Wesley expressed it-may preach the Gospel, the question of an unbroken succession of bishops from the time of the apostles becomes of very minor importance. It is, however, of so great interest as connected with the claims of Rome, that we will transcribe some of the observations of a most talented and impartial divine of the English Church, to whose writings we have before been indebted. In the first place we must observe, that the additions to the epistles of Timothy and Titus, which state the former to have been ordained first bishop of the Ephesians, the second of the Cretians, are acknowledged to be apocryphal, and are inconsistent with the scriptural narrative which presents to us these devoted servants of the Lord as travelling evangelists, and attendants on the apostle Paul, not as settled bishops. Bishop Stillingfleet thus remarks on the professed apostolical succession:

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“At Alexandria, where the succession runs clearest, the original of the power is imputed to the choice of presbyters, and to no Divine institution. But at Ephesus the succession of bishops from Timothy is pleaded with the greatest confidence; and the testimony brought for it is from Leontius, Bishop of Magnesia, in the council of Chalcedon, whose words are these ;- From Timothy to this day there hath been a succession of seven and twenty bishops, all of them ordained at Ephesus." I shall not insist so much on the incompetency of this single witness to pass a judgment upon a thing of that nature at the distance of four hundred years, in which time, records being lost, and bishops being after settled there, no doubt they would begin their account from Timothy, because of his employment there once for settling the churches thereabout. And to that end, we may observe, that in the after times of the church they never met with any of the apostles or evangelists in any place, but they presently made them bishops of that place so Philip is made bishop of Trallis, Ananias bishop of Damascus, &c. ; and, upon the same grounds, Peter bishop of Rome. No wonder, then, if Leontius make Timothy bishop of Ephesus, and derive the succession down from him. But, again, this was not an act of the council itself, but only of one single person delivering his private opinion in it. And that which is most observable is, that in the thing mainly insisted on by Leontius, he was contradicted in the face of the whole council, by Philip, a presbyter of Constantinople. * Now, as to the ordination of the bishops in Ephesus, Philip, a presbyter of Constantinople, convicts him of falsehood in that; For,' saith he, John, bishop of Constantinople, going into Asia, deposed fifteen bishops there, and ordained others in their room; and Ætius, archdeacon of Constantinople, instanceth Castinus, Heraclides, Basilius, bishops of Ephesus, all ordained by the bishops of Constantinople. If, then, the certainty of succession relies upon the credit of this Leontius, let them thank the council of Chalcedon, who have sufficiently blasted it by determining the cause against him in the main evidence produced by him. So much to show how far the clearest evidence for succession of bishops from apostolical times is from being convincing to any rational man."

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It is, indeed, surprising how any Christian, with the Bible in his hand, can believe that mere succession of office, without the requisite.

qualifications, could involve any blessing under an economy such as the Gospel, so entirely removed from secularity in its character. A bishop, who is virtually appointed to his office by the minister for the time being, or any source equally worldly, can only be called a successor to the apostles in the same way that the present British nation may be termed the successors of the ancient Britons, though having nothing in common but coincidence in their locality.

It does not appear that the fathers of the English Reformation ever meant to rest their cause on so flimsy and unsubstantial a basis as apostolical succession; to prove which, and also to show how far that learned divine concurred in some of our statements respecting primitive episcopacy, we copy the following answer of Archbishop Cranmer to one out of several questions addressed to him in the beginning of the reign of Edward VI. :

"There is no more promise of God that grace is given in the committing of the ecclesiastical office than of the civil. In the apostles' time, when there were no Christian princes, by whose authority ministers of God's word might be appointed, nor sins by the sword corrected, there was no remedy then for the correction of vice or appointment of ministers, but only the consent of Christian multitude among themselves, by an uniform consent, to follow the advice and persuasion of such persons whom God had most endued with the spirit of candour and counsel. And at that time, for as much as Christian people had no sword nor governor among them, they were constrained, of necessity, to take such curates and priests as either they knew themselves to be meet thereunto, or else as were commended unto them by others that were so replete with the Spirit of God, with such knowledge in the profession of Christ, such wisdom, such conversation and counsel, that they ought even of very conscience to give credit unto them, and to accept such as by them were presented, &c. And so sometime the apostles and others, unto whom God had given abundantly his Spirit, sent or appointed ministers of God's word; sometime the people did choose such as they thought meet thereunto. And when any were appointed or sent by the apostles or others, the people, of their own voluntary will, with thanks did accept them, not for the supremitie, imperie, or dominion that the apostles had over them, to command as their princes or masters, but as good people, ready to obey the advice of good counsellors, and to accept any thing that was necessary for their edification and benefit."-Bishop Stillingfleet's Irenicum, p. 392.

We have thus shown that the primitive form of church government was the same with that of the Jewish synagogue, which again is said to have been modelled from the schools of the prophets. This affords no argument against its being constituted according to the Divine will; for it were a strange assertion, that a form of rule which accorded with Divine wisdom under one dispensation, might not also coincide with the designs of the Almighty in another. Nor is it any subject for surprise should this primitive model be found widely to

differ from subsequent imitations. This is very explicitly acknowledged by Milner, in his Church History, in the following passage :—

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"Nor is it difficult to conceive what was the most customary mode of church government in those times. In vain, I think, will almost any modern church set up a claim to exact resemblance. At first, indeed, or for some time, church governors were only of two ranks, presbyters and deacons ; at least this appears to have been the case in particular instances, as at Philippi and at Ephesus, and the term bishop was confounded with that of presbyter.”—Milner's Church History, vol. i. p. 161.

Neander, in his Church History, thus states the same view of the primitive church:

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"A council of elders was generally appointed to conduct the affairs of the churches; but it was not necessary that it should be strictly composed of those who were the most aged, although age was taken very much into the account; but age was rather considered here as a sign of dignity, as in the Latin senators, or in the Greek γερουσια. Besides the usual appellation of these governors of the churches, namely, πpɛσßʊtɛpoɩ, there were many others also in use, designating their peculiar sphere of action, as Touεvec, shepherds, &c.; and one of these appellations was also εσкожоs, denoting their office as leaders and overseers over the whole church.

"That the name of episcopus (bishop) was altogether synonymous with that of presbyter, (elder,) is clearly collected from the passages of Scripture where both appellations are interchanged. This interchange of the two appellations is a proof of their entire coincidence. If the name bishop had originally been the appellation of the president of this church senate of a primus inter pares, such an interchange could never have taken place. In the letter, also, which Clement, the disciple of St. Paul, wrote, in the name of the Roman church, after the bishops, as presidents of the churches, the deacons are immediately named. These presbyters, or bishops, had the superintendence over the whole church, the conduct of all its common affairs, but the office of teacher was not exclusively confined to them.”

Calmet, in his Dictionary, gives a similar sentiment:

"In allusion to the Jewish elders, the ordinary governors of the Christian church are called elders, and are the same as bishops or overseers.'

We have sufficiently proved that the primitive order of things was very different to that which is now usually deferred to as if it were Divinely sanctioned. The application we must leave to such of our readers as may have had patience to follow the argument; with this one suggestion, that if the word of God be the rule of practice, it must be authoritatively so as to the conduct of believers, in their united as well as in their individual capacity.

117

POETRY.

ISAAC AND ISHMAEL.

THE mother sat beneath a thorn,
Amid a waste of sand;

Her heart was sad, her feet were worn

Upon that burning strand :

She turned her from her offspring's cry-
She could not see the stripling die.

But in the waste a fountain sprang
Before the mother's eye,

And in her ear a deep voice rang
Of comfort from on high :

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Take up thy child, for he shall live, And life to many a tribe shall give :

"And he shall be a fearless man,

And from his loins shall spring
The chiefs of many a mighty clan,
And many a crowned king,

With bended bow and belted sword,
The desert's free and tameless lord."

Years pass-to manhood's comely pride
The stripling youth hath grown,
A prince's daughter is his bride,
A desert realm his own;

And armed warriors wait his word

To couch the lance or draw the sword.

And now their kindred hands are pressed
In sorrowing grasp and true,

And anguish shakes the mailed breast,
And clouds the iron brow-

Gone the dark thoughts of many a year-
The grave-all bitterness lies there.

They parted-one to flocks and fields,
And stores of corn and oil;

And one to clanging spears and shields,
And sharing of the spoil :
They parted, and 'twere all in vain
To ask if e'er they met again.

Empires since then have changed their lord,
Their sun hath risen and set,

But bended bow and belted sword

Are Ishmael's birthright yet: His roving bands the tribute wring

From bond and free-from serf and king.

Yet undefiled by slavery's trace,

And yet unbowed by thrall,

He sees a foe in every face,

And feels the foe of all :

Yes, pride may scoff, and hate may jeer,
But Heaven's own truth is written there.

The brethren yet may meet again—
Not one, or two, or three;
But gathering, like a mighty chain,
Whose links bind sea to sea;

Not mourning for a spirit fled,
But shouting for the risen dead.

The dead in error and in crime,

In darkness, guilt, and woe!
O world! look yet to see the time
Arab and Jew shall know

The name of Him who died to save
Ishmael and Judah from the grave.

And there shall be, from many a coast,
Rich plain and barren sand,
A gathering like the mystic host
On Armageddon's land,

Not now for war, and not for strife,
But sounding forth the words of life.

For one hath gone a wanderer forth,

And one with conquering swordThe Jew an outcast of the earth,

The Arab, Asia's lord :

The Jew speaks many a tongue and tone; The Arab far hath spread his own.