place after another, by the Apostles. Why, Doctor, it was "by degrees" that the world was made! No one ever dreamed that a Church "booted and spurred by the grace of God," as Dr. Cox reverently says, sprang from the brain of St. Paul or St. Peter-Bishops, Presbyters, and Deacons, all complete -any more than that the world sprang perfect and finished. from the hand of God at once. If long geological cycles must elapse before the one can become fit for the abode of man: so a few years were necessary to rear, in its beauty, the spiritual temple that was to become the dwelling-place of God and of the Lamb!

Finally, I have found what previous Episcopal writers on this subject have not, I think, noticed: the explanation of this phrase "by degrees," out of the Commentary of Jerome himself.*

PAULATIM vero, tempore procedente, et alii ab his quos Dominus elegerat ordinati sunt Apostoli;

BY DEGREES, (or as Dr. Miller might say, "by little and little,") in process of time, others also were ordained Apostles by those whom the Lord had chosen;

"as in that passage to the Philippians, Epaphroditus your Apostle; also to the Corinthians, They are the Apostles of the Churches; Silas also, and Jude, are called Apostles by the Apostles." Here we have not only this same word, "by degrees," which Presbyterians spread over five centuries; but it is hampered by the phrase "in process of time," implying more deliberation still: yet, "by degrees, in process of time, others were ordained Apostles" not five hundred years after -but "by those whom the Lord had chosen," such as Epaphroditus, Silas, Jude, &c. The Episcopacy being introduced

Comm. on Gal. i. 19.

"In process of time," is also the very expression used by Theodoret, of the period when the first Bishops of the Church began to lay aside the name of Apostles.

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a remedy against schism," is no more an objection to Episcopacy, than that Deacons were introduced "as a remedy against" poverty, or Presbyters "as a remedy against" ignorance. Even the Scriptures of the New Testa ment themselves were introduced "by little and little," and were not all received or collected for three hundred years: yet which of you will therefore deny the authenticity or the inspiration of the Bible?

I have now gone over all the important "testimonies of the Fathers in favor of Presbyters," that I had once relied on for the demolition of Episcopacy. What I have said of my own venerable preceptor Dr. Miller, might as truly have been said of others "who had writ upon this subject before him, and whose steps the Doctor 'most-what treads in :"" "as well as to those who, since the Doctor, have "most-what" trodden in his steps. But I have pursued this course, because Dr. Miller has been, by reason of his other virtues, too much relied on in his marvellous quotations of the Fathers; and also because I feel it a most grievous wrong, that I have been, by this very reliance, personally misled and confirmed. in my separation from the ancient Church.

It is evident that the Presbyterian student knows no more of the true teaching of the Fathers, than he does of the writings of Confucius or the doctrines of the Shaster. If the day ever comes when the Fathers shall be read, and it shall be seen how Clement took the story from St. Paul, and Ignatius from St. Peter, and Polycarp from St. John, and these reached hands to Irenæus and Tertullian and Justin, and these again to others, all consenting in the existence of the Episcopacy everywhere, all testifying to "one Altar," "one Church," "one Priesthood:" we may begin to hope that schism, with its forked tongue, and hundred hands, and ugly scowl, and cloven foot, will fly from the Christian sanctuary. Laymen, women, and children among the sects, will not read

the admirable Epistles of Clement, Ignatius, Polycap, and others, on whose heads the Holy Apostles, in awful ordination, laid hands that had embraced the Lord: so long as they who profess to "sit in Moses' seat" have neither the curiosity nor taste to read them. Do, gentlemen, begin with Ignatius! When you have read Ignatius, you will long to read Polycarp. When you have reaa Polycarp, you will read "the great and admirable" Epistle (as Eusebius calls it) to the Corinthians, by Clement, St. Paul's "fellow-laborer, whose name is in the book of life." When you have read this magnificent Epistle, resembling so much in dignity and style the sublime Epistle to the Hebrews, that some have regarded Clement as the composer of it under St. Paul's dictation, while your own Neander goes farther, and thinks it was written by one who stood in the relation to St. Paul that Melancthon did to Luther you will desire to learn more, if indeed more shall be wanting, to cause you to admire the harmonies of the Church, and restore you to the unity and brotherhood, which, though lost in the first Adam, had been restored in the Second, until schism crept into the new Paradise, and did what sin had done in the old. And as the Apostles wisely waited, in some instances, not ordaining resident Apostles or Bishops in the Churches until the evils of division had become incurable, and competent men had ripened for the office: so again, in the wisdom of God, the mischiefs of schism, growing more intolerable and terrific every hour, may be the appointed precursors of a unanimity with which, "throughout the whole world," the lovers of ancient truth shall become the admirers of ancient order, and there shall be One Fold as there is One Shepherd.

CHAPTER XXIV

PRACTICAL TEACHINGS.

“As when a hungry man dreameth, and behold he eateth, but he awaketh, and his soul is empty; or as a thirsty man dreameth, and behold he drinketh, but he awaketh, and behold he is faint:" so I must confess that, while among the Presbyterians, I had longings and cravings, which the dogmas of my faith could never satisfy. They know it. Their di vines know it. When they have attempted to vindicate the ways of God in the decree to give sin existence, they have often confessed that, while they sought to satisfy the people, they have not felt satisfied themselves. When they have smoothed over the tenet of personal election quite to the satisfaction of the hearers, I have heard them acknowledge that, beyond and behind all this, they themselves saw an unbridged and unfathomable gulf. When they represent the sufferings of Christ as "satisfaction" to the "vindicatory jus tice" of God, intended to "appease" God's wrath toward our unhappy race; and those sufferings as of equal commercial value with the sufferings of the elect to all eternity: these are terms in the proposition from which I know that they often, in their heart of hearts, instinctively shrink. If they extend to all mankind this substitute of "so much suffering" for "so much sin," they are hampered with the objection, Why should a just God exact this suffering twice,

once from the innocent, and once from the guilty? If, to escape the embarrassment, they adopt the new New England heresy, that the sufferings of Christ were merely "an exhibition" of God's hatred of sin "by inflicting pain on an innocent Person:" the exaction bears still more the appearance of a wanton and vindictive determination. No wonder the mind revolts. No wonder New England falls back into Unitarianism, or any other ism that will cling to the Creator in His rightful character as the universal Father. On these and a thousand cognate points, there were moments when my soul was dark; nor did the day-star dawn into my heart, until I came within the Spirit's sphere of the teaching of the ancient Church.

Calvinism sees no purpose of the Incarnation, but that the Son of God should suffer. No other purpose seems to occur to the mind of Calvinism, than to "satisfy" an offended God, and placably dispose Him toward our unhappy race. Here the light of the Catholic religion bursts into my sepulchre! wipe the cold sweat from my brow, and emerge from the aarkness of suffocation, in which the corroding chains of Calvinism held me.

"God manifest in the flesh!". Not simply man, but made "in the likeness of men" and "in fashion as a man:" for "the Word was made flesh;" God was made man; the DivinityHumanity; the GOD-MAN; the "Second Adam" or generic MAN, comprehending the race; as the First Adam, or generic Man, comprehended the same race before. "The first Adam [or the first MAN, as the name signifies] was made a living soul," and through him the human race became partakers of his natural life; "the last Adam (or MAN) was made a quickening Spirit," imparting new life to that race again. As the race was a unit in Adam, so it was a unit in Christ; and the Church, like the race, existed as a whole, before it existed in its parts. To speak nearly in the words of others :- "In