baptized in one Church, has a right to partake of the LORD's Supper, and other Church privileges, in all other Churches, where he happens to come; whereas if baptism only admitted men into some particular Church, they must be re-baptized, before they can lawfully be received to communion in any diocese, where they have not been baptized already.

If it was not thus in holy orders, that they who have received them in one place, retain them in others; no minister could have authority to preach the Gospel or to administer the sacraments, or to exercise any other part of his functions beyond the particular district in which he was ordained; the consequence whereas is manifestly this, that the gospel of CHRIST must not be propagated, nor any churches erected, in countries where they had not stood even since the Apostles' times. For since there can be no ministers without ordination, as was before proved, so then they, who have been ordained in one country, may lawfully exercise their respective functions in others, where there are no ordained ministers already settled, or else those countries must remain for ever without ministers, and consequently without sacraments and other public offices of religion.

NELSON, CONFESSOR.-Festivals and Fasts.

The Church being a regular society founded by CHRIST, distinct from and independent of all other worldly societies, must naturally make us suppose that He instituted some Officers for the government of it. . . . [The] Powers peculiar to the superior Order being necessary for the good government of the Church, it is plain in fact they did not expire with the Apostles. But, as our SAVIOUR "glorified not Himself to be made an High Priest," but had His commission from GOD the FATHER, So after His resurrection, He invested the Apostles with the same commission His FATHER had given unto Him: "As My FATHER hath sent Me, even so send I you and He breathed on them, and said unto them, Receive ye the HOLY GHOST." In which commission is plainly contained the authority of ordaining others, and a power to transfer that commission upon others, and those upon others to the end of the world. And to show that it was not

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merely personal to the Apostles, our SAVIOUR promises to be with them and their successors in the execution of this commission, even unto the end of the world.". . . .. This commission the Apostles and their successors exercised in all places, and even in opposition to the Rulers that then were; so that the Church subsisted as a distinct society from the state, for above three hundred years, when the civil government was only concerned to suppress and destroy it. Indeed when the Church received the benefit of incorporation and protection from the state, she was content to suffer some limitation as to the exercise of these powers, and thought herself sufficiently recompensed by the advantages that accrued to her by the incorporation.

KETTLEWELL, PRESBYTER AND CONFESSOR.-Practical
Believer, ii. 6.

Question. There remains yet one instance of the Communion of the Primitive Christians, mentioned by St. Luke, viz. their continuing in the Apostles' fellowship." (Acts ii. 42.) I pray you what is meant by that?

Answer. Owning their authority and continuing under their government. They were appointed by CHRIST, as His deputies, to govern His Church; and, therefore, to adhere to them, as the delegates of CHRIST, is called living "in their fellowship."

Q. But how can we live in their fellowship, and adhere to their government, now they are dead?

A. By adhering to and owning the authority of our own Bishops, who are their successors, and rule the Church in their stead.

HICKS, BISHOP AND CONFESSOR.-Treatise on the Episcopal

Order, § 2.

Can you, Sir, when you consider that Bishops are appointed to succeed the Apostles, and, like them, to stand in CHRIST's place, and exercise their kingly, priestly, and prophetical office over their flocks; can you, when you consider this, think it novel, or improper, or uncouth, to call them spiritual princes, and their dioceses principalities?-when they have every thing in their VOL. III.-74.

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office which can denominate a prince? For what is a prince but the chief ruler of a society, that hath authority over the rest to make laws for it, to challenge the obedience of all the members, and all ranks of men in it, and power to coerce them, if they will not obey? And now, Sir, I pray you attend to what follows, and then tell me, if the office of a Bishop contains not every thing that is in the definition of a chief or a prince. St. Ignatius, who was St. John's disciple, writes of the Bishop in his Epistle, &c.

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LAW.-Second letter to the Bishop of Bangor.

"The priests of the sons of Levi shall come near; for them hath the LORD thy God chosen to minister unto Him, and to bless in the name of the Lord." (Deut. xxi. 5.) Now, my LORD, this is what we mean by the authoritative administration of the Christian clergy whether they be by way of benediction, or of any other kind. We take them to be persons whom God has chosen to minister unto Him, and to bless in His name. We imagine that Our SAVIOUR was a greater priest and mediator than Aaron, or any of God's former ministers. We are assured that CHRIST sent His Apostles, as His FATHER had sent Him; and that, therefore, they were His true successors; and since they did commission others to succeed them in their office by the imposition of hands, as Moses commissioned Joshua to succeed him, the clergy who have succeeded the Apostles, have as divine a call and commission to their work, as those who were called by our SAVIOUR; and are as truly His successors as the Apostles themselves were.

IBID.-Postscript.

The third objection against this uninterrupted succession is this that it is a popish doctrine, and "gives Papists advantage over us." The objection proceeds thus: "We must not assert the necessity of this succession, because the Papists say it is only to be found in them." I might add, because some mighty zealous Protestants say so too.

But if this be good argumentation, we ought not to tell the Jews, or Deists, &c., that there is any necessity of embracing Christ

ianity, because the Papists say, Christians can only be saved in their Church. Again, we ought not to insist upon a true faith, because the Papists say, that a true faith is only in their communion. So that there is just as much Popery in teaching this doctrine, as in asserting the necessity of Christianity to a Jew, or the necessity of a right faith to a Socinian, &c.

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JOHNSON, PRESBYTER.-Unbloody Sacrifice, Part II. Chap. 3. The Eucharist is one, as offered by priests, who are one by their commission. It is very evident that it was not only our SAVIOUR'S intention, but His most passionate desire, that, as all His Apostles received their commission from Him, so they might execute it with such a harmony and consent of mind, that there might not be the least jarring between them; for thus He prays for them; "Keep through Thine own name those whom Thou hast given Me, that they may be one, as We are." And the foundation of our SAVIOUR'S wishes and expectations for so perfect an union between His Apostles was this, as is expressed by Himself, "I have given them the Words which Thou gavest Me," that is, He had committed to them the same treasures of Divine truth which the FATHER had before committed to him, &c. . . . .After His resurrection, He does, with great solemnity, tell them, "As MY FATHER sent Me, even so send I you;" from which words it is evident, that the commission of all the Apostles was one and the same; that it was such a commission as CHRIST Himself in His human nature, had received from His FATHER; and even they who were not of the same order with the Apostles, but only inferior Presbyters under them, yet by deriving their authority from the same fountainhead, and exercising it in conformity to the instructions which they received from them, they still kept the "unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace." . . It was upon this account that Ignatius, Cyprian, and others, represent the whole college of Bishops throughout the whole world as one person, sitting in one chair, attending one altar; and that, therefore, is the one Eucharist which is celebrated by this one priesthood: and St. Clement of Rome allows nothing to be offered without the inspection of the high priest; and, therefore, when a new altar is erected, a new

Bishop ordained in opposition to the former, then there is just occasion to ask that question, as St. Paul did, "Is CHRIST divided?" When two several pastors assume to themselves the privilege of offering and consecrating the Sacrament not only in two distinct places, but in contradiction to each other, and by two several inconsistent claims; then it is evident, that one of them acts by no commission, for if the true Eucharist can be had in two opposite assemblies, then CHRIST's flesh ceases to be one. DODWELL, CONFESSOR.-Discourse on the one Priesthood, one Altar. Ch. 12.

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I observe that the Hierophanta, in their mysteries represented a Divine Person. The same, in all probability, were the thoughts of the primitive Christians, concerning their Bishops. This I take to be the true design of that description of the Majestatic Presence in the Revelations, to represent the Divine Presence, and assistance in the Church, in as lively a way as possible, according to the ways of Mystical Representation received in those times. . . .St. John being particularly to affect the Churches he writes to, those of the Lydian or Proconsular Asia, with a very feeling sense of the Divine presence among them, (which might add the greater authority to his several exhortations respectively,) he represents our SAVIOUR in a human visible shape; and that the rest of the scene might be suitable, (that is, sensible also as well as Himself,) he personates the Angels by their visible Bishops, that so CHRIST might be apprehended as present with the Bishops, as God was supposed to be wherever these Seven Spirits were, which were peculiarly deputed to represent the Majestatic Presence. This I take to be the reason why he confines his number, not that by any geographical distinction those seven cities were incorporated into a body, more than others of that province, but that he had a particular regard to that number of those Angels of the presence. Therefore he makes seven candlesticks, alluding, as I have said, to the like number of those in the tabernacle, as emblems of those seven Churches. Therefore seven stars, alluding to the number of the Planets and the Angels who presided over them, as emblems of the Bishops of those Churches. . . . Thus it appears