edly attacked the whole hierarchy; whose sentiments, reasonings, and proofs, were no secret to others, and could be none to him-the very man, whose profound research, whose vigorous talent, and whose imposing name, rendered him the most formidable adversary of the prelature, and threatened to sway more decisively the public opinion, than a thousand inferiour writers-the very man, therefore, whom it became his duty to resist. Yet to this man does Augustin, the Bishop, write a letter in which he assigns to Episcopacy the very same origin which Jerome himself had ascribed to it-human custom!!

Was Augustin ignorant? Was he treacherous? Was he cowardly? Was he mad? To write in this manner to Jerome! and to write it with as much composure, and sang froid, as he would have alluded to any the most notorious fact in existence! No. He was not ignorant, nor treacherous, nor cowardly, nor mad. But he spoke, in the honesty of his heart, what he knew to be true; and what no well advised man would think of denying. Such a concession, from such a personage, at such a time, under such circumstances, is conclusive. It shows, that in his day, the Bishops of the Latin Church did not dream of asserting their superiority to Presbyters by divine right. They had it from the custom of the Church, and so long as that custom was undisturbed, it was enough for them. Among the Greeks, the blundering, and

hair-brained Epiphanius set up the claim of a jus divinum; but his contemporaries were discreet enough to let him fight so foolish a battle single handed.

TO JEROME and AUGUSTIN we may add PELAGIUS, once their intimate friend, and afterwards, on account of his heresy, their sworn enemy. "He restricts all Church officers to priest and deacon :* and asserts, that priests, without discrimination or restriction, are the successors of the apostles." He has more to the same purpose; reasoning as JEROME reasoned, from the Scriptures; and coming, as did SEDULIUS, PRIMASIUS, and others, to the same result; viz. the identity of Bishop and Presbyters.‡

Let not the heresy of Pelagius be objected to us. Our Arminians will not surely cast opprobrium upon the name of this, their ancient sire. For our parts, we, with Augustin, hold him in detestation, as an enemy of the grace of God. But his heresy does not vitiate his testimony in the present case. Fiercely as he was attacked by Jerome and Augustin, his opinions on the subject of Prelacy made no article of accusation against him as a heretic. Could it have been done with any show of reason, we may be certain it would not have been spared. But the silence of his Prelatical

† In 1 Cor. i.

*In Rom. xii. Not having access to these writers, we quote from Jameson's Nazianzen: p. 176, 177.

antagonists, on that head, is a proof both of the justness of our foregoing comments on AUGUSTIN's letter, and also of the general fact, that the Bishops were conscious of their inability to meet the question of their order upon the ground of divine right.

There are two considerations which clothe our argument with additional force.

The first is, that all able heretics, as PELAGIUS confessedly was, in their assault upon the Church of God, direct their batteries against those points in which they deem her to be the least defensible Rightly judging, that it is good policy to make a breach, no matter where. Only unsettle the popular mind as to any one object which it has been accustomed to venerate, and the perversion of it with regard to many others, is much facilitated. If, in this policy, Pelagius and his coadjutors attacked the authority of the Bishops, they seized upon the defenceless spot; and the bishops were beaten without a struggle. It is easy to perceive what an immense advantage was gained by the heretics in their grand conflict, when their opponents were put fairly in the wrong on an incidental point, but a point which, in itself, touched the very nerves of the public passions.

The second consideration is, that persons of such different conditions, and such hostile feelings, could never have united in a common opinion upon a deeply interesting topic, had not the facts upon

which their union rested been perfectly indisputable.

Here is Presbyter and Prelate; the monk of Palestine, and the African Bishop; orthodoxy and heresy; Augustin and Pelagius; all combining in one and the same declaration-that Episcopacy has no better original than the custom of the Church! Nothing but truth-acknowledged truth-truth which it was vain to doubt, could have brought these jarring materials into such a harmony; these discordant spirits into such a concurrence. Stronger evidence it is hardly possible to obtain; and it would be the very pertness of incredulity to demand. Yet there are writers who do not blush to look us in the face, and assert that the testimony of the primitive Fathers is universally in favour of Episcopacy, as having been established by Christ and his apostles!!*

1*

Does the sun shine? Is the grass green? Are stones hard? Another shove, and we shall be in Dean Berkeley's ideal world!-If every thing sober and solid is to be thus outfaced, there is nothing for it, but to abandon fact and demonstration as chimeras, and to take up what was once the ditty of a fool, but is now the best philosophy,

Παντα κόνις, και παντα ΓΕΛΩΣ, και παντα το ΜΗΔΕΝ.

* Essays, p. 135.