ration into so long-drawn a line of spiritual ancestry from so high a stock, and all the associations which belong to it; each and all of these supply numberless ideas, whose power must have grown progressively with the lapse of ages, and have added to that lustre of revelation, which adorned the character of the early bishops, every element of the noble and the venerable that the history of human nature in its highest form can supply: so that they who now hold of the apostles by derivation and descent are still in the same position as was St. Paul, and that too with new accessory aids, and they have the same advantage for duly appreciating their office and humbling themselves; the same reflections to chasten and subdue them in the midst of excitement, popularity, and power; the same genuine and sober comfort to sustain them when the spirit of unbelief makes head.

It is no answer to these proofs of the advantageous tendencies of this lofty idea, to say St. Paul inferred thus and well from his Divine commission, but other men will infer otherwise and abusively. St. Paul's feelings on the subject are an instance not only of beneficial, but of natural and accurate results from that view of his office in which he regarded it. It is true that the best theories may be perverted, but yet upon the whole they will make the best men; and more faulty theories will be proportionably perverted and with still worse effect.

74. Besides, are we not entitled to believe that ecclesiastical power will usually, like civil authority

and influence, be most beneficially conceived of and employed, where it is hereditary and not acquired?— ἀρχαιοπλούτων δεσπότων πολλὴ χάρις.

Mr. Burke has reasoned admirably of the softening influences of transmission upon the possessors of power, and has thus accounted for the singular political moderation of the English people. That which he has applied to a particular case is a general truth. We know the experience of the world, the experience of our own country and generation teaches us-that upon the average, and with however glaring exceptions (exceptions the more glaring, perhaps, because of the undoubted truth of the rule), men of high descent (I do not speak of wealth) are, in their natural position, found to have a greater proportion of mental power and higher sentiments and principles than others. One obvious way of accounting for the fact is, that they are brought into contact with more ennobling associations, and they are also more directly affected by the restraints and censure of general opinion. These same circumstances (and for the present I put out of view every higher consideration) are true of those who pass into the ministry of the Church, which still is set on a hill among us; and who are thereby made lineal successors of the saints and fathers and sages of old time, and cannot be so wholly void of sympathy and shame as not to find in that connection some additional stimulus to virtuous and elevated action, some new

* Esch. Agam. 1010.

motive to avoid misdoing. It would be visionary to hope, that such sentiments should be effectual with all; but it would be surely unreasonable to deny, what is enough for my purpose, that they are in their own proper nature, and as a general rule, helpful towards that which is good.

75. It would hence be reasonably anticipated, that the prominence of individual teachers in different religious communions should be less in proportion as those communions had adhered closely to the idea of the Apostolical Succession, if it has here been correctly argued that the tendency of the succession is to subordinate the individual to the Church, and to diminish his relative importance: and I think the facts will bear out the reasoning. Omitting the Eastern Church, respecting which I have not the necessary information, I take first the Church of Rome, and I find there that no single teacher is with her employed absolutely as a standard, although it may be true that the prominence of St. Thomas Aquinas in her schools of divinity, and his authority, as compared with that of the higher sources, is excessive. Her constitution, however, does not allow us to expect that she should realise the fullest advantage from the Apostolical Succession; because, instead of preserving the idea of that succession as collegiate, she has gone near to absorbing its essence and vitality in the line of a single See; and because the idea of the Popedom is by no means an adequate substitute for that of the more enlarged and diffusive goverment of the Church. If, on the

other hand, I turn to the Reformed Communions, I find that in some of them the succession has been wholly discarded; in others it has been held that its episcopal powers might be exercised by the presbyterial order, or circumstances have compelled such an exercise, at least provisionally. Misfortune has followed; for here, together with these deviations from the idea, we find the very result in question-the prominence of individual teachers, and the relative depression of the idea of the Church: the names of Luther, Calvin, Arminius, Wesley, assumed by Christians as their religious designations, notwithstanding the injunction of * Saint Paul, and a degree of authority assigned to them which Catholic teaching could never allow. But in the Church of England neither any such distinctive name adopted; nor is there in point of fact, nor has there ever been at any time, notwithstanding the copiousness of her theology, or even the errors of her writers, any overbearing influence monopolised, or any school formed, by any of her members. I do not here speak of contemporary appellations, ascribed in a hostile spirit and destined to no endurance; but of the voluntary and extensive assumption of the name of a particular teacher as a religious designation.

is

76. And here we are naturally led to the next head under which it is proposed to view the doctrine of Succession namely, its tendency to establish the due relation between the clergy, as governors in the

* 1 Cor. i. 12.

Church, and the people. Our civil governors administer a power which is divine, indeed, because it belongs to the law of nature; but not divine in a plenary sense, because it is not determined to a particular form in revelation: and accordingly there is no particular designation of those persons to whom allegiance should be confined. But the general principle of religion is not only invested with a sanction from God, like the general principles of government-it is also embodied by the word of God in specific ordinances and institutions; and conformably thereto there is a particular designation of the persons by whom they were to be administered; that is to say, a permanent provision for their appointment, without which an institution which was to be visible and active could hardly satisfy its definition or be called complete. And thus the succession takes the best securities against a misunderstanding, by priests or people, of their relative positions. Where it prevails, there can hardly be a question who are the parties ultimately empowered to decide on doctrine, to administer discipline, to send forth labourers into the vineyard. The people comprehend why it is that they do not appoint, even if they or some of them present, their minister; that they are not entitled to prescribe his doctrine or to dismiss him from his post, or to interfere with his administration of the sacraments; and they likewise know who is competent to decide upon these matters. I do not say that no substitutions have been found in other cases to supply, partially at least, the want of the