a pattern so definite, as to leave little doubt of the intentions of our Divine Master, or of the manner in which those intentions were fulfilled by His immediate and inspired Disciples. Nor will the force of such precedent and example on the practice of succeeding Christians be regarded as trifling by those who consider that it is on such grounds as these that the obligation rests of many observances which are allowed by all parties to be essential; among which may be classed the baptism of infants, the observance of the LORD's Day, and our participation in the LORD's Supper.

But, without entering into the question of the absolute necessity of this rule, and without judging those other national Churches which have departed from it, it is evident that those Churches are most wise and most fortunate, who have continued in the path which CHRIST and His Apostles have trodden before; and that religious insubordination is then most unreasonable and most dangerous, when exerted against a form of polity which the majority of our fellow-Christians, the wisdom of our civil governors, and the full stream of precedent, from the time of the Apostles themselves, combine to recommend to our reverence.

We find, accordingly, that our LORD, on His own departure from the world, committed, in most solemn terms, the government of His Church to His Apostles. We find these Apostles, in the exercise of the authority thus received, appointing Elders in every city, as dispensers of the word and the sacraments of religion; and we find them also appointing other Ecclesiastical Officers, who were to have the oversight of these Elders themselves; and who, in addition to the powers which they enjoyed in common with them, had the privilege, which the others had not, of admitting, by the imposition of hands, those whom they thought fit to the ministerial office. . . .

...

And it is not too much to say, that we may challenge those who differ from us, to point out any single period at which the Church has been destitute of such a body of officers, laying claim to an authority derived by the imposition of hands from the Apostles themselves; or any single instance of a Church without this form of government, till the Church of Geneva, at first from necessity, and afterwards from a mistaken exposition of Scrip

ture, supplied the place of a single Bishop by the rule of an oligarchical presbytery.

JEBB, BISHOP.-Pastoral Instructions. Discourse i.

"And lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world;"-a promise not occasional or temporary, like that of miraculous powers; but conveying an assurance that CHRIST Himself will, in spirit and in power, be continually present with His Catholic and Apostolick Church; with the bishops of that Church, who derive from the Apostles by uninterrupted succession, and with those inferior, but essential orders of the Church, which are constituted by the same authority, and dedicated to the same service.

VAN MILDERT, BISHOP.-Bampton Lectures. Sermon viii.

The system, of which the Apostles had laid the foundation, was to be carried on through succeeding generations; but with a gradual diminution of that extraordinary aid, which the circumstances of the case rendered no longer necessary. ... Yet since the object to be attained was not temporary, but to continue from age to age, the mode, the form, and the instrument to be employed, were still to be conformable to the primitive institution. Accordingly, the Apostles ordained successors to themselves, and took measures for perpetuating in the Church a standing ministry of diverse orders and gradations. In so doing, they showed in what sense we are to interpret our LORD's assurance, that He would "be with them always, even unto the end of the world.”. . . .

The evidences, from the best historical records, to the simple fact that a visible Church of this description has actually subsisted from the time of our LORD and His Apostles to this moment, are too well known to require a detail. Nor is there any defect of similar evidence, to show that, whatever errors or corruptions may have occasionally found admittance into it, the Church itself has proved a successful instrument in the hands of Providence, both of transmitting the unadulterated Word of God from generation to generation, and also of promulgating and

maintaining all its great fundamental truths; nay, perhaps, of preserving even the very name as well as substance of Christianity, which, humanly speaking, would probably have been long since extinct, had it not been nurtured and cherished by this its appointed guardian and protector. . . . .

...

Let us take, for instance, those articles of faith which have already been shown to be essential to the Christian Covenant :the doctrines of the Trinity, of our LORD's Divinity and Incarnation, of His Atonement and Intercession, of our sanctification by the HOLY SPIRIT, of the terms of acceptance, and the ordinances of the Christian Sacraments and Priesthood. At what period of the Church have these doctrines, or either of them, been by any public act disowned or called in question! We are speaking now, it will be recollected, of what, in the language of Ecclesiastical history, is emphatically called THE CHURCH; that, which has from age to age borne rule, upon the ground of its pretensions to Apostolical succession. And to this our inquiry is necessarily restricted.....

Surely, here is something to arrest attention; something to awaken reflection; something which they who sincerely profess Christianity, and are tenacious of the inviolability of its doctrines, must contemplate with sentiments of awe and veneration. For, though a sceptic may contend that this species of evidence does not amount to a direct and demonstrative proof of the truth of the doctrines; yet if they be not true, how shall we account for their having been so uninterruptedly transmitted to these latter times? How they have withstood the assaults of continued opponents? Opponents, wanting neither talents nor inclination to effect their overthrow? If these considerations be deemed insufficient, let the adversary point out by what surer tokens we shall discover any Christian community, duly answering the Apostle's description, that it is "built upon the foundation of the Apostles and Prophets, JESUS CHRIST Himself being the chief Corner-Stone?"

MANT, BISHOP.-Parochial Sermons, xxvii.

Nor had He in this appointment a view to those times only, in which the appointment was made; but He designed that it should be extended to all future ages; for so we must understand the words which He pronounced immediately after giving His Apostles their authority to baptize : "Lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world." A promise this which cannot be supposed to have respect to the persons of the Apostles alone, who in the common course of nature were soon to be taken from the world, to the end of which the promise itself was to extend. . . . In conformity with this meaning, the Apostles, who were themselves holy men and full of the HOLY GHOST, did send other persons; to whom again, they gave power and authority to send others, through whom the office of ministers of the Gospel has been handed down in regular and uninterrupted succession from the Apostles to the present time.

OXFORD,

The Feast of St. Mark.

[FIFTH EDITION.]

These Tracts are continued in Numbers, and sold at the price of 2d. for each sheet, or 7s. for 50 copies.

LONDON: PRINTED FOR J. G. F. & J. RIVINGTON,

ST. PAUL'S CHURCH YARD, AND WATERLOO PLACE.

1841.

GILBERT & RIVINGTON, Printers, St. John's Square, London.

TRACTS FOR THE TIMES.

ON THE ROMAN BREVIARY AS EMBODYING THE SUBSTANCE OF THE DEVOTIONAL SERVICES OF THE

CHURCH CATHOLIC.

Teach her to know and love her hour of prayer,

And evermore,

As faith grows rare,

Unlock her heart, and offer all its store,

In holier love and humbler vows,
As suits a lost returning spouse.

THERE is so much of excellence and beauty in the services of the Breviary, that were it skilfully set before the Protestant by Roman controversialists as the book of devotions received in their communion, it would undoubtedly raise a prejudice in their favour, if he were ignorant of the circumstances of the case, and but ordinarily candid and unprejudiced. To meet this danger is one principal object of the following pages; in which, whatever is good and true in those Devotions will be claimed, and on reasonable grounds, for the Church Catholic in opposition to the Roman Church, whose only real claim above other Churches is that of having, on the one hand, preserved the Service with less of mutilation or abridgment, and, on the other, having adopted into it certain additions and novelties, ascertainable to be such in history, as well as being corruptions doctrinally. In a word, it will be attempted to wrest a weapon out of our adversaries' hands; who have in this, as in many other instances, appropriated to themselves a treasure which was ours as much as theirs; and then, on our attempting to recover it, accuse us of borrowing what we have but lost through inadvertence. The publication

then of the selections, which it is proposed presently to give from these Services, is, as it were, an act of re-appropriation. Were, however, the Breviary ever so much the property of the Romanists, by retaining it in its ancient Latin form, they have defrauded the Church of that benefit which, in the vernacular tongue, it might have afforded to the people at large.

VOL. IV.