LECT. XIV] THe dangerous RESULTS OF PRELACY. 363 "whoever is in communion with the bishop, the supreme governor of the church upon earth, is in communion with Christ, the head of it; and whoever is not in communion with the bishop, is thereby cut off from communion with Christ." or let it be false one. We care not which, for in either case the Church of England is condemned. If it was a true church, then the Church of England was guilty of schism in leaving it, and is itself a false church; and if the church of Rome was a false church, then it could not be a pure fountain of apostolical succession, and so your apostolicity is tossed from the one horn to the other of this dilemma. The doctrine of lineal descent is stultified equally, whichever proposition is assumed." Prelates are very fond of caricaturing, and then grossly abusing, the doctrine of predestination, as being so merciless and exclusive. "Such an objection comes surely with an ill grace from those, who would have us believe that God has predestined to an exclusive personal election to all the privileges of the church on earth, and to the only covenanted salvation, the prelatical successors of the reverend line of popes, and those who will submit to their spiritual jurisdiction. "Such presumption and arrogance," says an episcopalian writer, (Bristed's Thoughts on the Am. Anglo Ch. p. 427,) "would be ridiculous, were it not truly lacrymable, that any one single, individual protestant can be found in the nineteenth century, so foolishly fanatic, so basely bigoted, so unchristian, so antichristian, as to advance this rankest of all the dogmas of popery. And these men, who thus liberally uncovenant, unchurch, unchristianize, all other denominations, call themselves Arminians; and profess to believe, that the Saviour died for all mankind, including heathens and Mahometans, as well as christians; and certainly, the warriors of the crescent, and the worshippers of the innumerable pagan deities, are quite as sturdy non-episcopalians, as the presbyterians, or congregationalists, or baptists, can possibly be." LECTURE XV. THE PRELATICAL DOCTRINE OF APOSTOLICAL SUCCESSION SUICIDAL. We now advance to another position, by which we would expose the unsoundness of this doctrine, and that is, that it is suicidal; and destructive in its application, to those who would audaciously stake on this filmy and unsubstantial vision, the whole destinies of the human family. This doctrine-that of apostolical succession, that is, its bold assumption, gives right to apostolic power, and secures to the church possessing it apostolic doctrine-is as destructice to its avowers, as it is intolerant to its rejectors. It is apostatical and not apostolical.-It overthrows the discipline of Christ; while it destroys the hopes of those who are true disciples of Christ. And while contending for Christ's seamless coat, crucifies him afresh in his living members. Archbiship Laud, the canonized saint and martyr of prelatists,1 confesses that this succession stands or falls with the opinion that the church of Rome "never erred" in fundamentals; and that on the ascertained genuineness and validity of her claims to the succession, depend the hopes of the English prelacy. Now, as the stream can rise no higher than its source, it follows that whatever virtue, power, authority, or truth, this succession is supposed to confer upon the hierarchy in England, it must confer, a fortiori, on the hierarchy of Rome. For if this succession is insufficient to authenticate the claims of the church of Rome, and to perpetuate in her, truth of doctrine and propriety of order; then neither can it enstamp with apostolic character, the doctrines and order of the Anglican prelacy. If after all, this boasted succession does not in fact preserve, or prove, truth; and does not, therefore, transmit necessarily authority 1) See The Cathedral. 2) See Neal's Puritans, vol. iii. pp. 189, 193. 3) Oxford Tracts, vol. i. p. 88. and power; then it is not the fountain of divine grace; it is not the source of the plenitude of power; it is not the necessary channel of divine mercy and fulfilled promises,-and we are left to seek the true church by other, and more certain, marks and qualities.1 If the plenary authority to grant this grace and power by prelatical ordination is intrusted to the proper officers of the church, to be exercised for its benefit and at their discretion; then it follows of course, that there is given to these officers, when deemed necessary for securing this object, the power of revoking and annulling the ordinations already infelicitously conferred. Being the source of all the authority thereby vested, they are of course competent to recall it, when in their judgment unworthily received. But if this is so-and on the principles of this doctrine of the apostolical succession, how can it be denied? then truly is the boasted succession of the Anglican, yea, and of the Romish church, for ever blighted. Let one or two illustrations suffice; and first let us instance, in the memorable case of the Roman catholic see of Utrecht:-"All the 1) "In any other body politic, a man, by leaving it, loses all the powers he had by being of it; and there's no reason why 'tis not the same in an ecclesiastical society; and consequently all the church powers the protestant bishops could have, must be derived from the members of the new church they then joined themselves with." (Rights of the Christian Church, by an Episcopalian. Lon. 1707, p. 323.) 2) Again, (pp. 324, 352,) "If a bishop, by leaving the Church of Rome, did not, by that act, lose all the episcopal power he had when he was one of the governors of that church, especially considering no commission can well be extended to authorize the opposing him who bestowed it, yet the popish bishops had as much power to deprive or degrade him as to ordain him; since a sentence is valid, though not right, when done by competent authority; and consequently the popish bishops, in the time of Queen Mary, or Queen Elizabeth, had as much right to unmake as they had to make a bishop in their father's or grandfather's time." "This, though no more were said, plainly shows that the hypothesis of ecclesiastical government belonging to such bishops only as derive their power by way of succession from catholic or apostolic predecessors, unchurches not only all the reformed who are without bishops, but all the episcopalians likewise." "In a word, nothing can be more senseless than this notion of an indelible character, because all power, of what nature soever, conveyed by men, is a trust, and as such may be taken away, when the persons intrusted with it act contrary to the ends for which they were intrusted; of which those who intrusted them must needs retain a right to judge; and consequently priests and bishops may be reduced to the lay-state they were at first in." Mr. Dodwell argues, (see Rights of the Christian Church, p. 325,) "that the deprivation of the popish bishops was only of their temporalities; their sees, as to their spiritualities, being before vacant; the protestants owing them no duty, even in conscience, before deprivation." Now, "If those bishops were not bishops of the protestants before their deprivation, then they had no bishops, and consequently by his own principles, no priests, no sacraments, no christian church; and if they were not obliging in conscience before deprivation, it was because the people, judging them guilty of gross errors, had, by renouncing all communion with them, withdrawn their obedience from them, and deprived them of all the spiritual ju LECT. XV.] PRELATISTS DEVOUR ONE ANOTHER. 367 bishops of this see,1 have been regularly consecrated; but because Dominic Varlet, who a hundred years ago consecrated the first bishop, was at that time under the censure of the pope, the whole see has ever since been declared schismatical, and each successive prelate has regularly received a renewed condemnation from the sovereign pontiff. A similar example is recorded by Calvin, in the case of Eugenius and Amadeus. When by the decree of the council of Basil, Eugenius was deposed, degraded, and pronounced guilty of schism, together with all the bishops and cardinals, who had united with him in opposing the council, Calvin says, the succession of the ministry was at this time virtually broken, for, 'from the bosom of these heretics and rebels, have proceeded all the popes, cardinals, bishops, abbots, and priests, ever since.' "3 4 As to the Anglican succession, the case is equally plain. Being, according to this doctrine, derived from the Romish church, and being on the principles of this doctrine absolutely withdrawn by that church, no such valid succession can exist, and the Anglican church is plainly upstart and schismatical. Dr. Milner, as we have seen, urges that the Anglican bishops, by taking their commission from the king, renounced all title from Christ or his apostles. Dodwell applies the same argument to the Romish bishops who took out commissions from Henry VIII., and who, since there cannot be two originals of the same power, renounced all other and better title to their office. And thus do prelatists, like the fabled serpent, devour one another. Further, as prelatical writers tell us that we cannot preach, unless authorized by prelates; so do the Romanists teach that these prelates themselves cannot officiate, unless empowered to do so by the pope. "Particular bishops," say they, "who have only the care of their flocks committed to them, cannot send into the provinces of others; therefore this ought to be risdiction they had over them; which, contrary to the whole drift and design of his book, proves that the bishop's power is derived from and dependent on the people; and what they could do thus themselves by a tacit agreement, they might authorize the Queen to do solemnly and formally; or rather the people having, by renouncing their communion, deprived them of all the spiritual power and authority they could pretend to over them, the Queen took from them all those legal rights and privileges the law had invested them with." 1) Letters on the Min. Rit. and Lit. of Prot. Ep. Ch. by Mr. Jared Sparks, Balt. 1820, pp. 44, 45. 2) See the Pastoral Letter of Archbishop Marechal to the congregation of Norfolk, Virginia, 1819, 2d ed. appendix, p. 84. 3) Institutes; Dedication to the King, p. 25. 4) Doctr. of Ch. of Eng. concerning Independ. of Clergy, &c. p. 28. 5) Limborch Body of Div. b. vii. chap. iii. p. 911. |