opposed himself, thought, by excluding them from his own fellowship, to cut off the Churches of Asia and Africa from Catholic communion; and by this time, the importance of the Bishop of Rome had increased so rapidly, that he would perhaps have succeeded, had not such men as Cyprian, Dionysius, and Firmilian withstood his usurpation. Thus far was the tendency to the papal scheme followed by a like tendency to aggression, resistance, and disunion; for as yet the papacy was but in embryo, and its power, for good or for evil, but fitful and uncertain : when it had started up to its height, and astonished men by exerting the authority which before it only grasped at; when it was, what before it would be; then also its influence on unity became apparent, and the great division of the western and eastern portions of Christendom accelerated, continued, and rendered hopeless by it, marks the ripeness of the papacy in the savour of its fruits.

It must be borne in mind that we do not argue against the papal scheme from there having been disunion in spite of it, but from there having been disunion because of it. When, however, by its own aggressive movements, all opposed to its claim had been cast off, and all who remained admitted that the papal chair was the visible and sufficient bond and safeguard of unity, then we might expect that its influence would not fall short of its pretensions, if its pretensions were indeed just; but:

3. Thirdly, the papacy has not effected unity in the body, and unity of doctrine, even among those who acknowledge it as the centre and bond of unity. We can only glance at a few memorable instances. There have been heretical popes, a head at variance with the body in faith. There have been, and are, different doctrines about papal infallibility, about the doctrines of grace, about the immaculate conception of the Blessed Virgin, about the marriage of the clergy. There have been quarrels interminable between the secular and the regular clergy; in which the interference of popes, appealed to on either hand, did not or could not heal the breach. Different orders of monks have quarrelled as fiercely as ever diverse sects of Protestant heretics did: witness the Franciscans and Dominicans upon the question before mentioned, the immaculate conception. The Jansenists, still acknowledging the Pope as the head of the Church, and the centre of unity, were not shielded by that confession from the rancour of the Jesuits, nor yet retained within that body to which they professed to belong: if victory over a disputant is the end of a centre of unity, the Jesuits found it in the papal chair; but if peace and truth, which both sought, or should have sought, be the end, then was the failure signal and miserable. And to make these instances and the like still more fatal to the papal pretensions, some of the doctrines thus contested are authoritatively held, or were represented by the disputants, to be de fide, and a true confession of them necessary to salvation: while the disputants were reciprocally treated by one another with all the violence that the odium theologicum could inspire.

4. And besides all these differences of doctrine and disruptions of fellowship, which the papal scheme did not and does not prevent among its adherents, there is one which has arisen out of it, and could not

have existed under any other theory :--the schism of antipopes, the mutual anathemas and interdicts with which the souls of men have again and again been harassed, while the sword and the spear have been placed in their hands by the merciless contenders for the throne of unity and peace.

Seeing, therefore, that there was unity before the papacy in its present sense was dreamt of,-that separation often arose and was perpetuated and aggravated by the assertion of its claims,-that it does not prevent disunion of doctrine and spirit, and even of fellowship in those who hold it,—and that it tends to this day, more than any one thing, to keep open the great breaches in the Church, we conclude that there is a strong presumption from facts against the scheme which makes the Pope, as the successor of S. Peter in the See of Rome, the visible Head on earth of the visible Church, and the safeguard of unity, visible and spiritual, in fellowship and in doctrine.

5. Against such strong presumptions, there ought to be overwhelming arguments, but these seem to be wanting. The argument à priori, that an individual, as a visible head, may be expected to a visible body, is specious, and at first sight imposing; but it will not bear examination, for in this all are agreed, that CHRIST Himself is the true mystical Head, in Which all the body is one; and it can never be pretended that one representative of CHRIST in this behalf shall be more effectual than many such representatives. The unity of a kingdom, to use a weak and inadequate illustration, depends far more on the multitude of its officers, than on the mere fact that the crown rests on one brow alone. The person of the Queen is honoured in every representative of her authority in her courts, in her armies, in her navies, in her administration, legislative, and executive; and all are one, and tend to union, by the very fact of their multitude, whereas it would be easy to see what would be the end of an unity which really depended on a single eye and a single hand. A priori, then, we say that it is more conceivable that the LORD of the Church should have many representatives, than that He should have but one representative, to enforce and effect that visible union between the members one with another, and all with the head, of which the mystical union is the soul.

6. The historical argument for the Romish system we believe we have sufficiently repelled already; but we must advert to a specious misrepresentation, by which it is at first sight turned against us. The divisions of Protestants are contrasted with the specious unity of the Papal obedience; whereas Protestant dissenters are as much separated from Rome, as they are from the Church universal; and the college of Bishops are as little chargeable with their errors or their schism, as the Bishop and Church of Rome is. We claim the same liberty to repudiate the heresies of Independents, Baptists, Socinians, and the rest, and to be viewed as a body distinct from them, as the Romanist takes; and then, whatever may be our theory of unity, and whatever the authority by which it is maintained, we shall be found more united in fact and in spirit than those who most loudly express their scorn or their pity at our divisions.

7. One other argument there is for the Papal theory-that from the

Sacred Scriptures; but we shall best answer this argument by the proof, (which we will not anticipate,) that the Scriptures in fact are, implicitly at least, in favour of the more ancient polity, and not of the more recent polity of Rome. We proceed, then,

II. To state that system which has been accepted as the true one from the beginning, though not without partial interruption; namely, That the Catholic or sound Episcopate throughout the world, as the successors of the Apostles, are the visible bond and safeguard of the unity of the Church.

1. This was recognized practically from the beginning, although it was not reduced to words, until its enunciation was called forth by controversy. It had, however, a language and machinery of its own, and results equally its own, and quite without parallel in the system, which usurped its place in the Western Church.

Its language, before it was reduced to form, was such as this:The Church is in the Bishop, and the Bishop in the Church: without the Bishop nothing can be done; not, that is, without him personally, but without the sanction of his office. One Altar, one

Bishop, one Church, one Faith.* All Bishops are equal in dignity and authority, and all alike, and in the same sense successors of the Apostles, and heirs of their authority, wherever it is necessary to the government and prosperity of the Church, and of course, therefore, wherever unity is concerned. And communion with the Bishop of the diocese in which a Christian dwells, is communion with the Church; separation from him, separation from the Church, or schism.'

Such was the language of this theory of ecclesiastical polity, before it was reduced to form.

2. Its machinery was simple but very effective, and exactly adapted to the preservation of unity both in doctrine and in fellowship. To the consecration of a Bishop, the presence and ministry of three Bishops, in communion with the Church of CHRIST, was required, in all but very extreme cases; there were generally present many more, this being an act of communion or fellowship, in which they were glad to express both their brotherly affection to their new colleague, and their sense of the importance of one body in the Church. But this was not enough : the newly consecrated Bishop, become now a centre of unity to his own diocese, immediately dispatched letters of communion to those Bishops who were not present at his consecration; and received from them not mere congratulations, but an acknowledgment of his place in the Apostolic College. He was admitted to synods, another part of the machinery of this system, in which every Bishop had an equal voice : neither the priority of the chair of S. James, nor the great estate of

* See for instance the Epistle of S. Ignatius to the Philadelphians: "All that are of GOD and JESUS CHRIST, these are with the Bishop; and all that shall repent, and turn to the unity of the Church, these also shall be of GoD, that they may live after the example of JESUS CHRIST. Be not deceived, brethren, whosoever followeth one that createth schism, he inheriteth not the kingdom of God; whosoever walketh by another man's opinion, he consenteth not to the passion of CHRIST. Endeavour, therefore, to use one and the same Eucharist; for there is but one body of our LORD JESUS CHRIST; and one cup; that His blood may make us one. There is but one altar; also there is one Bishop :" &c.

that of S. Peter, nor the venerable years of any particular prelate, giving greater authority to his suffrage, than that of the youngest Bishop of the smallest see possessed: and the acts of these synods when they were local or provincial, were respected by the whole Church; when the synods were universal, they were binding on all Christendom. The Bishops, each in his own see, were the judges of doctrine, and the awarders of discipline; and with them it rested to suspend, degrade, excommunicate, and restore offenders and penitents, who were thereupon suspended, degraded, excommunicated, or restored, through all the world: and each private Christian, when he sojourned at a distance from his own diocese, carried with him the literæ privatæ, letters of communion of his own Bishop, which insured his communion throughout the world. Such was the system, which, under GoD, kept the Church united, until the arrogance of a particular Church, pretending that her Bishop was the one centre and bond of unity, caused the schism of the Eastern and Western Churches.

3. But long as it had been recognized in fact, the formal enunciation of this system seems to have been first called forth by controversy, and it was expanded to its full proportions by S. Cyprian, especially in his tract, De Unitate Ecclesiæ, and in his epistles concerning his own election, and that of S. Cornelius of Rome.

4. And this leads us to the arguments which we use in support of a system, of which we have as yet only asserted the antiquity. We use, then, first of all, the argumentum ad verecundiam, the authority of all the Fathers, anterior to the time of S. Cyprian, whose language can be reconciled with no other theory; and of the contemporaries of Cyprian, and of those who lived after him in the African Church, especially S. Augustine, who formally declare that the Bishops are successors of the Apostles, and as forming one Episcopate, are the bond and safeguard of unity in the Catholic Church. We quote two passages by way of example from S. Cyprian, the first to Cornelius, showing how he held the duties as well as the privileges of a centre of union to be vested in the Episcopate; the second to a separatist, in which he uses that doctrine for rebuke, which he had before applied as a rule of duty. To Cornelius he says, "We do and should, brother, labour, even to the utmost of our power, to maintain that unity which is derived from the Lord, and through His Apostles to us their successors; and to bring together into the Church, so far as we can, the scattered and wandering sheep, which the pertinacious faction, and heretical temptation of certain men, is separating from their Mother." (Ep. xhi.) And to Pupianus, a separatist, who fancied that he had found some other bond of union with CHRIST than communion with his Bishop, he says, "The Bishop is in the Church, and the Church in the Bishop; they who are not with the Bishop, are not in the Church; and they miserably deceive themselves, who, not maintaining communion with the Bishops of God, think cunningly to insinuate themselves into the Church, by communicating with certain others; whereas the Church, which is one and catholic, will not endure separation and schism, but is united and consolidated through all its parts by the cement of an united episcopate." Nor is it less obvious that S. Cyprian makes the Episcopate the instru

ment of unity in the doctrine, as well as in the body of the Church. "Heresies and divisions," says he, "have no other origin than this, that the Bishop of GoD is not obeyed, and it is forgotten that there is but one Bishop in a Church at a time, and one judge in the place of CHRIST." (Ep. lv.)*

5. We have purposely abstained hitherto from any allusion to the weight which this system receives from Holy Writ; but now we proceed to note, that all who supported it and do support it, formally or by implication, are very confident that they do so with inspired sanction. It seems abundantly plain, that the charge of feeding the flock was given to the Apostles as a body, and that all were equally concerned in it; that the disciples were bound to union with them, both in doctrine and fellowship, and they with one another; that they had power to judge, to excommunicate, to restore; and that what one did in these things was done by, and in the whole Church; that they had at least as much authority, (in fact a great deal more, but for our present purpose at least as much,) as the system we are stating ascribes to the Episcopate; and that they used it to the same ends. All this surely appears from Holy Writ; and besides this it appears that the Apostles were empowered to send, and did send, others to take their place, either where they themselves could not be, or after their death; and that on these devolved like duties, with like powers, in all things which respect the perpetual well-being of the Church, of which unity in doctrine and fellowship is one.

6. But here occurs a class of passages to which the upholders of the Papal scheme are wont to resort, and which we before said we should show really belong to us. And here, again, we take, as freer from all suspicion of bias, the authority of the ancient Fathers.

Our LORD said expressly, to S. Peter, "Feed my sheep;" to S. Peter He gave the power of the keys, in express terms; to S. Peter He said, "Thou art Peter, and on this rock I will build My Church." With these passages before them the Fathers never denied to S. Peter a certain eminence of personal character; but they did deny to him any authority, or anything approaching to the dignity of the visible Head of the Church on earth. Our LORD's saying to S. Peter, "Thou art Peter,

It may be well to give a specimen of the arguments by which such passages as this are made to serve the purpose of Romish disputants. Hethe, Archbishop of York, in his speech against the Queen's supremacy in 1559, has the following passage: "S. Cyprian, that holy martyr, saith, That the unity of the Church doth depend upon the unity of Peter's authority; therefore by our lapsing out of Peter's ship, we must needs be overwhelmed with the waters of schism, sects, and divisions; when the same holy martyr, S. Cyprian. saith, in his Third Epistle, ad Cornelium ; That all heresies, sects, and schisms, do spring up, for that men will not be obedient to the head Bishop of GOD: the Latin whereof is, neque enim aliunde hæreses abortæ sunt, aut nata sint schismata, quin inde, quod sacerdoti Dei non obtemperatur." Now the force of this reasoning is in the gloss, (not translation,) head Bishop, by which is meant, the Bishop of Rome, for sacerdoti Dei; whereas in fact S. Cyprian is not speaking of the Bishop of Rome in particular, but of every Bishop in his own see: no, nor yet is he speaking by way of allusion to the Bishop of Rome, but actually to himself, the Bishop of Carthage, by disobeying whom the Carthaginian schismatists, Fortunatus and Felicissimus, had been led on from schism to heresy.