APOSTOLIC SUCCESSION FICTITIOUS. 51

evidence of all the churches, ordinations could be easily produced-as though the descent of all the human race from one common stock, could not be more clearly proved than the descent of our bishops from the first apostles of Jesus Christ.*

Now if the regular succession of the ministry, and the salvation of your soul are necessarily connected-if with it you cannot be lost, and without it you cannot be saved,—if character is nothing, and the succession is every thing--if all religion depends on the mere formality of prelatical ordination, then you ought to demand the clearest and most incontrovertible evidence of the validity of your minister's title to orders: give neither sleep to your eyes, nor slumber to your eyelids, till you are perfectly satisfied of his correctness on this point: for your soul is at stake,-it is for your life: and the weight of eternity is dependant on the issue. A single flaw in his spiritual genealogy, or anything faulty in the formalities of his ordination, according to the Tractarian theology, not only vitiates his ministry, but deprives you of the benefit of religion, and places between you and eternal felicity, that tremendous

*The simplest illustration of it that I can give you, would be a long magnetic, galvanic, or electric chain, starting at the foot of an apostle, and extending downwards to the primate of all England; and it is supposed that there was given to the first link a mysterious and subtle element or virtue, which has been transmitted by successive consecrations from link to link until it has reached the bishops of the present day.-Rev. J. Cumming, A. M.

gulph which no angel and no archangel, and no power in heaven, or in earth can enable you

pass.

The Tractarians say, "as to the fact of the apostolic succession; i. e., that our present bishops are heirs and representatives of the apostles by successive transmission of the prerogative of being so, this is too notorious to require proof. Every link of the chain is known from St. Peter to our present metropolitans." (Tract No. 7).

How surprising is this language-how inconsistent with modesty and with truth. Where did this chain begin? At Rome. But the disciples were first called christians at Antioch; a circumstance which rendered it more illustrious, and more worthy of originating the apostolic chain, than the imperial city: that is, if it were the object of christianity as well as of judaism, to give sanctity and importance to places as well as to persons. Who was the first bishop of Rome? The answer is Peter.* But this is mere assumption: there is no text which asserts, and no authority which can prove that he ever was in that city, or that he ever was a bishop at all. Who was his successor? Linus. This is one solution, but another is -Clement: and many are the conflicting

*In the New Testament an apostle is never called a bishop, and a bishop is never called an apostle.

Linus was dead before Peter.-Dr. Pearson.

Tertullian.

statements on this important question-important in this controversy: otherwise the settlement of it is not of the slightest value, nor worthy of any consideration or serious regard. Now the fact is, that there is not a man in all the world, who can name with any degree of certainty, the four first bishops of Rome. At the very commencement therefore, the chain is defective, and if defective there-if eighteen hundred years ago, it took a direction with which no one is now acquainted, how is it possible to tell where it is, or what it is in the present day? And why should it be maintained that it is too notorious to require proof, when the father of ecclesiastical history* complained of being the first to enter upon the subject of the succession, and that he felt like one attempting a desert and untrodden path? This complaint was uttered in the fourth century-and yet, notwithstanding the lapse of fifteen hundred years, the Oxford divines declare that it is too notorious to require proof!

Is it consistent with reason or religion, or with common honesty, to be so positive and dictatorial on a subject so intricate and involved, that bishop Stillingflect said, "The succession at Rome was as muddy as the Tiber itself." And the archbishop of Dublin has solemnly recorded his opinion, "That there is not

* Eusebius, of whom it is said that "he knew all that had been written before him."

a minister in all Christendom, who is able to trace up with any approach to certainty his own spiritual pedigree."

Down to the time of Henry VIII.,* nearly all the archbishops of England were appointed and ordained by the Popes of Rome. Therefore we must necessarily regard these men as some of the most important links in the apostolic chain-and as men through whom virtue has been conveyed to the clergy of the present day. But who can furnish a regular and indisputable succession of Roman pontiffs; and who can satisfactorily arbitrate on the interfering claims of rival popes? In the twelfth century, and for more than twenty years, there were three individuals claiming this title, and mutually excommunicating and anathematizing each other. Now which of these three had the power of communicating that secret virtue which can make a true minister of Jesus Christ. Two of them at least must have been pretenders; but which? Oh, who can tell? But the integrity of the chain-and the validity of the ministry-the existence of the church-and

* How can the Church of England be exonerated from the charge of schism in separating from Rome. In tract 15, a doubt is expressed as to the certainty of Rome's Apostacy at all; but if it did apostatize the writer says it was at the council of Trent. But strange to say that council was not held till twelve years after the separation took place, so that England must have separated from Rome when Rome was a pure and orthodox church.

The Church of England in her public documents calls Rome heretical, foul, filthy and antichristian-and yet from this foul and filthy, and heretical communion she professes to derive apostolic virtue.

the salvation of your souls depend on a proper answer to this question, and that answer no man is able to give.*

From 1378 to 1409 there were two popes, one at Avignon, the other at Rome. Which of these was Peter's successor. Both appointed bishops, and performed all the functions of the pontificate. But one of them must have been a non-conductor of the apostolic virtue, and thus thousands of the clergy mistaking the proper link of the chain, must have had no apostolic virtue at all, and consequently no power at all of performing the duties of the sacred office. And then what became of the succession, and how could people get to heaven during that long and dreary interval, when the holy see was entirely deserted-when not a man was found to fill the papal chair-when, as cardinal Bellarminet says, "For eighty years the church, for want of a lawful pope, had no other head than that which is in heaven."

These are only specimens of a numerous catalogue of similar difficulties and dilemmas on the subject: for the history of the Romish church is for years and centuries occupied with the discussions and squabblings of princes, popes, and cardinals, about rival claims, irre

The poisonous taint of informality, if it once creeps in undetected will spread the infectious nullity to an indefinite and irremediable extent.-Archbishop of Dublin, Kingdom of Christ, p. 217.

This great catholic writer was an Italian Jesuit, and is said to have left half of his soul to the care of Jesus Christ, and the other half to the Virgin Mary. Died 1610.