communion, but to draw them closer around those individuals, who might find in them a resource conducive to their spiritual welfare. They might have been analogous to the rules of different orders in the church of Rome and in other churches, which enjoin many things left open by the Church at large, embracing a vast variety of details, and even passing under the name of so many distinct "religions:" yet all within the latitude which church unity allows. Would to God that they might yet in some happier day assume such a position! But further, even if the position of any society as such be schismatical, it does not at all follow, as Archbishop Laud has shown, that its members are schismatics. Yet it may follow in such a case, at least it is too probable, that those who brought or drove them into such a position are loaded with heavy criminality. How often are followers in religion less the imitators than the victims of their leaders, the real and deeply responsible

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Seminator' di scandali e di scismo !"*

But these are matters happily reserved to a truer and clearer judgment.

99. Perhaps, however, it may seem to some that, under the explanations here suggested, the essence of Church principles is allowed to escape, and that no substantial argument remains to be addressed to those who reject the apostolical succession for the purpose of inducing them to regard its possession as a high reli

* Dante, Inferno.

gious privilege. This misapprehension it will now be endeavoured effectually to obviate. The privileges of the visible church of Christ, according to the representation which has here been given of them, are intrinsically of inestimable value and importance; although it be true that even these may through the perverseness of man be so mixed with the poison of false doctrine, not indeed as that their good shall be turned into evil, but as that their effects upon the average and mass of men shall be neutralised or more. The bequest of Christ to his people comprised two parts: a Word which was to be made up from the inspired writings of his followers; and a Church which his Apostles were to found; the last by no means less explicitly than the first. It is of the greatest moment to us, that we should possess this bequest of our Lord entire. And it is matter of the highest obligation to seek it in its best and purest form; and wherever there is a conflict between different forms to adhere to that not which most recommends itself to our natural inclination or worldly convenience, but which offers to us the most full and convincing evidence of its Divine authenticity.

100. Upon this principle, it remains a matter not less of obligation than of advantage, according to the foregoing arguments and conclusions, to place ourselves in spiritual connection with the apostolical and lawful ministry wheresoever it may be found; and if there be in the same place two religious communities each claiming historical derivation from the Apostles,

and each purporting to be the Catholic Church of the place, then that originally founded there and directly derived, must have the rightful authority, unless either it can be convicted of heresy according to the Catholic rule of faith, or exact unlawful terms of communion. This, however, is a question less material to the case now before us, which is as between a ministry possessing and a ministry wanting the apostolical commission.

101. Now let us briefly recal certain propositions. It appears that continuity of personal succession attaches as a definite condition to the nature of a church. It further appears by the consent of nearly all Protestants, that the Church of England exhibits a case where no charge of positive heresy exists to raise the question whether or not on that score its essence as a Church be destroyed. Once more, it appears that the condition above mentioned is one reducible to historical investigation, and that it is sufficiently established by the evidence which such examination supplies, in the particular instance. It surely follows that we may with moral certainty predicate of the Anglican Church, that she possesses the essence of a Church, in the sense which Catholic principles affix to that term. Upon the other hand, we have seen that we cannot absolutely predicate the reverse of societies which have not the Apostolical Succession. But neither is it easy positively to affirm it.

102. Respecting the individuals indeed who belong to those societies, and who bring forth the fruits of the Spirit, the case is different; upon evidence à posteriori

their union with the Redeemer may be positively asserted. But to the societies, as such, this argument will not apply. There are no signs by which we can certainly know whether these gifts to the individuals were or were not conveyed through their medium. God has nowhere tied Himself by any promise not to send His gifts except through the Apostles and their successors; although, according to the foregoing arguments, He has tied us to the duty of looking for His gifts in that channel, which His word has affirmatively indicated. But those gifts, if they come otherwise, may come immediately, for aught we know. Yet if the baptism administered by uncommissioned Christians be made effectual by Divine grace, this does not give authority or validity to the ministry of those who confer it. Thus, therefore, it does not appear that we can either categorically assert, or absolutely and without qualification deny, true Church essence of a religious society not chargeable with heresy in doctrine, simply because it has not the Apostolical Succession.

But, on the other hand, it does appear that the assertion may be absolutely made where the Apostolical commission is found; so that we have in the one case a positive attestation of the will of God, while in the other we are reduced, more or less, to conjecture.

103. The same law of the understanding, and, in moral subject matter, of the conscience, which binds us to prefer the true to the false, also binds us, and with precisely the same authority, to prefer the probable to the improbable, and the higher probability (which is in

substance the same thing) to the lower; so that where the question is between a ministry inheriting the Apostolical commission, and one devoid of it, even though we may think the latter to be probably valid and ratified in the sight of God, yet we may not acquiesce in it; if there be other conditions capable of realisation, and such as seem to remove all doubt as regards the former, and to bring its claim up to the standard of moral certainty; and acquiescence under such circumstances to one so impressed, is a manifest sin. Nor is this argument in any degree void of its applicability, when it may be thought that the episcopal succession (being within reach) is indeed the more probably Apostolical and valid, but yet only by a few degrees, or even by one, of probability. That one degree of superior probability, when discerned, imposes it upon us as a matter of obligation to adhere to the Episcopal Succession, and leaves us, if we disregard it, guilty of a sin.

104. The difference therefore between the hypothetical and the historical title to the ministry is most practical and momentous. Just so we are not entitled absolutely to deny of the Apocryphal books, that they are Divinely inspired; but because the evidence of their reception from ancient testimony is held by the Church of England to be insufficient, she is thereby bound to deny them admittance into the Sacred Canon, as truly as she would be obliged to exclude them if their inspiration were demonstratively disproved. To choose between two manifest errors is a miserable alternative; but it is clear that under such circumstances