conviction lead to the same result with regard to the sacraments of their Lord; whether they have not already taken the first steps.

II. SACRIFICE OF TRUTH.

This again I would regard as the inevitable result of the use of ridicule; and its ill tendency is the more illustrated by its having corrupted your natural love of fairness. It is part of the character which you have adopted, not of your own. For having once resolved on the fiction which was to be the vehicle of your satire, then the laws of composition required that the fiction should be in keeping, however at variance with the laws of truth. The laws of fiction are indeed stern laws, since they require the sacrifice of whatever is at variance with themselves. Having adopted the fiction of a letter from the Pope to certain members of your Church, as being his emissaries, it became necessary, by disguise, or omission, or perversion, to conceal whatever would have disturbed the unity of the drama. For instance, you play not unfrequently upon the words which one of these writers addresses to the Church of Rome,-" Cum talis sis, utinam noster esses." And who would not echo the wish? Who,-bearing in mind the holy truths which Rome, amid her corruptions, yet holds, how much of the highest Christian truth, which many Protestant bodies have lost, or are in jeopardy of losing, on the mystery of the Trinity, of the Incarnation, and its consequences; or considering, again, the extent of her Communion,—would not wish, and long, and pray that she might be freed from her antiChristian servitude; that she, as ourselves have been, might be restored to her primeval purity, when she was once the guardian of Christian truth; that God would "break the yoke of her burden, the staff on her shoulder, and the rod of her oppressor?" (Is. ix. 4.) Taken then in their obvious sense, the words are the expression of every Christian heart. Your fiction, however, required that they should express a desire for union with Rome AS SHE IS; and in this sense, accordingly, you

quote them. The very next words of the writer contradict this. He proceeds (and to prevent the possibility of a mistake, he has printed these words in capitals),—

"But, alas! AN UNION IS IMPOSSIBLE. Their communion is infected with heterodoxy: we are bound to flee it as a pestilence. They have established a lie in the place of God's truth; and by their claim of immutability in doctrine, cannot undo the sin they have committed. They cannot repent. Popery must be destroyed; it cannot be reformed."

Honesty required the insertion of these words; but they would have spoiled the jest, and so they are omitted.

Again, as a member, to all appearance, of our Church, and so having no prejudice against her, it is hardly probable that you should believe what a recent author has well termed "The fable of the Nag's Head consecration." Bishop Bull calls it "a putid fable;" and even Lingard, who shrinks not from any plausible fable, discards it. It suited, however, your assumed character, and so, in answer to the words—

"As to the fact of Apostolical succession, every link in the chain is known, from St. Peter to our present metropolitans."

You reply:

"But surely you are aware of all the circumstances of the Nag's Head consecration. This must at least diminish confidence as to the continuity

1 Short's History of the Church of England, chap. viii. § 409.

"Strype has been very particular in recording every thing which was done on this occasion, from the most authentic documents, in order to refute the fable of the Nag's Head consecration, which was promulgated by the Roman Catholics about forty years after the event had taken place, when it might have been supposed that all direct testimony had been lost. The story is, that the bishops met at a tavern which bore that sign, and that when Oglethorp refused to consecrate them, Scory laid a Bible on each of their heads, and bade them rise up bishops. The tale has been refuted as often as brought forward."

The following also is the statement of the Calvinist Professor, John Prideaux. "The public acts are still extant in Mason and others, honestly brought forward, and they sufficiently annihilate this transparent lie of the calumniators. Archbishop Abbot caused them to be shown to certain priests, to convince them of the impudence of this fiction, that so they might at length cease from seducing so wickedly their credulous Proselites." (Controv. de Disciplina Ecclesiæ, p. 248. The Italics are his.) 2 Hist. of England, Vol. vii, Note I.

of your links, and compel every reasonable mind to doubt as to the reality of your succession. Even a doubt on such a point is fatal to all the claims Church."

of

your

Yet you, Sir, can have no "doubt upon this point;" and still you are raising a doubt in the minds of the ignorant and unwary; and countenancing the only pretext of the Church of Rome to deny us the character of a true Church. Your jest again imposed hard laws upon you.

Again; a lay writer in the tracts had said,

"Ordination, or, as it is called in the case of bishops, consecration, though it does not precisely come within our definition of a sacrament, is nevertheless a rite partaking, in a high degree, of the sacramental character, and it is by reference to the proper sacraments that its nature can be most satisfactorily illustrated."

Now this statement is made, not to exalt the priesthood, (although, if we duly "magnified our office," it were to be hoped, that it would be exercised more earnestly,) but to meet the common-place objection to the transmission of orders by a regular unbroken succession from the Apostles, viz., that some of the bishops, through whom they were transmitted, may have been unholy men. Now the case of the " proper sacraments does illustrate this; for since we hold that "the effect of Christ's ordinance is not taken away by the wickedness of evil men," even though they "have chief authority in the ministration of the word and sacraments," forasmuch as "the sacraments be effectual, because of Christ's institution and promise, although they be ministered by evil men," (Art. xxvi.), we cannot consistently object, à priori, to the grace of ordination being conveyed down, by virtue of our Lord's institution, even through the hands of evil men. In the words of the layman,' (shortly following your extract,) p. 10.

T

"He who receives unworthily, or in an improper state of mind, either ordination or consecration, may probably receive to his own soul no saving health from the hallowed rite; but while we admit, as we do, the validity of sacraments administered by a priest thus unworthily ordained, we cannot consistently deny that of ordination, in any of its grades, when bestowed by a bishop as unworthily consecrated. The very question of

worth, indeed, with relation to such matters is absurd. Who is worthy? Who is a fit dispenser of the gifts of the Holy Spirit? What, are, after all, the petty differences between sinner and sinner, when viewed in relation to Him, whose eyes are too pure to behold iniquity, and who charges His very angels with folly ?"

This would have been the question to be considered, had you been in earnest; but it was an earnest question, and so afforded no room for pleasantry. You turn aside, then, to lay hold of the expression, "our definition of a sacrament,” and make the Pope to say, (p. 13.):

"We do not blame you, beloved brethren, for its not coming perfectly within your Church's definition of a sacrament; but we feel convinced that, when opportunity may serve, you will so alter the definition as to increase the number of your sacraments."

Yet since the "layman" distinguished "orders" from the proper sacraments," it was an ill pleasantry, which would represent him, as wishing to include them therein, although you need not have gone as far as Rome for a definition which would have included them. St. Augustine's definition of a sacrament, (with which Calvin wishes to show that his own agrees, Instit. iv. 14. I.) had sufficed: "a visible sign of a sacred thing," or "a visible form of invisible grace." The word "sacrament" has namely, (as every one knows,) a larger use, although the "two proper sacraments "have always had their distinct reverence, as not conveying grace only, but directly uniting men with their Redeemer. In this larger sense, however, even foreign reformers have not scrupled to call ordination not merely "a rite, partaking in a high degree of the sacramental character," but "a sacrament." a sacrament." Thus even Calvin says (Instit. iv. 14. 20.):

"I am speaking of the sacraments instituted for the use of the whole Church. For the imposition of hands, whereby the ministers of the Church are initiated to their office, as on the one hand I am not unwilling that it should be called a sacrament, so on the other I do not count it among the ordinary sacraments."

And again (iv. 19. 31.):

"There remaineth imposition of hands, which, as in true and lawful

ordinations, I allow to be a sacrament, so I deny that it has any place in this farce, (those of Rome,) wherein they neither obey Christ's command, nor regard the end, to which the promise ought to lead us."

1.

And Melanchthon (Apolog. Confess. de numero et usu sacram.):

"If orders be understood of the ministry of the word,' we should not scruple to call orders a sacrament. For the ministry of the word has the command of God, and magnificent promises, Rom. i. Is. lv. If orders are understood in this sense, neither should I scruple to call imposition of hands a sacrament. For the Church hath the command to appoint ministers, which ought to be most acceptable to us, for we know, that God approves that ministry, and is present thereat. And it is of moment, to set forth and extol, as much as may be, the ministry of the word, against fanatical men, who dream that the Holy Spirit is given, not by the word, but for some preparations of their own if they sit idle,” &c.

And again (Loci, de numero sacram.):

"I approve most thoroughly that ordination be added thereto, (to the sacraments,) i. e., the calling to the ministry of the Church, and the public attestation of that calling. For all these are ordained by a command of the Gospel, as Tit. i. 5. and there is added a promise, the greatest of all, which attests that God really worketh effectually by the ministry of those who are chosen by the voice of the Church, as that universal saying beareth record of the apostles, and all who transmit the word delivered through the apostles, 'The Gospel is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth.' And Christ saith, John xvii., 'I pray not for these alone,' &c. and John xx. 23. Eph. iv. 8-11. Luke x. 16. John xv. 5. 2 Cor. v. 18. 20. 2 Cor. iii. 6. These, and many like sayings, evidently testify that God worketh effectually by this very ministry of those who teach the Gospel, which ministry He wills to preserve in the Church by a continued calling."

We do not, however, need such authorities; we would rather refer you to the wisdom of our English writers, as Hooker, who speaketh of things as being "as sacraments," or Archbishop Wake, who objects not to its being called "a kind of Particular Sacrament."

But before you repeat your jest, allow me one earnest question; When one is set apart for the ministry, and the bishop pronounces over him the words,

"Receive the Holy Ghost for the office and work of a priest in the