacy and ministry; her orders of Bishops, Priests and Deacons, we possess; we are proud to possess them These constitute our claim to the character of an Apostolic Church. But we differ from her in our Clergy enjoying no temporal powers; in our Church being no farther related to the State, than as amenable to its laws, and protected by them; and in her being destitute of those inferior offices of ArchDeacons, Deans, Prebends and others, which are only of human institution" I may securely (says Hooker) therefore, conclude, that there are, at this day, in the Church of England, no other than the same degrees of ecclesiastical orders, namely, Bishops, Presbyters, and Deacons, which had their beginning from Christ and his blessed Apostles themselves. As for Deacons, Prebendaries, Parsons, Vicars, Curates, Arch-Deacons, Chancellors, Officials, Commissaries, and such other like names, which being not found in Holy Scripture. we have been thereby, through some men's error, thought to allow of ecclesiastical degrees not known, nor ever heard of, in the better ages of former times; all these are in truth but titles of office. whereunto partly ecclesiastical persons, and partly others, are in sundry forms and conditions admitted, as the state of the Church doth need, degrees of order still continuing the same they were from the first beginning." BISHOP HOBART'S CHARGE.

* Ecclesiastical Polity, Book V. Sect. 78.

power? What is the Presbytery but a sacred constitution of counsellors and assessors to the Bishops? This gentlemen, is testimony as explicit as words can make it, and is derived from the Apostolic age. About seventy years from that age flourished Ireneus, who thus speaks "We, says he, can reckon up those whom the apostles ordained Bishops in the several Churches, and who they were that succeeded them, down to our times. Polycrates, Bishop of Ephesus, who lived about the same time, certifies the same thing. See also Arch-Bishop Potter. Other authorities of the like nature might be produced from these ages, but surely candour will be satisfied with these.

To suppose that events could there be spoken of as notorious in the Church, for centuries before they took place, would be contrary to every principle of common sense. The fact is so notorious, and is so fully recorded by every early writer, that Episcopacy was the regimen of the Church in the first and second centuries, that it will be in vain for any man to pretend that it took its rise after that period.

Against the supposition that the powers which Bishops exercise by long and immemorial usage,

were originally an usurpation, there is an argument which even with any candid Presbyterian must be conclusive. If Episcopacy were an usurpation-if the power of the Bishops, like that of the Pope, was anti-Christian and unscriptural, would not the illustrious Reformers have denounced Episcopacy with as much zeal as they did Popery? To suppose that they would not, is to impeach at once their talents and their sincerity. The hierarchy in its various modifications, was an object of jealousy, of close, bold, and unrestrained investigation; and the primitive writers were faithfully explored, in order to test its pretensions. If under these circumstances, the Reformers, while they denounced the Pope as " anti-Christ," " the man of sin, the son of perdition, not only refrained from censuring Episcopacy, but spoke of such an Episcopacy as the Church of England posseszes, in the most respectful terms, I think the conclusion is irresistible, that Popery and Episcopacy are not equally untenable. The fact is as remarkable as it is undeniable, that the great Reformers, Calvin and Reza; and other divines of the reformed Churches on the continent of Europe, in opposing the hierarchy, opposed only the corrupt hierarchy of the Church of Rome; ap