Church of God, now committed unto thee by the imposition of our hands,"

do you think that he receives no spiritual benefit? or that no spiritual benefit is thereby implied? if not, are not the words blasphemy? but if the Holy Ghost be thereby bestowed, if the ordained person "receive the Holy Ghost for the office of a priest in the Church of God," is not ordination to him a means of grace, and so, although not a sacrament, does it not possess in a high degree the sacramental character?" and ought this subject to be treated of in merriment?

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Again, a writer after having, in a very interesting paper, pointed out the notices of an extensive Christian ritual contained in Scripture itself, adduced two passages, "in further illustration of the subject" from Tertullian, A.D. 200, and St. Basil, A.D. 350, both of whom maintain the binding character of usages, which, though not in Scripture, had come down from the Apostles by a "continuous tradition." And who would not? Is not our argument against the modern Church of Rome, that she has introduced "a corrupt following of the Apostles," (Art. 25.) "fond things vainly invented" and grounded upon no "warranty of Scripture, but rather repugnant to the Word of God" (Art. 22.)? The ground taken by the Church of Rome is that all her present traditions are to be received, as of equal validity with the written word, because she holds them; our ground, that they are not to be so received, because they cannot be proved to be apostolic, and some are corrupt and vainly invented. Our controversy then with Rome is not an à priori question on the value of tradition in itself, or at an earlier period of the Church, or of such traditions, as, though not contained in Scripture, are primitive, universal, and apostolical, but it is one purely historical, that the Romanist traditions not being such, but, on the contrary, repugnant to Scripture, are not to be received. It has manifestly, then, nothing to do with the question between Rome and ourselves, what Tertullian and St. Basil held of traditions

which could be proved to be apostolical; nor does our accepting the traditions of the universal Church in their day, involve our accepting those of the particular Church of Rome, after so many centuries of corruption, in the present.

In your Romanist character it is natural to say,

"These are the principles which have ever guided the Catholic Church; by deviating from these the nations of Europe have fallen into anarchy and confusion; and it is only by zealous efforts, such as our children of the University are now making for the restoration of those principles, that peace and harmony and unity can be reproduced."

But in your real character how will you excuse the fallacy which your assumed one palmed upon your readers? especially when the writer had accompanied his citations with the remark:

"Tertullian is, on the one hand, a very early witness for the existence of the general doctrine which this passage contains, while on the other he gives no sanction to the claims of those later customs on our acceptance, which the Church of Rome upholds, but which cannot be clearly traced to primitive times."

Do you really believe that Tertullian and St. Basil bear out the claims of modern Rome? If not, your assumed character was too hard for your honesty-if you do, I leave you to arrange the question with a really learned divine and Bishop of our day;

"In the passage to which reference has just been made, Tertullian speaks of written and unwritten tradition; but the cases in which he lays any stress upon the authority of the latter, are precisely those which our reformers allowed to be within its province-cases of ceremonies and ritual observances. Of these he enumerates several for which no express warrant can be found in Scripture, and which must consequently have been derived solely from tradition; the forms, for instance, observed in baptism, in the administration of the Lord's Supper, and in public prayer."

Bishop Kaye is here referring to the very passage of Tertullian, the quotation of which, together with that of St. Basil, calls forth your reprobation; and we cannot do better than refer you, and ultra-Protestants generally, to the masterly

manner in which he treats this whole subject, (Tertullian, p. 202-307. ed. 2.) and especially his refutation of Mr. Thirlwall, (p. 297. sqq. note.)

Or I may refer you to the learned Dr. Hammond, "Seasonable exhortations to all true sons of the Church of England, wherein is inserted a discourse of heresy in defence of our Church against the Romanist." (§ 3.)

I will cite one passage only, but the whole essay is well deserving of study.

"To this also my concession shall be as liberal as any Romanist can wish, that there are two ways of conveying such revelations to us; one in writing, the other by oral tradition; the former in the Gospels and other writings of the Apostles, &c. which make up the Sacred Writ, or Canon of the New Testament; the latter in the Apostles' preachings to all the Churches of their plantation, which are no where set down for us in the Sacred Writ, but conserved as deposita by them to whom they were entrusted."

“And although in sundry respects the former of these be much the more faithful, steady way of conveyance, and for want thereof many things may possibly have perished, or been changed by their passage through many hands (thus much being on these grounds confessed by Bellarmine himself, that the Scripture is the most certain and safe rule of belief), yet there being no less veracity in the tongues than the hands, in the preachings than the writings, of the apostles; nay, 'prior sermo quam liber, prior sensus quam stylus,' saith Tertullian; the apostles preached before they writ-planted Churches before they addressed epistles to them;' on these grounds, I make no scruple to grant that apostolical traditions, such as are truly so, as well as apostolical writings, are equally the matter of that Christian's belief, who is equally secured by the fidelity of the conveyance, that as the one is apostolical writing, so the other is apostolical tradition."

In the subsequent chapters, Dr. Hammond illustrates from the rules of Vincentius Lirinensis, "where these qualifications may be found.”

I will add one more writer, the great Hooker (and I may note that Whitaker, whom he quotes, leans in some things over-much to Geneva, and so to ultra-Protestantism, and yet is here on the same side). Truly, if we are herein Papistical, we are so in goodly company, and no otherwise than our

whole Church and Hooker were by ultra-Protestants always so accounted.

Hooker then says (Eccl. Pol. i. 14.):

"We do not reject them (the Romish traditions) only because they are not in the Scripture, but because they are neither in Scripture, nor can otherwise sufficiently, by any reason, be proved to be of God. That which is of God, and may be evidently proved to be so, we deny not but it hath in his kind, although unwritten, the self-same force and authority with the written laws of God. It is by ours 1acknowledged that the apostles did in every Church institute and ordain some rites and customs serving for the seemliness of Church regimen; which rites and customs they have not committed unto writing.' Those rites and customs being known to be apostolical, and having the nature of things changeable, were no less to be accounted of in the Church than other things of the like degree, that is to say, capable in like sort of alteration, although set down in the apostles' writings. For both being known to be apostolical, it is not the manner of delivering them unto the Church, but the Author from whom they proceed, which doth give them their force and credit."

Again, one of these writers, among the dangers of altering the Liturgy, notices the tendency of change itself to produce the love of changing, the appetite growing with what it feeds on. With this view, he instances objections, which men of opposite characters might take to the commencement of the service; as, one might think, "the introductory sentences not evangelical enough;" another, "the form of absolution not strong enough." Now the very object of the Tract, and the character of the illustrations, showed the writer to be (as he indeed is), content with things as they stand. The jest, however, required that you should represent the contrary as the opinion of the writers of the Tracts, and the Pope feeling for them when they lament concerning the absolution (p. 12), "that it is a mere declaration, not an announcement of pardon to those who have confessed."

Yet granting that a writer had thought this "absolution " not strong enough, this would not make out the writer a Papist, since the absolution in the Communion-service is, (as

1 Whitaker adv. Bellarm. qu. 6. cap. 6.

is right,) stronger than this; and that in the Visitation for the Sick stronger still; so that a person might even wish for a much "stronger" form of absolution, and yet remain within the bounds of our Church. And so little strong did our form appear to the American Episcopalians, that in the Rubric before the absolution, they substituted the words, “A declaration concerning the Forgiveness of Sins," &c. Yet herein we fare better than usual; for you have equally treated (ibid.) as Papistical, words wherein another writer (Tracts, No. xvii. p. 4.) embodies our Church's language in the Visitation for the Sick. If a minister, you must, when called upon, use that same language; whether then it be Papistical or no, we may leave you to decide.

Again, another writer, now asleep in the Lord, gave an historical statement of the gradual compression of the Church services, and especially that which went on in the Romish Church, "long before the abolition of the Latin service.” (Tract ix. p. 2.) This the Reformers carried on; it is not Papistical, surely, to say," unadvisedly;" a person may regret that the Communion and Morning Service are conjoined, and think that, but for this, the Communion would probably have been administered more frequently, and yet not be a Papist. For this compression of services had begun in Papistical times, and the error of the Reformers (if it was one) was compliance with the "spirit of [a Papistical] age." This, however, would have afforded no room for pleasantry; and so the whole is represented as being, in our eyes, a departure from Rome, and an error of "our misguided Reformers.”

One expression of this writer demanded a candid judgment: he said,

"The idea of united worship, with a view to which identity of time and language had been maintained in different nations, was forgotten."

It is plain that what the writer herein lamented was the loss not of the Latin language as a medium of prayer, but the loss of that feeling of unity, "with a view to which identity of