regular succession, from the Apostles. Such was Luther himself; such also were Zuinglius, Calvin, Muncer, Menno, John Knox, George Fox, Zinzendorf, Wesley, Whitfield, and Swedenborg. None of these preachers, as I have signified, so much as pretend to have received their mission from Christ in the ordinary way, by uninterrupted succession from the Apostles. On the other hand, they were so far from undertaking to work their miracles, by way of proving they had received an extraordinary mission from God, that, as Erasmus reproached them, they could not so much as cure a lame horse, in proof of their divine legation. Should your friend, the Rev. Mr. Clark, see this letter, he will doubtless exclaim, that, whatever may be the case with Dissenters, the Church of England, at least, has received her mission and authority, together with her orders, by regular succession from the Apostles through the Catholic Bishops in the ordinary way.-In fact, this is plainly asserted by the Bishop of Lincoln. (1)— But take notice, Dear Sir, that though we were to admit of an Apostolical succession of Orders in the Established Church, we never could admit of an Apostolical succession of Mission, Jurisdiction, or right to exercise those orders in that Church: nor can its clergy, with any consistency, lay the least claim to it. For, first, if the Catholic Church, that is to say, its Laity and Clergy, 'all sects and degrees, were drowned in abomi'nable idolatry, most detested of God and damn' able to man, for the space of 800 years,' as the Homilies affirm, (2) how could she retain this divine mission and jurisdiction all this time, and all this time employ them, in commissioning her clergy to preach up this abominable idolatry?' Again, was it possible for the Catholic Church " (1) Elem. of Theol. vol. ii. p. 400. to give jurisdiction and authority to Archbishop Parker, for example, and the Bishops Jewel and Horne, to preach against herself? Did ever any insurgents against an established government, except the Regicides in the Grand Rebellion, claim authority from that very government to fight against it and destroy it? In a word, we perfectly well know, from history, that the first English Protestants did not profess, any more than foreign Protestants, to derive any Mission or authority whatsoever from the Apostles, through the existing Catholic Church. Those of Henry's reign preached and ministered in defiance of all authority, ecclesiastical and civil. (1) Their successors in the reign of Edward and Elizabeth claimed their whole right and mission to preach and to minister from the Civil Power only. (2) This latter point is demonstratively evident from the Act and the Oath of Supremacy, and from the homage of the Archbishops and Bishops to the said Elizabeth; in which the Prelate elect acknowledges and confesses, that 'he holds his Bishopric, as well in spirituals as in 'temporals, from her alone and the Crown Royal.' The same thing is clear from a series of Royal Ordinances respecting the Clergy, in matters purely spiritual, such as the pronouncing on doctrine, the prohibition of prophesying, the inhibition of all preaching, the giving and suspending of spiritual faculties, &c. Now, though I sincerely and cheerfully ascribe to my Sovereign all the Temporal and Civil Power, jurisdiction, rights, and authority, which the Constitution and Laws ascribe to him, I cannot believe that Christ (1) Collier's Hist. vol. ii. p. 81. (2) In the reign of James I., Archbishop Abbot having incurred suspension by the canon law, for accidentally shooting a man, a Royal commission was issued to restore him. On another occasion, he was suspended by the King himself, for refusing to license a book. In Elizabeth's reign the Bishops approved of prophesying, as it was called; the Queen disapproved of it, and she obliged them to condemn it. appointed any temporal prince to feed his mystical flock, or any part of it, or to exercise the power of the keys of the kingdom of heaven, at the discretion of such prince. It was foretold by Bishop Fisher in Parliament, that the Royal Ecclesiastical Supremacy, if once acknowledged, might pass to a child or a woman, (1) as, in fact, it soon did to each of them. It was afterwards transferred, with the crown itself, to a foreign Calvinist, and might have been settled, by a lay assembly, on a Mahometan. All, however, that is necessary for me here to remark, is, that the acknowledgement of a Royal Ecclesiastical Supremacy 'in all Spiri'tual and Ecclesiastical things or causes,' (2) (as when the question is, who shall preach, baptise, &c., and who shall not; what is sound doctrine and what is not,) is decidedly a renunciation of Christ's commission given to his Apostles, and preserved by their successors in the Catholic Apostolic Church.-Hence it clearly appears that there is, and can be, no Apostolical succession of Ministry in the Established Church, more than in the other congregations or Societies of Protestants. All their preaching and ministering, in their several degrees, is performed by mere human authority. (3) On the other hand, not a sermon is preached, nor a child baptised, nor a penitent absolved, nor a priest ordained, nor a bishop consecrated, throughout the whole extent of the Catholic Church, without the Minister of such function being able to show his authority from Christ for what he does, in the commission of Christ to his Apostles: All power in heaven and on earth is given to me: Go, therefore, teach all nations, baptising them, &c. Mat. xxviii. 19; and (1) See his Life, by Dr. Bailey; also Dodd's Eccles. Hist. vol. i. (2) Oath of Supremacy, Homage of Bishops, &c. (3) It is curious to see in Queen Elizabeth's Injunctions, and in the 37th Article, the disclaimer of her actually ministering the Word and the Sacraments. The question was not about this, but about the juris diction or Mission of the Ministry. without his being able to prove his claim to that commission of Christ, by producing the table of his uninterrupted succession from the Apostles. I will not detain you by entering into a comparison, in a religious point of view, between a Ministry which officiates by Divine authority, and others which act by mere human authority; but shall conclude this subject by putting it to the good sense and candour of your Society whether, from all that has been said, it is not as evident, which among the different communions is THE APOSTOLIC CHURCH we profes to believe in, as which is THE CATHOLIC CHURCH? I am, &c. J. M. LETTER XXX. To JAMES BROWN, Esq. &c. OBJECTIONS ANSWERED. DEAR SIR, I FIND that your visitor, the Rev. Mr. Clark, had not left you at the latter end of last week; since it appears, by a letter which I have received from him, that he had seen my two last letters, addressed to you at New Cottage. He is much displeased with their contents, which I am not surprised at; and he uses some harsh expressions against them, and their author, of which I do not complain, as he was not a party to the agreement entered into at the beginning of our correspondence, by the tenor of which I was left at full liberty to follow up my arguments to whatever lengths they might conduct me, without incurring the displeasure of any person of the society on that account. I shall pass over the passages in the letter which seem to have been dictated by too warm a feeling, and shall confine my answer to those which contain something like argument against what I have advanced. The Reverend Gentleman, then, objects against the claim of our Pontiffs to the Apostolic succession; that in different ages this succession has been interrupted, by, the contentions of rival Popes; and that the lives of many of them have been so criminal, that, according to my own argument, as he says, it is incredible that such Pontiffs should have been able to preserve and convey the commission and authority given by Christ to his apostles.I grant, Sir, that, from the various commotions and accidents to which all sublunary things are subject, there have been several vacancies, or interregnums in the Papacy; but none of them have been of such a lengthened duration, as to prevent a moral continuation of the Popedom, or to hinder the execution of the important offices annexed to it. I grant also, that there have been rival Popes and unhappy schisms in the Church, particularly one great schism at the end of the 14th and the beginning of the 15th century: still the true Pope was always clearly discernible at the times we are speaking of, and in the end was acknowledged, even by his opponents. Lastly, I grant that a few of the Popes, perhaps a tenth part of the whole number, swerving from the example of the rest, have, by their personal vices, disgraced their holy station: but even these Popes always fulfilled their public duties to the Church, by maintaining the Apostolical doctrine moral as well as speculative, the Apostolical Orders, and the Apostolical Mission; so that their misconduct chiefly injured their own souls, and did not essentially affect the Church. But if what the Homilies affirm were true, that the whole Church had been drowned in idolatry for 800 years,' she |