BX 5930 .S65 1850 
 
 Some reasons why I cannot 
 become an Episcopalian 
 
Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 
 in 2009 with funding from 
 
 Princeton Theological Seminary Library 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/somereasonswhyicOOphil 
 
SOME 
 
 REASONS 
 
 WHY 
 
 I CANNOT 
 
 ECOME AN EPISCOrALIAN. 
 
 PHILADELPHIA : 
 
 KING & BAIRD, PRINTERS, No. 9 SANSOM STREET. 
 
 1850. 
 
,^Y OF WB/Kft^ 
 DEC "7 »92 
 
SOME 
 
 REASONS 
 
 WHY 
 
 I CANNOT 
 
 BECOME AN EPISCOPALIAN 
 
 PHILADELPHIA; 
 KING & BAIED, PRINTERS, NO. 9, SANSOM STREET. 
 
 1850. 
 
/■4- 
 
 
 
SOME REASONS, &c. 
 
 I. I cannot believe the ApO' jHcal Succession. 
 
 The doctrine of the apostolical succession, I 
 understand to be this : That the clergymen of 
 the Episcopal denomination are in possession 
 of a ministerial authority derived from the 
 apostles of Christ, through an unbroken suc- 
 cession of bishops from the apostolic times to 
 the present day, the bishop constituting the 
 first link in the sacred chain, being consecrated 
 with imposition of hands by some one of the 
 apostles, and every succeeding bishop being 
 duly consecrated with like imposition of hands 
 by one oc more bishops who had themselves re- 
 
ceived due consecration, either from apostolic 
 or episcopal hands. The reality of such a 
 succession is plainly a question of fact, and 
 whether any given clergyman is such a succes- 
 sor of any apostle, is plainly a question of a 
 genealogical nature, to be determined, like other 
 questions of pedigree, by an examination of 
 the evidence adduced in support of the pre- 
 tension. 
 
 To a christian, a clear promise of the Sa- 
 viour, or a clear prophetic declaration of any 
 one of his apostles, that such a succession of 
 ministers should always exist, would of course 
 be sufficient and conclusive evidence that such 
 a succession has always heretofore existed and 
 still exists ; and the only question would then 
 be whether the clergy of the Episcopal denomi- 
 nation are such successors, either exclusively 
 and alone, or in common with the clergy of one 
 or more of the other denominations. But I 
 find no such promise or prophetic declaration, 
 and do not believe that any can be adduced.* 
 
 Doctor Wain Wright, in his controversy with 
 Doctor Potts, (if controversy that can be 
 called, in which the first named gentleman 
 might well have propounded to his antagonist 
 the doubt so pathetically expressed by Juvenal, 
 
si rixa est, uhi tu puIsas,ego vapulo tantum,) 
 has relied upon the words of the Saviour, in 
 Mattheiv, xxviii. 20, as importing the promise 
 in question ; for he is unable to conceive, he 
 says, any other mode in which the promise of 
 Christ there made to the eleven disciples, to 
 be with them always, even unto the end of the 
 world, could be fulfilled, except by the main- 
 tenance of such an apostolical succession as 
 he contends for. This inability of Doctor 
 Wainwright may perhaps excite the unaffected 
 compassion of those who have a feeling for 
 human infirmity, but will scarcely possess a de- 
 cisive weight with them as an argument, when 
 they themselves plainly discern that the words 
 referred to may import no more than a promise 
 of the founder of Christianity that always, 
 while the world should endure, there should 
 exist a distinct class of his followers, whose 
 special business of life should be to proclaim 
 and expound his gospel, and to administer the 
 sacraments of his appointment. 
 
 In the absence of an express promise or 
 prophecy of such an apostolical succession as the 
 Episcopalians contend for, they must maintain 
 their position by the adduction of historical 
 evidence, or they must fail in maintaining it 
 
at all. But where is the historical evidence 
 that the bishops of the Episcopal denomination 
 are in the line of such succession ? Can any 
 one of those bishops tell who was his own 
 spiritual progenitor in the fiftieth remove ? Can 
 he declare the name of such progenitor, the 
 period in which he lived, the episcopal seat 
 which he occupied, the bishop or bishops who 
 performed the solemnity of his consecration ? 
 To these inquiries the Episcopalian bishop of 
 the present day, if he should condescend to 
 reply at all, must reply that he knows nothing, 
 and can declare nothing in respect to any one 
 of the particulars referred to. Consequently, 
 his claim of apostolical succession, so far as 
 relates to that link in the chain, (and the same 
 would be equally true of much the greater pra- 
 portion of the rest,) must be founded upon a 
 general presumption, resulting from a proba- 
 bility supposed or assumed to be inherent in 
 the nature of the case, that he had a spiritual 
 ancestor in the fiftieth degree, as well as a 
 natural ancestor in that degree. It is obvious, 
 however, that while the claim of a natural pro- 
 genitor in the fiftieth degree is incontrovertible, 
 because resting upon a physical necessity, the 
 presumption of a spiritual ancestor in the same 
 
degree can never rise higher than a probabilit j. 
 It will always remain a possible case that any 
 given bishop of the present day may have had 
 no spiritual progenitor at all in the fiftieth re- 
 move. But let it be supposed that a complete 
 genealogy is produced, by which some particu- 
 lar bishop of the present day avers himself to 
 be connected with an apostle in the direct line 
 of spiritual descent, (though bold indeed would 
 the bishop be who should venture to submit his 
 claim in such a form;) let it be conceded that 
 the names in the list are the names of christian 
 bishops who have really existed, and that to- 
 gether they fill up the whole period intervening 
 between the time of the apostles and the pre- 
 sent day ; let it be conceded that the first bishop 
 in the list received his consecration from the 
 hands of the apostle there named, and (what 
 can never be proved) that every other bishop 
 in the list was consecrated by the bishop there 
 named as his immediate predecessor ; still it 
 will remain to be proved, or rather, as no- 
 thing like proof can be pretended to exist in 
 any such case, it will remain to be assumed 
 that these successive consecrations were all duly 
 performed, and that there existed neither defect 
 of formality in any one of the acts of conse- 
 
cration, nor defect of qualification in any one 
 of the persons consecrated, or of the persons 
 consecrating. It is difficult to induce Episco- 
 palians to speak plainly and precisely on the 
 subject of such defects, but they all admit, I 
 presume, that a consecration would be invalid 
 if the party performing it had never been duly 
 consecrated himself, or if either he or the party 
 receiving consecration had never been validly 
 baptized. Let it be supposed then, that the 
 combination of these and all other possibilities 
 of invalidity would make up, in respect to the 
 second consecration in the series of an alleged 
 succession from the time of the apostles, a 
 single chance of invalidity, while the chances 
 of validity amounted to ninety-nine, and that, 
 in each successive grade of the descent, the 
 chances for validity of consecration would un- 
 dergo a diminution in the same ratio, that is, 
 would be ninety-nine hundredths of the chances 
 for validity in the grade next preceding ; let it 
 be supposed also that the series from the time 
 of the apostles to the present day, consists of 
 one hundred and fifty bishops, which would 
 give twelve years for the average duration of 
 episcopal incumbency: the result will be a 
 probability, in the proportion of seventy-eight 
 
chances to twenty-two, or nearly as four to one, 
 that the bishop of the present day, the last in 
 the supposed series, is not a successor of the 
 apostles in the sense contended for by Episco- 
 palians. And from any ratio they may choose 
 to assign between the chances of invalidity and 
 validity, and for the diminution of the latter, 
 there must result some considerable amount, if 
 not an absolute preponderance of chances that 
 the bishops of the present day are not in 
 any such line of succession from the apostles. 
 To annul the adverse chances altogether, and 
 make such a succession a matter of absolute 
 certainty, would require nothing less than a 
 perpetual miracle ; of which, as before remark- 
 ed, there is no divine promise, and of whichfco 
 one pretends to adduce any other evidence. 
 
 These considerations, which readily occur in 
 reflecting upon the subject, and which seem to 
 be as incontrovertible as they are obvious, have, 
 over and over again, and by various writers, 
 been urged upon the Episcopalians ; yet nothing 
 is more common than to hear Episcopalians in 
 all the complacency of inexpugnable stupidity, 
 asserting or assuming the absolute certainty of 
 their apostolical succession, and founding upon 
 it a claim to regard their own as the only true 
 
10 
 
 church, and to treat all other protestants as 
 mere schismatics. I saw an Episcopalian book 
 not long ago, the title of which I have now 
 forgotten, in which the author, with apparent 
 seriousness and triumph, asserted that the schis- 
 matics had never been able, with all their 
 eagerness of hostility, to point out any defect 
 in the apostolical succession of the Episcopal 
 clergy. The schismatics, when they point out 
 the fact that the greater number of the links 
 in the alleged chain of succession are altogether 
 invisible, as well to Episcopalians (by their own 
 confession) as to themselves, so that it can 
 never be ascertained whether the chain is con- 
 tinuous or not, think that they do point out 
 ^sofiething very like a defect in the chain, some- 
 thing which, if not a defect, yet answers the 
 same purpose, and at least as effectually. They 
 think it not entirely reasonable that they should 
 be required to find out for the Episcopalians 
 the missing links of their chain, and then to 
 undertake the task of demonstrating to Episco- 
 palian intellects that those links are vitiated 
 by particular defects. And on both these points 
 unprejudiced judges will probably, without a 
 single exception, concur in opinion with the 
 schismatics. The boast of the writer just re- 
 
11 
 
 ferred to proceeds evidently upon some indis- 
 tinct notion, which seems to be perpetually 
 hovering like a fog about the minds of Episco- 
 palians, that their mere claim of the apostolical 
 succession is to be taken as proof that they 
 really possess it, until demonstrative evidence 
 is adduced that they can by no possibility have 
 any such possession among them. Their de- 
 sire to place the question upon that ground is 
 very natural ; for they know that the schisma- 
 tics, believing the Bible, must believe that, since 
 nothing is impossible with God, he may by pos- 
 sibility have maintained, against all perils and 
 every appearance to the contrary, precisely 
 such an apostolical succession as the Episco- 
 palians assert, and that consequently no man 
 can ever prove it absolutely impossible that the 
 suspended bishop of New York should be a suc- 
 cessor of the apostles, any more than he can 
 prove it impossible that Hophni and Phinehas, 
 whose conduct is detailed in 1 Samuel, ii. 22, 
 were sons of the pious Eli, and priests of the 
 Lord. 
 
 Perhaps the claim of apostolical succession 
 asserted by the Episcopalians might be adjusted 
 between them and the schismatics by a compro- 
 mise. At a period touching and immediately 
 
12 
 
 following the time of the apostles, there lived 
 a certain bishop of Hierapolis, named Papias, 
 of whom Eusebius, in his Ecclesiastical History, 
 (book iii. ch. 39.) gives an account. Papias 
 appears to have been a great admirer of eccle- 
 siastical legends and traditions, which he sedu- 
 lously collected together in his writings ; though 
 some of these stories were of a nature so extra- 
 ordinary, that Eusebius treats them as little 
 better than apocryphal. For after detailing 
 several of the relations of Papias, Eusebius (I 
 quote him here as translated by the Reverend 
 C. F. Cruse) proceeds thus : " The same his- 
 torian also gives other accounts, which he says 
 he adds as received by him from unwritten 
 tradition, likewise certain strange parables of 
 our Lord, and of his doctrine, and some other 
 matters rather too fabulous,'' Eusebius adds, 
 as indeed he well might, that Papias was exceed- 
 ing small of intellect (^a^o6pa c^txpoj tbv vovv). The 
 schismatics cannot admit that the Episcopalian 
 clergy are successors of the apostles, but may 
 perhaps be willing to admit that very many of 
 them are legitimate successors of Papias, who 
 was unquestionably a successor of the apostles. 
 But, from the known reluctance of Episcopa- 
 lians to surrender any part of any pretension 
 
13 
 
 the J may ever have advanced, I should not be 
 greatly surprised if they were to reject even 
 the offer of a compromise so liberal as that just 
 suggested. 
 
 I am aware that the Episcopal church does 
 not in her articles hold forth the doctrine of 
 the apostolical succession as one which either 
 the members or the ministers of her commu- 
 nion are required to believe, and that Arch- 
 bishop Whately is by no means the only 
 Episcopalian clergyman who regards that doc- 
 trine as a silly fable, or something worse ; but 
 I know also that a large portion both of the 
 ministers and of the members, perhaps a ma- 
 jority of both, profess to believe it, and to 
 regard it as of high importance ; and it appears 
 to my apprehension a valid reason why I should 
 not become a member of that communion, that, 
 in case I should do so, I might very probably 
 find myself under the charge of a minister 
 either weak enough to credit such a legend as 
 that of the apostolical succession, or unscrupu- 
 lous enough, if he disbelieved it himself, to 
 encourage the belief of it in others, with a view 
 to the supposed honour and advancement of his 
 church. 
 
14 
 
 II. I cannot believe that the Holy Ghost, and 
 the power of remitting and retaining sins, are 
 conveyed hy Episcopal ordination. 
 
 We read in the Gospel according to John, 
 (XX. 22, 23,) that the Saviour, appearing to his 
 disciples after his resurrection, breathed upon 
 them, and said, " Receive ye the Holy Ghost. 
 Whose soever sins ye remit, they are remitted 
 unto them ; and whose soever sins ye retain, 
 they are retained." When a believer in the 
 gospel first learns that the Episcopalian bishop 
 in performing the ceremony of ordination, takes 
 upon himself to address the very same words to 
 the party receiving the ordination, the impres- 
 sion is uniformly, I believe, startling and pain- 
 ful. This feeling is naturally succeeded by a 
 desire to be informed how the seeming blas- 
 phemy (for such it certainly seems) is explained 
 and defended by Episcopalians. If he resorti 
 to Hooker, the great Malleus Hmretieorum, or 
 "Hammerer of the Heretics," as Episcopalians 
 delight to call him, he will find in the Ecclesi- 
 astical Polity, book v. sect. 77, a defence which 
 though of considerable length, it may be as 
 well to give in the Hammerer's own words. 
 
15 
 
 " A thing much stumbled at in the manner 
 of giving orders, is our using those memorable 
 words of our Lord and Saviour Christ, <• Receive 
 the Holy Ghost.' The Holy Ghost, they say, 
 we cannot give, and therefore we < foolishly' 
 bid men receive it. Wise men, for their au- 
 thority's sake, must have leave to befool them 
 whom they are able to make wise by better 
 instruction. Notwithstanding, if it may please 
 their wisdom, as well to hear what fools can 
 say, as to control that which they do, thus have 
 we heard some wise men teach, namely, that 
 the Holy Ghost may be used to signify not the 
 person alone, but the 'gifts' of the Holy Ghost; 
 and we know that spiritual gifts are not only 
 abilities to do things miraculous, as to speak 
 with tongues which were never taught us, to 
 cure diseases without art, and such like ; but 
 also that the very authority and power which 
 is given men in the church to be ministers of 
 holy things, this is contained within the number 
 of those gifts whereof the Holy Ghost is author ; 
 and therefore he which giveth this power may 
 say, without absurdity or folly, ' Receive the 
 Holy Ghost,' such power as the Spirit of Christ 
 hath indued his church withal, such power as 
 neither prince nor potentate, king nor Caesar 
 
16 
 
 on earth can give. So that if men alone had 
 devised this form of speech, thereby to express 
 the heavenly wellspring of that power which 
 ecclesiastical ordinations do bestow, it is not so 
 foolish but that wise men might bear with it. 
 If then our Lord and Saviour himself have used 
 the self-same form of words, and that in the 
 self-same kind of action, although there be but 
 the least show of probability, yea, or any possi- 
 bility that his meaning might be the same which 
 ours is, it should teach sober and grave men 
 not to be too venturous in condemning that of 
 folly, which is not impossible to have in it more 
 profoundness of wisdom than flesh and blood 
 should presume to control. Our Saviour, after 
 his resurrection from the dead, gave his apos- 
 tles their commission, saying, <all power is 
 given me in heaven and in earth: Go, there- 
 fore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in 
 the name of the Father, and the Son, and the 
 Holy Ghost, teaching them to observe all 
 things whatsoever I have commanded you.' 
 (Matt, xxviii. 18.) In sum ^as my Father sent 
 me, so send I you.' (John xx. 21.) Whereunto 
 St. John doth add farther, that ^ having thus 
 spoken, he breathed on them and said. Receive 
 the Holy Ghost.' By which words he must of 
 
17 
 
 likelihood understand some gift of the Spirit 
 which was presently at that time bestowed 
 upon them, as both the speech of actual delivery 
 in saying, < Receive,' and the visible sign there- 
 of, his breathing, did show. Absurd it were to 
 imagine our Saviour did both to the ear, and 
 also to the very eye, express a real donation, 
 and they at that time receive nothing. It rest- 
 eth then that we search what especial grace 
 they did at that time receive. Touching mira- 
 culous power of the Spirit, most apparent it is, 
 that as they then received it not, but the promise 
 thereof was to be shortly after performed. The 
 words of St. Luke concerning that power are 
 therefore set down with signification of the time 
 to come: ^Behold, I send the promise of my 
 Father upon you, but tarry you in the city of 
 Jerusalem until ye be induedwith power from on 
 high.' (Luke xxiv. 49.) Wherefore undoubt- 
 edly, it was some other effect of the Spirit, the 
 Holy Ghost in some other kind, which our 
 Saviour did then bestow. What other likelier 
 than that which himself doth mention, as it 
 should seem of purpose to take away all ambi- 
 guous constructions, and to declare that the 
 Holy Ghost which he then gave, was an holy 
 and a ghostly authority, authority over the 
 
18 
 
 souls of men, authority, a part whereof consist- 
 eth in power to remit and retain sins ? ' Receive 
 the Holj Ghost : whose sins soever ye remit, 
 they are remitted ; whose sins ye retain, they 
 are retained.' (John xx. 22, 23.) Whereas, 
 therefore, the other evangelists had set down, 
 that Christ did before his suffering promise to 
 give his apostles «the keys of the kingdom 
 of heaven,' [Matt. xvi. 19.] and being risen 
 from the dead promise moreover at that time a 
 miraculous power of the Holy Ghost ; St. John 
 addeth, that he also invested them even then 
 with the powder of the Holy Ghost for castiga- 
 tion and relaxation of sin, wherein was fully 
 accomplished that which the promise of the 
 keys did import. Seeing, therefore, that the 
 same power is now given, why should the same 
 form of words expressing it be thought ' foolish ?' 
 The cause why we breathe not, as Christ did 
 on them unto whom he imparted power, is, for 
 that neither Spirit nor spiritual authority may 
 be thought to proceed from us, which are but 
 delegates or assigns to give men possession of 
 his graces. Now, besides that the power and 
 authority delivered with those words is itself 
 xac^fia, a gracious donation which the Spirit of 
 God doth bestow, we may most assuredly per- 
 
19 
 
 suade ourselves, that the hand which imposeth 
 upon us the function of our ministry, doth under 
 the same form of words so tie itself thereunto, 
 that he which receiveth the burthen is thereby 
 for ever warranted to have the Spirit with him, 
 and in him, for his assistance, aid, countenance, 
 and support, in whatsoever he faithfully doth 
 to discharge duty. Knowing, therefore, that 
 when we take ordination, we also receive the 
 presence of the Holy Ghost, partly to guide, 
 direct, and strengthen us in all our ways, and 
 partly to assume unto itself for the more autho- 
 rity those actions that appertain to our place 
 and calling ; can our ears admit such a speech 
 uttered in the reverend performance of that 
 solemnity ; or can we at any time renew the 
 memory, and enter into serious cogitation there- 
 of, but with much admiration and joy? Remove 
 what these ^ foolish' words do imply, and what 
 hath the ministry of God besides wherein to 
 glory ? Whereas, now, forasmuch as the Holy 
 Ghost, which our Saviour in his first ordinations 
 gave, doth no less concur with spiritual voca- 
 tions throughout all ages, than the 'spirit,' 
 which God derived from Moses to them that 
 assisted him in his government, (Numb. xi. 17- 
 25.) did descend from them to their successors 
 
20 
 
 in like authority and place, we have for the 
 least and meanest duties, performed by virtue 
 of ministerial power, that to dignify, grace, 
 and authorize them, which no other offices on 
 earth can challenge. Whether we preach, pray, 
 baptize, communicate, condemn, give absolution, 
 or whatsoever ; as disposers of God's mysteries, 
 our words, judgments, acts, and deeds, are not 
 ours but the Holy Ghost's. Enough, if un- 
 feignedly and in heart we did believe it, enough 
 to banish whatsoever may justly be thought cor- 
 rupt either in bestowing, or in using, or in 
 esteeming the same otherwise than is meet. 
 For profanely to bestow, or loosely to use, or 
 vilely to esteem of the Holy Ghost, we all in 
 show and profession abhor." 
 
 It thus appears to be Hooker's opinion, that 
 when the Saviour breathed upon his apostles 
 and said, <•<■ Receive ye the Holy Ghost," he 
 conveyed to them an immediate gift of the 
 Holy Ghost. But the contrary opinion is 
 maintained by Doctor Bloomfield and the Rev. 
 E. Valpy, ministers of the established Church 
 of England, in their respective editions of the 
 Greek Testament ; and Doctor Bloomfield as- 
 sures us that the best commentators concur 
 with him in that view. The learned German 
 
21 
 
 commentator, Rosenmuller, certainly does. 
 According to Doctors Bloomfield, Valpy, and 
 Rosenmuller, (to whom, upon Doctor Bloom- 
 field's authority, we may venture to add all 
 '' the best commentators") there was nothing 
 conveyed at that time by Christ to his apostles, 
 except a renewed and more impressive promise 
 of the Holy Ghost, accompanied by the sym- 
 bolic act of breathing upon them ; and the 
 promise so made received its accoijiplishment 
 on the day of Pentecost. This opinion, I 
 think, is corroborated by the circumstance that 
 the apostles were directed to remain at Jeru- 
 salem until they should be endued with power 
 from on high ; a direction which they seem to 
 have regarded as requiring that they should 
 not, even in Jerusalem, commence the work of 
 their ministry at any earlier period ; for though 
 we read in the last verse of St. Luke's Gospel, 
 that after their Lord's ascension into heaven, 
 they were continually in the temple, praising 
 and blessing God, yet we are nowhere inform- 
 ed that, prior to the day of Pentecost, they 
 preached the Gospel, or attempted to make 
 proselytes ; and we know that the disciples 
 who, very shortly before that day, assembled 
 themselves together for the purpose of electing 
 
22 
 
 an apostle in the room of Judas Iscariot, were 
 only about a hundred and twenty in number, 
 (Acts, i. 15.) all of whom, it may be presumed, 
 had been personal followers of the Lord Jesus 
 himself; whereas, on the day of Pentecost, 
 after the effusion of the Holy Ghost, about 
 three thousand souls were added to the Church 
 through the preaching of St. Peter. (Acts, ii. 
 41.) If then the apostles were directed not to 
 commence the exercise of their ministry until 
 they should be endued with power from on high, 
 and were not so endued,as it is universally admit- 
 ted they were not, until the day of Pentecost; an 
 imperfect communication of the Holy Ghost at 
 an earlier period, investing them with only a 
 part of their destined powers, the exercise of 
 even that part being restrained i^ntil they should 
 receive the rest, would seem to be very improba- 
 ble, because, (so far as we can discern) very 
 useless. Let us suppose, therefore, with Bloom- 
 field, Valpy, Rosenmuller, and the best com- 
 mentators, that what the apostles received from 
 Christ at the time referred to, was only a pro- 
 mise of the Holy Ghost, confirmed and made 
 more impressive by the symbolic act of breath- 
 ing upon them ; it may readily be conceded 
 that the Episcopalian priest, at his ordination. 
 
23 
 
 receives from the bishop exactly the same pro- 
 mise confirmed by a symbolic act equally im- 
 pressive, — that of the imposition of hands. 
 But the difference between the two cases is 
 still, I think, very considerable ; for, while the 
 promise of Christ was fulfilled in splendor and 
 miracle on the day of Pentecost, that of the 
 bishop, to all outward appearance, and to all 
 human capacity of discernment, remains for- 
 ever afterwards what it was at the first, a 
 barren promise, a mere illusion, possibly a 
 fearful blasphemy. 
 
 Let us suppose, on the other hand, with 
 Hooker, that the apostles received from Christ 
 an actual and immediate gift of the Holy 
 Ghost, and that the nature and purpose of that 
 gift are to be explained by the words of the 
 donor immediately following, — " Whose sins 
 soever ye remit, they are remitted ; whose sins 
 ye retain, they are retained." It should seem 
 upon Hooker's own principle of explanation, 
 that the power of remitting and of retaining 
 sins was the whole, and not merely a part of 
 the Ghostly authority then coiiferred upon the 
 apostles; for the Saviour himself speaks of 
 that power alone. However, whether we sup- 
 pose that the Ghostly authority then conferred 
 
24 
 
 upon them was limited to the power of remit- 
 ting and retaining sins, or that it embraced all 
 the other powers which Hooker derives to the 
 Episcopalian priest from the ordination of the 
 Episcopalian bishop, namely ; powers to preach, 
 to pray, to baptize, and to administer the sa- 
 crament of the eucharist, the question in either 
 case will be, not whether the powers of the 
 apostles were the same in number or in name, 
 with those conferred upon the priest by the or- 
 dination of the bishop, but whether, for his 
 guidance and aid in the execution of those 
 powers, the priest receives the same communi- 
 cation of the Holy Ghost which the apostles 
 received. And there can be no doubt that he 
 does, if Hooker's words are to be taken as a 
 true exposition of the case ; for Hooker de- 
 clares, as we have seen, that whether in preach- 
 ing, praying, baptizing, communicating, con- 
 demning, giving absolution, or whatsoever, the 
 words, judgments, acts and deeds of the priest, 
 as a disposer of God's mysteries, are not Ms 
 otvn^ hut the Holy Ghost's. But, not to press 
 the literal sense of Hooker's words, which 
 plainly import a claim, for every Episcopalian 
 priest, of infallibility as perfect as any Roman 
 Catholic ever claimed for the bishop of Rome ; 
 
25 
 
 I proceed to inquire whether there is any evi- 
 dence that the Holy Ghost, in any degree or 
 proper sense at all, is communicated by Epis- 
 copal ordination. 
 
 I presume the most zealous Episcopalian will 
 scarcely contend that the Episcopalian priest 
 ordinarily exhibits, as the consequence of his 
 ordination, any very marked improvement, 
 either in his intellectual or in his moral endow- 
 ments. If, immediately previous to his ordi- 
 nation, his learning was scanty, it receives no 
 sudden increase afterwards : if his natural 
 abilities were moderate, they remain without 
 visible change. Ordination has never yet 
 transformed a Jonathan Wainwright into a 
 Robert Hall. An alteration, partaking of both 
 the moral and the intellectual, may indeed be 
 occasionally observed, though I doubt whether 
 it can justly be regarded as an improvement. 
 Washington Irving tells a story of a Dutchman, 
 who, when his cabbage garden in the environs 
 of New York was invaded by the extension of 
 some of the streets, at first thought himself 
 reduced from simple poverty to utter ruin, as 
 his garden was entirely spoiled ; but having 
 soon found that his lots were in great demand 
 as sites for the erection of new buildings, and 
 3 
 
S6 
 
 having become, by means of building-leases, 
 the landlord of several valuable houses, yield- 
 ing a considerable amount of rents, he experi- 
 enced some strange confusion of ideas, by 
 which he was led to the conclusion that the 
 improved condition of his fortunes was to be 
 ascribed entirely to the strength and sagacity 
 of his own intellect ; whereupon he assumed for 
 his armorial crest, the figure of a cabbage, with 
 the motto " All Head." In like manner it 
 may occasionally happen that an Episcopalian 
 priest, having heard the ordaining bishop ad- 
 dress to him the words "Receive the Holy Ghost," 
 and having read or heard of Hooker's declaration 
 that the words, judgments, acts and deeds of 
 the priest who has received Episcopal ordina- 
 tion, are not his own, but the Holy Ghost's, 
 will conclude (and we cannot deny that his 
 conclusion, unlike the Dutchman's, is logically 
 drawn from his premises) that, since his ordi- 
 nation, he has neither properly appreciated 
 himself, nor been properly appreciated by 
 others ; and that his judgments on all matters 
 theological, are entitled to far greater venera- 
 tion than they have ever received, either from 
 others, or from himself. It is conceded with 
 entire frankness, however, that such a change 
 
27 
 
 will not very often be observed ; for it implies 
 that the priest, up to the time of his ordination 
 as such, has placed upon his own importance 
 and abilities, an estimate susceptible of being 
 enlarged. 
 
 As little ground is there to pretend that 
 any material improvement of the moral charac- 
 ter is consequent upon ordination to the priest- 
 hood. Were such the case, we should not learn, 
 from time to time, of the judicial trial and con- 
 viction of clergymen of the Church of England 
 for offences involving almost every grade and 
 variety of moral turpitude. Were such the 
 case, we should not have seen, in the Episco- 
 palian Church of our own country, one bishop 
 tried before a tribunal of his peers (for offences 
 of which the details may be found in the publi- 
 cation authorized by his Church ; I prefer to 
 omit those details here) — convicted after an 
 impartial and most patient investigation, sus- 
 pended from the exercise of his ecclesiastical 
 functions, and living in infamy, unrepentant, 
 if not contented, upon a pension assigned him 
 by the charity of his injured diocese ; we should 
 not have seen another bishop of the same 
 Church waited upon by the disgraceful notoriety 
 of a confirmed habit of intoxication ; nor a 
 
28 
 
 third laying unauthorized hands upon the funds 
 of his own church, appropriating them to his 
 individual uses, and, when detected, pleading 
 in excuse, an irresistible necessity ; the result 
 of an unmanageable amount of debt contracted 
 through his zeal for the honor and advantage 
 of the Episcopalian Church. I know that un- 
 worthy ministers are to be found in all the de- 
 nominations of christians, and that the Episco- 
 palian Church is possibly not more unfortunate 
 than others in that respect; but I am not 
 aware that there is any other protestant Church 
 in which the infamy of a minister may be 
 aggravated by the consideration that it super- 
 venes after a solemn ceremony purporting to 
 convey to him the Holy Ghost, with the power 
 of remitting and of retaining the sins of other 
 individuals. If the same form of ordination 
 exists in any other Church, that fact will bring 
 such other Church equally within the scope of 
 the objection now made to the Episcopalian ; 
 but the circumstance that the objection may be 
 applied to both, cannot diminish its force as to 
 either. Episcopalians say that the treasure of 
 the Holy Ghost may be lodged in earthen ves- 
 sels ; that the preciousness of the pearl is nowise 
 diminished by the cheapness of the casket which 
 
29 
 
 contains it. But when the vessel is not only 
 earthen, but foul ; when the casket is known 
 to contain dead men's bones and all unclean- 
 ness, the presumption is surely a reasonable 
 one, that no treasure, no pearl is to be found 
 within ; that the owner of the treasure and the 
 pearl would neither have chosen impure recep- 
 tacles for them in the first instance, nor have 
 permitted his receptacles, if pure when selected, 
 to contract impurity afterwards. And as the 
 doctrine of the Episcopalians asserts that ordi- 
 nation conveys the Holy Ghost alike to all who 
 are ordained, to the vilest, no less than to the 
 purest ; the reasonable presumption from their 
 own doctrine is, that ordination never conveys 
 the Holy Ghost to all. 
 
 The only mode, I apprehend, in which that 
 presumption could possibly be repelled, would 
 be to appeal to effects produced by Episcopalian 
 ministrations, and to show, by the comparison 
 of those effects with the results from the minis- 
 trations of other protestants, that the former 
 ministrations so far transcend all the others in 
 power and efficiency, as to constitute a diversity 
 absolutely unaccountable except upon the sup- 
 position that the Holy Ghost pre-eminently, if 
 not exclusively, directs and enforces the former, 
 3* 
 
30 
 
 and therefore may be presumed to reside, in 
 some peculiar manner or degree, in and with 
 the clergy of the Episcopalian Church. But 
 what will be the result of such an appeal ? If 
 the collective body of the Church of England 
 should be compared with the collective body of 
 the dissenters in that country, whether in re- 
 spect to actual numbers, rate of increase, or 
 the piety and christian graces exhibited by the 
 professors of religion within the Establish- 
 ment and without it, the comparison might, 
 with some reason, be objected to by the Epis- 
 copalians, as incapable of affording any decisive 
 result ; for as well the remarkable growth and 
 spread of dissent, as the lukewarmness, levity, 
 worldliness, irreligion, immorality, and even 
 profligacy, so notoriously and extensively pre- 
 valent among the laity of the established. 
 Church, must be referred in some measure, a 
 measure neither known nor ascertainable, to 
 the connexion between that Church and the 
 civil state, by the operation of which the 
 minister of every parish is compelled to baptize 
 all the children brought to him for the purpose, 
 whether he is satisfied that their religious edu- 
 cation will be subsequently attended to or not. 
 Eor, as these children become, by the act of 
 
31 
 
 baptism, members of the established Church, 
 and so continue until they formally separate 
 themselves from it by uniting with some other 
 communion, the body of the established Church 
 is almost necessarily composed, to a great 
 extent, of nominal members, who, having re- 
 ceived little or no education of a religious kind, 
 can scarcely be expected to illustrate the power 
 of religion by their characters or conduct. Let 
 us turn, then, to our own country, and make 
 the comparison between the Protestant Epis- 
 copal Church of the United States, and the 
 other protestant denominations here ; and first 
 in respect to numbers. 
 
 There is a common story of a juryman who, 
 on rejoining his family after a protracted 
 absence, reported that he had just been de- 
 livered from eleven of the most obstinate men 
 he had ever conferred with in his life, who had 
 kept him confined until the adjournment of the 
 court, by perversely uniting in a wrong verdict, 
 and pertinaciously refusing to be convinced of 
 their error by any argument or remonstrance 
 he could address to them. If the whole Episco- 
 pal church of the United States, ministers and 
 members, were equitably distributed as mission- 
 aries among the other protestants, each Episco- 
 
32 
 
 palian would find himself in a predicament 
 similar to that of the luckless juryman, with 
 this difference, that his share of obstinate dis- 
 senters from the true church would be forty 
 instead of eleven, and would compose a con- 
 gregation nearly as large as the average of 
 the Episcopalian congregations throughout the 
 country. The Baptists alone are fourteen 
 times as numerous as the Episcopalians, while 
 the Methodists outnumber them in a still greater 
 degree. And if the proportion of ministers to 
 members in the Episcopal church be compar- 
 ed with the proportion of ministers to mem- 
 bers in the other protestant churches, the 
 remarkable fact appears, that the Methodist, 
 Baptist, Presbyterian, and Congregational min- 
 isters have congregations of one hundred and 
 forty members each, upon an average, while 
 the average congregation of the Episcopalian 
 minister contains only forty five members. 
 These numerical points of the comparison will 
 be verified by a reference to any common sta- 
 tistical account of the religious denominations 
 in the United States. Is it credible that the 
 ministerial labours of priests who have received 
 the Holy Ghost should result in effects bearing 
 no higher proportion to those produced by the 
 
33 
 
 labours of ministers who have neither received 
 the like gift, nor pretend to have received it, 
 than the proportion of forty five to one hundred 
 and forty ? 
 
 When the members of the Episcopal church 
 are compared with those of the other protestant 
 churches in respect to the manifestation of the 
 appropriate graces and virtues of the christian 
 character, there will, I presume, be no ground 
 for asserting that the former possess any de- 
 cided superiority over the latter. In a sermon 
 of Dr. Bedell's, one of the series upon the mes- 
 sage to the church of Laodicea, (Rev. iii. 14 — 
 21,) that divine has expressed the opinion that 
 the members of his own church, the Protestant 
 Episcopal church of the United States, were as 
 compared with christians of other denomina- 
 tions, peculiarly chargeable with the sins of 
 lukewarmness in religion and of worldliness. 
 Whether there has subsequently been any ma- 
 terial improvement among the Episcopalians in 
 that regard, I do not know ; possibly there may 
 have been ; but none, it may be presumed, so 
 remarkable as to require or justify the conclu- 
 sion that Episcopalian ministers are peculiarly 
 endowed with the Holy Ghost. 
 
 Whether, therefore, we look to the Episco- 
 
34 
 
 palian ministers themselves, or to the effects of 
 their ministry upon others, there appears no 
 ground whatever for believing that Episco- 
 pal ordination conveys the Holy Ghost. 
 
 Next, as to the power of remitting and re- 
 taining sins. That this power, even as possessed 
 by the apostles themselves, amounted to a 
 proper and absolute power of pardoning sins, 
 or refusing to pardon them, has never been 
 supposed by any protestant. As a judge is 
 invested with authority to pronounce the ac- 
 quittal or the condemnation of those who are 
 accused before him, yet the sentence he is au- 
 thorized to pronounce, is not the expression of 
 his own arbitrary will, but the voice of that 
 higher and supreme civil power which enacted 
 the law he administers, and gave him his autho- 
 rity to administer it ; so the power of remitting 
 and retaining sins, even as conferred by Christ 
 upon his apostles, is understood to import no 
 more than authority to declare the sentence of 
 God, either forgiving sins, or refusing to forgive 
 them. But whether the apostles received in 
 each particular case a particular inspiration, 
 immediately directing the sentence which in 
 that case they were to pronounce, or whether 
 they were enabled, by their inspired faculty 
 
35 
 
 of discerning the spirits of men, to know in 
 every instance the sincerity or insincerity of 
 repentance, the presence or the absence of the 
 requisite spiritual dispositions, and thereupon 
 proceeded to apply the general determination 
 of the deity to the particular case, and to de- 
 clare, from their knowledge of that general 
 determination, that the individual before them 
 was forgiven of God, or that he remained un- 
 forgiven ; by whatever means or process they 
 acquired their knowledge of the sinner's actual 
 condition in the sight of God, no christian has 
 ever doubted that such knowledge was absolute, 
 or that the sentence they pronounced was to 
 be received with the same implicit confidence 
 as any other of their declarations of the divine 
 will. When St. Peter declared to Ananias 
 and Sapphira that by their deceitful conduct 
 they had lied unto God, and proceeded to pro- 
 nounce the awful sentence of their condemna- 
 tion, the divine ratification of that sentence 
 was immediately manifested to all, and could 
 by no possibility be mistaken. But in what 
 I sense can it be said that the Episcopalian priest 
 receives the power of remitting and retaining 
 sins? If no more is meant than that he receives 
 the power of inflicting and remitting ecclesias- 
 
36 
 
 tical censures, the words of the ordaining 
 bishop become little better than an absurdity, 
 since in that case their interpretation must be 
 this : " Whomsoever thou dost repel from the 
 communion table, he is repelled ; whomsoever 
 thou dost restore to the privilege of commu- 
 nion, he is restored ; on whomsoever thou dost 
 inflict, or to whomsoever thou dost remit, any 
 other ecclesiastical censure, on him such cen- 
 sure is inflicted, or to him it is remitted." If 
 it is meant that the priest receives authority to 
 announce to ofi'enders, that, if they have truly 
 repented of their sins, those sins are forgiven 
 of God, and that otherwise they remain unfor- 
 given ; such authority would seem to be of 
 very little importance, since the scripture itself 
 plainly and repeatedly declares it to be the will 
 of God to forgive sins, or to retain them unfor- 
 given, according to the repentance or impeni- 
 tence of the sinner. If it is meant that the 
 priest receives authority to go beyond the hy- 
 pothetical declaration of the Scripture, and to 
 make to particular ofi'enders a positive and un- 
 qualified announcement that their particular 
 sins are forgiven of God, or a like announce- 
 ment that God retains them unforgiven, then 
 it must also be meant that every such exercise 
 
37 
 
 of the priestly authority will be "warranted and 
 required by a special revelation of the divine 
 will to the priest, or else that there is imparted 
 to him by the bishop's ordination, along with 
 the power of remitting and retaining sins, or 
 rather as necessarily implied in that power, the 
 faculty of discerning the spirits of men, and 
 distinguishing real from simulated repentance 
 with absolute and infallible certainty. No 
 argument can be needed to prove, that all pre- 
 tence of inspiration co-operating in either mode 
 with the exercise of the priestly authority must 
 be unfounded and presumptous, to use the mild- 
 est terms of censure that can possibly be applied 
 to it. Whether the priest remits or retains an 
 ecclesiastical censure, whether he declares to the 
 offender that his sin has been forgiven of God, 
 or that it is retained unforgiven, the justice 
 and propriety of the sentence must necessarily 
 be brought into review before the higher tribunal 
 of the offender's own conscience; and should the 
 judgment of that tribunal assure him that he 
 has truly repented of his sin, or that his heart 
 remains hard and impenitent, however the 
 priestly sentence may have implied or declared 
 the contrary, dark must be his ignorance, and 
 gross indeed his superstition, if he continue to 
 4 
 
38 
 
 attach to that sentence any authority or im- 
 portance whatever. I conclude, then, that while 
 there is evidence perfectly satisfactory to the 
 mind of every christian that the apostles were 
 endued with the Holy Ghost, and with autho- 
 rity to declare, absolutely and without qualifi- 
 cation, the will of God in respect to the remission 
 and retention of sins, there is no evidence what- 
 ever that either the Holy Ghost, or any such 
 authority to declare the remission and retention 
 of sins, is conveyed to the Episcopalian priest 
 by the ordination of the bishop. The form of 
 ordination is therefore, to my apprehension, 
 irreverent and blasphemous. 
 
39 
 
 III. I cannot believe that, in Baptism, infants 
 are regenerated by the Holy Spirit. 
 
 That this is a doctrine of the Episcopal 
 Church, there can be no doubt. In the baptis- 
 mal service, the priest, after performing the act 
 of baptism, thus addresses those who are pre- 
 sent : " Seeing now, dearly beloved brethren, 
 that this child is regenerate, and grafted into 
 the body of Christ's Church, let us give thanks 
 unto Almighty God for these benefits." And 
 after repeating the Lord's Prayer, he continues 
 his address to the Deity in these words ; " We 
 yield thee hearty thanks, most merciful Father, 
 that it hath pleased thee to regenerate this 
 infant with thy Holy Spirit, to receive him for 
 thine own child by adoption, and to incorporate 
 him into thy holy church." 
 
 It is conceded on all hands that no express 
 authority for this doctrine is to be found in the 
 Scripture, inasmuch as the Scripture contains 
 no positive proof that, in the time of the apos- 
 tles, infants were baptized at all. Supposing 
 it however to be rendered, by other considera- , 
 tions, probable, or even certain, that the baptism 
 of infants has the authority of apostolic usage, 
 
40 
 
 Still it remains to be shown, that when the 
 Scripture speaks of baptism as connected with 
 regeneration, the baptism of infants is reason- 
 ably to be included within the scope of the 
 scriptural words; which can no otherwise be 
 shown, than by showing a reasonable probability 
 that infants, or persons baptized during infancy, 
 as well as persons baptized in adult age, were 
 in the mind of the inspired writer when those 
 words were written. 
 
 To support the general doctrine of baptismal 
 regeneration, the words of St. Paul in the 
 Epistle to Titus (iii. 5,) are mainly if not ex- 
 clusively relied upon. The apostle there, speak- 
 ing of the Deity, says, ''not by works of 
 righteousness which we have done, but accord- 
 ing to his mercy he saved us, by the washing 
 of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy 
 Ghost." The question therefore is, whether 
 these words declare baptism to be, in respect to 
 infants as well as adults, a washing of regenera- 
 tion, and renewing of the Holy Ghost. 
 
 The Epistle to Titus, who had been left by 
 St. Paul in Crete, contains the apostle's direc- 
 tions to him for the government and instruction 
 of the churches in that island. Though great 
 uncertainty exists as to the time when this 
 
41 
 
 epistle was written, (some commentators refer- 
 ring it to the 56th year of the christian era,others 
 to the 63d, 64th, or 65th,) here are two points 
 connected with the epistle, in which there is a 
 very general concurrence of opinions : first, 
 that St. Paul, who, according to his own decla- 
 ration in Romans xv. 20, and 2 Corinth, x. 
 16, strove to preach the Gospel, not where 
 Christ was named, lest he should build upon 
 another man's foundation, and not to boast in 
 another man's line of things ready made to 
 his hand, would not have undertaken the regu- 
 lation of the churches in Crete, unless they 
 had been formed of converts made by his own 
 labors in the Gospel, and consequently that 
 those churches were formed of such con- 
 verts ; secondly, that he would not have left 
 them for any considerable period without a 
 provision for their government, discipline, 
 and regular instruction, and consequently 
 that this epistle to Titus, making such provi- 
 sion, was written within a short time, pro- 
 bably within a few months, after the apostle 
 had himself left Crete. If the conclusion upon 
 those points be taken as correct, (and it is 
 obviously reasonable) it becomes almost impos- 
 sible to believe that the apostle referred to or 
 4*= 
 
42 
 
 had in his mind the baptism of infants, even 
 if infants, as well as adults, had been baptized 
 by him in Crete a short time before. For, 
 after directing Titus to put the christians of 
 Crete in mind " to be subject to principalities 
 and powers, to obey magistrates, to be ready 
 to every good work, to speak evil of no man, 
 to be no brawlers, but gentle, showing all meek- 
 ness unto all men," he proceeds to assign the 
 reason for requiring such exercise of forbear- 
 ance, gentleness, and meekness, as follows; 
 '< For we ourselves also were sometimes foolish, 
 disobedient, deceived, serving divers lusts and 
 pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful, 
 and hating one another. But after that the 
 kindness and love of God our Saviour toward 
 man appeared, not by works of righteousness 
 which we have done, but according to his mercy 
 he saved us, by the washing of regeneration, 
 and renewing of the Holy Ghost." That St. 
 Paul, in giving instructions how the christians 
 of Crete ought to deport themselves towards 
 the gentiles around them, should have had any 
 reference to infants baptized only a short time 
 before, as to whom such instructions could be 
 only a prospective provision for the period when 
 they should reach years of maturity, is obviously 
 
43 
 
 somewhat improbable ; but the improbability of 
 any reference to such infants, or indeed to any 
 persons baptized in infancy, is very greatly in- 
 creased, rising indeed almost to an impossibility, 
 when we consider the reason assigned for the 
 required deportment of the Cretan christians 
 towards the gentiles. Por though the apostle, 
 here as in other places, in order to mitigate the 
 severity of his censure, speaks of himself as if 
 identified with those whose former character 
 and conduct he condemns, (applying to himself 
 and his Cretan converts the personal pronouns 
 we and us,) he could not possibly mean to in- 
 clude in that censure for past depravity of life 
 those who had been baptized in infancy but a 
 short time before: and it is very improbable 
 that he could have intended to apply such a 
 censure to any persons whatever, who had re- 
 ceived christian baptism in their infancy ; for 
 it is very improbable that any such persons, the 
 children of christian parents, should, after their 
 baptism, have become so depraved as to justify 
 the application of such a censure, and yet be 
 found, at the date of the apostle's letter to 
 Titus, still remaining among the christians for 
 whose benefit the directions contained in that 
 letter were intended. Add to this, that the 
 
44 
 
 persons spoken of as saved by the washing of 
 regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost, 
 are, according to the most natural construction 
 of the apostle's language, exclusively those who, 
 prior to their baptism, had been thus depraved 
 in character and conduct; and consequently, 
 according to the most natural construction of 
 the apostle's language, the words " the washing 
 of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy 
 Ghost" could not have been intended to describe 
 or be applicable to the baptism of infants. Such 
 is also the opinion of Rosenmuller, who, in his 
 commentary upon those words, says, " It is to 
 be noted that Paul speaks of the baptism of 
 adult persons, who at that period were almost 
 solely baptized." 
 
 If we look to the characters and conduct of 
 persons baptized in infancy for any evidence 
 of spiritual regeneration by such baptism, we 
 shall look in vain. Should a given number 
 of children of Episcopalian parents, who have 
 caused them to be baptized during their infancy, 
 be compared with an equal number of the chil- 
 dren of Baptist parents, who regard such bap- 
 tism as a blasphemous desecration of one of the 
 sacraments appointed by Christ, no difference 
 would probably be perceptible between the 
 
45 
 
 baptized and the unbaptized. We should pro- 
 bably find that all of them had been alike in- 
 nocent during infancy, alike frolicsome and 
 mischievous during childhood, and alike eager 
 in the pursuit of pleasure, and careless about 
 the concerns of religion, during the period of 
 youth ; and, upon searching the records of the 
 courts appointed for the trial of criminals, we 
 should probably discover that as many of the 
 regenerated children of Episcopalians, as of the 
 imregenerate children of Baptists, had been 
 ultimately hanged. 
 
46 
 
 IV. I think that some of the forms commonly 
 observed in the 2^ublie service of the Episcopal 
 Church, if they do not encourage superstition, at 
 the least are trifling and ridiculous, and there- 
 fore unsuitable to the solemn character of the 
 Christian tv or ship, 
 
 I refer here to the peculiar dress commonly 
 worn by Episcopalian priests while engaged in 
 performing the public offices of religion, and to 
 the change made in that dress during the pro- 
 gress of the service. 
 
 My objection to the official costume of the 
 Episcopalian priest is not that which I have 
 known some persons to urge, that it assimilates 
 the wearer to an ancient lady, and therefore 
 renders him ridiculous ; for, in that view, I can- 
 not but think that the garb, instead of being 
 liable to objection, is often eminently appropri- 
 ate ; but one ground of my objection is that the 
 feeling of the ludicrous is excited at a time and 
 place in which none but thoughts and emotions 
 of a solemn description ought to occupy the 
 mind. That the view of an Episcopalian priest 
 in his priestly array does excite the feeling of 
 the ludicrous, until custom has rendered the 
 
47 
 
 spectacle familiar, and worn the feeling away, 
 I suppose is undeniable. But the same feeling 
 is perhaps still more powerfully aroused, when, 
 at a particular stage of the service, the priest 
 is observed to retire from the view of the con- 
 gregation, and, after an absence of a few min- 
 |utes, to emerge from his retirement and resume 
 his station, equipped in a suit of robes diiferent 
 from the first. The amused fancy of the spec- 
 tator, who has not been rendered, by long usage, 
 capable of encountering the sudden transforma- 
 tion with composure or indifference, instantly 
 wings its way to the theatre, as the only place 
 (except the Roman Catholic church) where a 
 similar spectacle can be enjoyed ; and if the 
 erratic fancy should happen to possess some en- 
 dowment of Greek, it may very possibly return 
 from the excursion in perplexed meditation upon 
 the circumstance that the Greeks gave to the 
 play-actor, because it was his vocation to pre- 
 sent simulated characters and feelings, the 
 same title which the Founder of Christianity so 
 often applied to the scribes and pharisees ; a 
 class of persons noted for the peculiarity, among 
 others, of making broad their phylacteries, and 
 enlarging the borders of their garments. 
 It appears to me, however, that other and 
 
48 
 
 more serious objections may be urged against 
 the distinctive costume of the Episcopalian 
 clergy. That costume was undeniably adopted, 
 with some modifications, from the ecclesiastical 
 garb of the Roman Catholic priesthood, who 
 derived theirs either from the priests of heathen 
 Rome, or from those of the Jewish religion. 
 From the readiness of the christian clergy in 
 ancient times to borrow from either paganism 
 or Judaism any forms or ceremonies which they 
 thought adapted to decorate or recommend their 
 own system of religion, it may be impossible 
 now to ascertain from which of the two sources 
 the Roman Catholics derived the notion and 
 the fashion of their peculiar ecclesiastical garb. 
 Nor do I think that certainty upon that point 
 is at all material : for I can discern no ground 
 whatever for supposing that the Deity would be 
 more likely to regard an ecclesiastical dress 
 with favor, because adopted from a system of 
 forms, ceremonies and sacrifices, which, though 
 instituted by himself, had been instituted for a 
 temporary purpose only, and had accordingly, 
 after serving the appointed purpose and lasting 
 the appointed time, been utterly and forever 
 abolished, not only by his own express declara- 
 tion, but by the total destruction of the Temple 
 
49 
 
 and city in which alone those forms and cere 
 monies were appointed to be observed, and those 
 sacrifices to be offered. The garb of the Roman 
 Catholic priest appears to me neither better if 
 derived from the Jews, nor worse if derived from 
 the pagans; but in my judgment there was 
 obvious impropriety in its original adoption 
 from either, if the sole purpose of such adoption 
 was, as I believe it to have been, to assimilate 
 the ministers of Christ to the pagan or Jewish 
 priqsts, at a time when paganism was dominant, 
 and Judaism, notwithstanding the fearful calami- 
 ties by which the Jewish nation had been visited, 
 was still powerful : and I think there would be 
 the same impropriety in retaining it at the 
 present day, if the relative circumstances of 
 paganism, Judaism and Christianity had re- 
 mained unchanged. But those circumstances 
 have long been reversed ; paganism is extinct 
 in the countries of Europe where it once held 
 sway ; Judaism withering under the divine male- 
 diction pronounced upon its adherents, is every- 
 where powerless and despised ; and Christianity 
 has long been the professed religion of the most 
 enlightened and powerful nations of the earth. 
 I think, therefore, that the original force of 
 the objection to the garb of the Roman Catholic 
 5 
 
50 
 
 clergy, on account of its derivation from pagan- 
 ism or Judaism, has been greatly diminished, 
 though by no means entirely destroyed ; since 
 no length of time or change of circumstances 
 can ever, in my opinion, render it entirely 
 proper for Christianity to wear the livery either 
 of a false religion which has become extinct, or 
 of a religion which, though of divine institution, 
 has according to christian belief, been super- 
 seded by the same divine authority which estab- 
 lished it. And if it was improper for the early 
 christians to adopt their ecclesiastical dress 
 from the pagans or the Jews, I cannot under- 
 stand how it should be proper for the Episcopa- 
 lians to adopt theirs from the Roman Catholics, 
 whom they, in common with the other protest- 
 ants, profess to regard as a corrupt and idolatrous 
 church. Opinions may vary as to the degree 
 and importance of the impropriety; but that 
 some impropriety must exist in the case can 
 scarcely be doubted by christians who recollect 
 that St. Paul, writing to the Corinthians, pro- 
 nounced it disgraceful for a man to pray or 
 prophesy with his head covered, or to wear long 
 hair, (1 Corinth, xi. 4, 14,) though it is obvious 
 that these practices must have been in their 
 own nature things indifferent, and therefore 
 
51 
 
 could only have been disgraceful by reason of 
 the customs and particular modes of thinking, 
 which at that time prevailed in that country. 
 The commentators in general inform us that it 
 was ignominious for a free man to wear a cover- 
 ing upon his head, because such a covering was 
 the badge of servitude, or because criminals 
 about to undergo capital punishment had their 
 heads muffled up by the executioner, or perhaps 
 for both those reasons ; and that for a man to 
 wear long hair was the common and notorious 
 sign of infamous effeminacy. Some persons 
 may prefer the explanation given by Yalpy and 
 others of the censure passed by St. Paul upon 
 the practice of praying or prophesying with the 
 head covered; an explanation which renders 
 that censure still more effectual to support our 
 present argument. Yalpy 's note is as follows : 
 "The Jews used to pray with the head covered. 
 The Corinthians, though converted to Christian- 
 ity, conformed to the practice, out of regard 
 to Pharisaical traditions, and in imitation of the 
 customs prevailing in the synagogues. The 
 apostle therefore remonstrates against it." 
 Whether the Jews were at that time accus- 
 tomed to pray with the head covered, is repre- 
 sented by Rosenmuller as doubtful : but there 
 
52 
 
 can be no doubt that such was the practice of 
 the gentiles. Why should the Episcopalians 
 have adopted from the Roman Catholics, and 
 to this day retained, an ecclesiastical dress 
 wholly different from any dress commonly 
 worn by men, either in this country, or in 
 England since the period of the reformation ? 
 Can any reason be assigned except an undue 
 anxiety to preserve some visible and palpable 
 sign of relationship to that great community of 
 idolaters called the Roman Catholic church? 
 
 My objection, however, to the dress of the 
 Episcopalian priests, is neither entirely nor 
 even mainly founded upon its derivation from 
 the Roman Catholic church. I object to it 
 chiefly because I cannot find in the Scriptures 
 of the New Testament any indication that in the 
 earliest period of Christianity the ministers of 
 the Gospel were, upon any occasion, or in any 
 place, distinguished from other christians by 
 any peculiarity of dress, and because I think 
 that the assumption by christian ministers of a 
 distinctive dress, to be worn only upon parti- 
 cular occasions, is inconsistent with the spirit- 
 ual and catholic character of the christian 
 religion, and tends to the encouragement of 
 superstition. 
 
53 
 
 I cannot find that either Christ or his apostles 
 ever wore any other than the common dress of 
 the time and country. The coat of Christ, we 
 are informed, was without seam, woven from the 
 top throughout, (John xix. 23;) particulars 
 which the Evangelist details for the mere pur- 
 pose of accounting for the fact that lots were 
 cast for it by the soldiers who attended the 
 cruciixion. I find also that St. Paul possessed 
 a cloak ; but it could not have been an ecclesi- 
 astical garment, since, either from convenience 
 or by accident, he left it behind him at Troas. 
 (2 Tim. iv. 13.) There is indeed a tradition, 
 preserved by Eusebius in his Ecclesiastical His- 
 tory, book Y., ch. 24, as delivered by Poly crates, 
 bishop of Ephesus, towards the close of the 
 second century, that St. John wore the sacerdotal 
 plate (ro Ti^ctoxov) ; and it may be presumed that 
 a plate bearing some resemblance to that which 
 the high priest of the Jews wore upon the front 
 of his mitre, (Exodus xxviii. 36, 37, 38,) was 
 intended by the tradition. Cruse, the translator 
 of Eusebius, in a note upon this tradition, ob- 
 serves : " The sacerdotal plate here mentioned, 
 is not to be understood of the Jewish priesthood, 
 for John had no connexion with that. It is 
 probable that he, with others, .-wore a badge 
 
54 
 
 like tMs, as the priests of a better covenant." 
 The great majority of the protestant writers, 
 however, entertained a very different opinion 
 from that expressed by the translator in the 
 last sentence of his note. They think it alto- 
 gether improbable that St. John wore any such 
 plate, and without scruple or hesitation reject 
 the tradition that he did so, as no better than 
 an idle legend, if designed to be understood in 
 the literal sense ; though some of them prefer 
 to assign a figurative meaning to the words of 
 Poly crates, and to regard them as importing no 
 more than that St. John held the same authority 
 and estimation among the christians of Asia, 
 and the same superiority to other ministers, 
 which the high priest possessed among the Jews. 
 Those who may think the matter worthy of 
 farther examination, can refer to Dr. N. Lard- 
 ner's Works, vol. 4, p. 448-9, (London edi- 
 tion of 1838,) and to Routh's Reliquioe Sacrae, 
 vol. 1, p. 381-2, (Oxford edition of 1814.) A 
 similar tradition preserved by Epiphanius con- 
 cerning St. James, the brother of the Lord, is 
 obviously entitled to even less respect; for 
 Epiphanius lived and wrote at a period much 
 later than that of Polycrates, and his story is 
 burthened with additional improbabilities from 
 
55 
 
 the circumstance tliat it relates to a bishop of 
 Jerusalem, who lived in that city, and died 
 there while the Temple was yet standing, so that 
 it cannot be supposed the fanatical Jews would 
 have permitted him to assume and wear a badge 
 which belonged exclusively to the sacred cos- 
 tume of their, high priest. These legends 
 cannot, I think, furnish any support to the idea 
 that the apostles of Christ were distinguished 
 by dress, or by any external badge whatever, 
 from their fellow christians. 
 
 Indeed the distinction of christian ministers 
 from other christians by a peculiar dress, to be 
 worn only at certain times, appears to me to 
 involve an obvious forgetfulness or disregard, so 
 far as relates to the priesthood and priestly 
 ministrations, of the great and characteristic 
 diflference between Christianity and other sys- 
 tems of religion. Judaism and all known 
 forms of paganism have been local religions ; 
 the functions of their priests were only to be 
 performed at particular places and at prescribed 
 times ; the priestly robes were only to be worn 
 in those places and at those times ; and it gen- 
 erally happened in the case of the pagan priest, 
 and but too frequently in the case of the Jew- 
 ish, that all trace of his religious character 
 
56 
 
 disappeared when he laid his robes aside. Dur- 
 ing the whole period that Julius Caesar was 
 engaged in seeking and acquiring the fame of 
 being the most dissolute man in Rome, he was 
 a priest of the Roman religion ; during the 
 whole period that, at the head of Roman ar- 
 mies, he was engaged in bearing through the 
 world the terror of the Roman name, and the 
 still greater terror of his own, he was the su- 
 preme head of the Roman hierarchy, the high 
 pontiff of the Roman state. This rt. reverend 
 clergyman lived and died, as is well known, be- 
 fore Christianity had dawned upon the world ; 
 yet the christian bishops of Rome, who subse- 
 quently assumed his priestly designation, if not 
 also the fashion of his priestly robes, might 
 have claimed him, with far more propriety than 
 they claimed the humble fisherman of Galilee, 
 as their great ecclesiastical predecessor and 
 model. His catholic ambition, for which the 
 empire of the whole world was not too vast an 
 object, his surpassing dexterity and success in 
 political intrigue, indeed nearly every part of 
 his majestic and commanding character, might 
 well attract the veneration of such ecclesiastics 
 as those who have too often filled the episcopal 
 throne of christian Rome : and doubtless no one 
 
57 
 
 of them ever wore the pontifical robes, and dis- 
 charged the priestly office with more appropri- 
 ate dignity and grace, than Julius Csesar did 
 when, at the close of some victorious military 
 I campaign, in which tens of thousands of human 
 I beings had been sacrificed on the bloody altar 
 I of his insatiable ambition, he returned to head 
 I some sacred procession through the streets of 
 I Rome. The Jewish priests differed from Julius 
 i Caesar and his brethren of the pontifical college, 
 !in being the ministers of a true and not of a 
 false religion ; but their ministrations were not 
 less confined to appointed times, while they 
 were subjected to even greater restriction in 
 respect of place. Christianity, on the contrary, 
 has nothing of the local and restricted, either 
 in its spirit or its ministrations. The whole 
 human race are the objects of its care, the 
 whole earth is its temple, and all times and 
 places are appropriate for the ministrations of 
 its priesthood. The christian minister is such 
 no less, and no less engaged in discharging 
 the proper duties of his office, while visiting 
 the sick, the imprisoned, and the afflicted, while 
 praying in the midst of his own family, or 
 while leading the minds of the worldly and 
 the careless, by conversation in the parlour or 
 
58 
 
 in tlie street, to reflect upon the subject of reli- 
 gion, than while occupied with the public ser- 
 vice in the church on the Lord's day. Why then 
 should he wear a peculiar dress in some of his 
 ministrations, and not in others ? Are the more 
 public of those ministrations more eminently sa- 
 cred than the rest? If they are not, (and certainly 
 it is difficult to imagine any reason why they 
 should be) the peculiar dress of the minister 
 ought, it should seem, either to be worn every- 
 where and at all times, or not to be worn at all. 
 I think that it is best for christian ministers 
 to follow the example of the apostles, and to 
 wear no peculiar dress or badge of distinction 
 at all. They do not need any for the purpose 
 of keeping their sacred character present to 
 their own remembrance, for they never at any 
 time forget it, and are rarely indeed chargea- 
 ble with neglecting to follow the example of 
 St. Paul in magnifying his own office. Other 
 men are sufficiently apprised of the presence of 
 a priest, when they see him engaged in per- 
 forming the appropriate duties of the priest- 
 hood ; and they need not to be apprised of it 
 at any other time. Not only am I unable to 
 discern how a peculiar ecclesiastical habit, 
 whether worn continually or only worn upon 
 
59 
 
 particular occasions, can ^subserve any useful 
 purpose, but I think I can""plainly discern that, 
 when worn but occasionally, as it is worn by 
 the Episcopalian priest, it tends to foster su- 
 perstition, both in the wearer himself, and in 
 the members of his congregation. When a 
 portion of the offices performed by the christ- 
 ian minister are visibly severed and distinguished 
 from the rest by the circumstance that during the 
 performance of that portion, the minister always 
 wears a peculiar dress, that circumstance tends 
 obviously, in my opinion, to create'an impression 
 that the offices so distinguished are superior in 
 sanctity to the others. Nor is such a tendency 
 operative upon those alone who regard the pecu- 
 liar dress as something venerable and imposing in 
 itself; for those who regard the dress as ridi- 
 culous are at the same time perfectly conscious 
 that the priest does not wear it for the purpose 
 of being ridiculed. I have already intimated 
 that I could discern no reason for believing one 
 part of the priestly ministrations to be, in their 
 own nature, more sacred than another. But the 
 particular ministrations during which the ec- 
 clesiastical dress is worn are commonly per- 
 formed in the church and on the Lord's day ; 
 and thoucrh none of them are, even in the 
 
60 
 
 opinion of Episcopalians, invalid if performed 
 elsewhere than in the church, or on another 
 than the Lord's day, yet it is quite possible 
 that in their opinion some superior sanctity is 
 to be attributed to those particular offices by 
 reason of superior sanctity in the day or place, 
 or both, in which they are usually performed ; 
 and that consequently the performance of them 
 is appropriately distinguished by the priest's 
 wearing at the time, a peculiar dress. The 
 sanctity of the Lord's day cannot, I think, 
 be the source from which the Episcopalians 
 themselves would choose to derive any supe- 
 rior sanctity of the ministrations usually per- 
 formed on that day ; for I presume they would 
 not admit that the service in their church on 
 the festivals of Christmas and Good Friday, 
 or indeed on any festival or other day what- 
 ever, is inferior in sanctity to the like service 
 performed on the Lord's day. And on that 
 point I should concur with them in opinion ; 
 for though the Lord's day may be peculiarly 
 appropriate for the public offices of the christ- 
 ian worship, and consequently the neglect to 
 perform them on that day may be peculiarly 
 censurable, I cannot understand how the sanc- 
 tity of the offices themselves should be di- 
 
minislied by performing them on another day. 
 The only other conceivable source of superior 
 sanctity in the ministrations in question, must 
 consequently be the holiness of the place in 
 which they are usually performed ; that is, the 
 church. And that from this source Episcopa- 
 lians do actually derive some part of the sanc- 
 tity which they, in common with all other 
 christians, attribute to the offices of the 
 christian worship, I infer as well from the 
 I terms of veneration in which they commonly 
 speak of their churches, as from the words of 
 Hooker, in his Ecclesiastical Polity, book V. 
 sect. 16. " Our opinion," he says, "concern- 
 ing the force and virtue which such places 
 have, is, I trust, without any blemish or stain 
 of heresy. Churches receive, as everything 
 else, their chief perfection from the end 
 whereunto they serve. Which end being the 
 public worship of God, they are, in this con- 
 sideration, houses of greater dignity than any 
 provided for meaner purposes. For which 
 cause they seem after a sort even to mourn, 
 as being injured and defrauded of their right, 
 when places not sanctified, as they are, pre- 
 vent them unnecessarily in that pre-eminence 
 and honour. Whereby also it doth come to 
 6 
 
m 
 
 pass, that the service of God hath not then 
 itself such perfection of grace and comeliness, 
 as when the dignity of place which it wisheth 
 for doth concur. Again, albeit the true wor- 
 ship of God be to God in itself acceptable, 
 who respecteth not so much in what place as 
 with what affection he is served ; and therefore 
 Moses in the midst of the sea, Job on the 
 dunghill, Ezekias in bed, Jeremy in mire, Jonas 
 in the whale, Daniel in the den, the children 
 in the furnace, the thief on the cross, Peter 
 and Paul in prison calling unto God, were 
 heard, as St. Basil noteth ; manifest, notwith- 
 standing, it is, that the very majesty and 
 holiness of the place where God is worshipped, 
 hath in regard of us great virtue, force and 
 efficacy, for that it serveth as a sensible help 
 to stir up devotion ; and in that respect, no 
 doubt, bettereth even our holiest and best 
 actions in this kind. As therefore we every- 
 where exhort all men to worship God; even 
 so, for performance of this service by the 
 people of God assembled, we think not any 
 place so good as the church, neither any exhor- 
 tation so fit as that of David, « worship 
 the Lord in the beauty of holiness.' " Hook- 
 er's opinion respecting the sanctity of churches 
 
63 
 
 (at least those belonging to the English Estab- 
 lishment) is here very plainly expressed. He 
 speaks of them as places sanctified, and thinks 
 that our holiest and best actions in the worship 
 of God are bettered by the majesty and holi- 
 ness of the place (that is, the church) where 
 such worship is ofi"ered. And from the fre- 
 quency and confidence with which Episcopalians 
 in general, and Episcopalian priests in parti- 
 cular, apply to their churches the titles which 
 in the Scripture are appropriated to the Taber- 
 nacle and the Temple, there is little ground for 
 suspecting that the sentiments of Hooker would 
 by any of them be regarded as at all over- 
 strained or exceptionable. In those sentiments, 
 however, I cannot concur. I cannot believe 
 that any sanctity whatever belongs to the 
 Episcopalian churches, or to any other build- 
 ings used for the purposes of christian worship. 
 Whence is such sanctity to be derived ? Man 
 cannot confer it ; and what reason is there for 
 believing that it is conferred by the Deity ? I 
 cannot find, in any presumed analogy of the 
 Jewish tabernacle or temple to the christian 
 church, any ground for the inference that God 
 sanctifies the latter as he sanctified each of 
 the former. To my apprehension, the only 
 
64 
 
 real analogy consists in the circumstance that 
 the christian church is a structure appropriated 
 to the worship and service of God, and that 
 such also were the tabernacle and the temple ; 
 while the difference in other respects is so great, 
 and to my own reflection so obvious, that I 
 cannot comprehend by what process even Epis- 
 copalians could have attained the capability of 
 overlooking or disregarding it. God himself 
 expressly commanded the erection of both the 
 tabernacle and the temple, and gave particu- 
 lar directions concerning the form and struc- 
 ture of each ; he promised to honour and sanctify 
 each by making it his chosen and peculiar 
 habitation upon earth, and accordingly in each 
 of them he continually manifested the visible 
 tokens of his presence. The tabernacle and 
 the temple received from the permanent pre- 
 sence of the Deity, a permanent holiness which 
 was altogether unaffected by the personal 
 character or individual objects of those who 
 resorted to them, and composed their congre- 
 gation: the temple continued to be a holy 
 place, even when it had been converted, as we 
 learn from the highest authority, into a den of 
 thieves. But God has given no subsequent 
 command for the erection of any other temple 
 
65 
 
 to his honour and for his worship ; he has given 
 no promise to sanctify any other by his per- 
 manent presence within it. On the contrary, 
 the divine founder of Christianity, as if anti- 
 cipating the judaizing proclivities of some who 
 in after ages should call themselves his fol- 
 lowers, and expressly designing to counteract 
 and rebuke them, has declared that wheresoever 
 two or three should be gathered together in his 
 name, there would he be in the midst of them. 
 It^ is therefore the assembly of christians, how- 
 ever humble and obscure, and wheresoever 
 congregated, whether in dens and caves of the 
 earth, in the field, or on the mountain's side, 
 in the lowly cottage, the stately palace, or the 
 gorgeous temple,— it is the assembly itself and 
 alone, which, by attracting the divine presence 
 and regard of Christ, hallows any place what- 
 soever for the time ; while, on the other hand, 
 the dissolution of the assembly to which the 
 presence of Christ had been for the time 
 vouchsafed, leaves every place of meeting, 
 alike the church and the field, again without 
 sanctity as at the first it was. In the words 
 of the old puritan Gillespie, (cited in a note 
 upon the foregoing passage from Hooker, in 
 the edition of Hanbury,) " How much more 
 6* 
 
soundly do we hold with J. Rainolds, that unto 
 us christians no land is strange, no ground un- 
 holy ; every coast is Jewry, every town 
 Jerusalem, every house Sion, and every faith- 
 ful company, yea every faithful body, a temple 
 to serve God in. The contrary opinion Hos- 
 pinian rejecteth as favouring Judaism; alligat, 
 enim religionem ad certa loca. Whereas the 
 presence of Christ among two or three gathered 
 together in his name maketh any place a church, 
 even as the presence of a king with his attend- 
 ants maketh any place a court." 
 
 I conclude, therefore, that the sanctity of 
 the christian ministrations is in no degree de- 
 rived from any sanctity of the place in which 
 they may happen to be performed; that no 
 portion of those ministrations can properly be 
 regarded as superior in sanctity to the rest ; 
 and that consequently the distinction of a por- 
 tion from the rest, by the priest's use of a 
 peculiar ecclesiastical garb while engaged in 
 performing them, tends to encourage supersti- 
 tion, by tending to encourage the idea that such 
 difference of sanctity does exist between differ- 
 ent parts of those ministrations. 
 
 The following passage from Hallam's Consti- 
 tutional History of England might reasonably 
 
67 
 
 be expected to produce some impression upon 
 the Episcopalians themselves. It shows the 
 opinion which generally prevailed among the 
 fathers of the Established Church of England 
 upon the subject of the ecclesiastical vestments ; 
 and further shows to what influence it must be 
 attributed that the use of those vestments was 
 retained in that church. 
 
 "Such a reluctance," says Hallam, "as 
 the queen (Elizabeth) displayed to return in 
 every point even to the system established 
 under Edward, was no slight disappointment 
 to those who thought that too little had been 
 effected by it. They had beheld at Zurich and 
 Geneva the simplest, and, as they conceived, 
 the purest form of worship. They were per- 
 suaded that the vestments still worn by the 
 clergy, as in the days of popery, though in 
 themselves indifferent, led to erroneous notions 
 among the people, and kept alive a recollection 
 of former superstitions, which would render 
 their return to them more easy in the event of 
 another political revolution. They disliked 
 some other ceremonies for the same reason^ 
 These objections were by no means confined, as 
 is perpetually insinuated, to a few discontented 
 persons. Except Archbishop Parker, who had 
 
remained in England during the late reign, and 
 Cox, bishop of Ely, who had taken a strong part 
 at Frankfort against innovation, all the most 
 eminent churchmen, such as Jewel, Grindal, 
 Sandys, Norvell, were in favour of leaving off 
 the surplice and what were called the popish 
 ceremonies. Whether their objections are to 
 be deemed narrow and frivolous or otherwise, 
 it is inconsistent with veracity to dissemble that 
 the queen alone was the cause of retaining those 
 observances, to which the great separation from 
 the Anglican establishment is ascribed. Had 
 her influence been withdrawn, surplices and 
 square caps would have lost their steadiest 
 friend ; and several other little accommodations 
 to the prevalent dispositions of protestants 
 would have taken place. Of this it seems im- 
 possible to doubt, when we read the proceed- 
 ings of the convocation in 1562, when a pro- 
 position to abolish most of the usages deemed, 
 objectionable w^as lost only by a vote, the 
 numbers being 59 to 58." In a note upon the 
 last sentence, the historian adds : " It was pro- 
 posed on this occasion to abolish all saints' 
 days, to omit the cross in baptism, to leave 
 kneeling at the communion to the ordinary's 
 discretion, to take away organs, and one or 
 
69 
 
 two more of the ceremonies then chiefly in dis- 
 ipute. Norvell voted in the minority. It can 
 hardly be going too far to suppose that some of 
 ithe majority were attached to the old religion." 
 (Vol. I. ch.'^4, second English edition, p. 237, 
 238.) 
 
 If any Episcopalian should chance to read 
 these remarks, and feel disposed to make the 
 objection, that to impute to the Episcopalian 
 use of ecclesiastical vestments a tendency to 
 encourage superstition, is to impute to the use 
 of them by the Jewish priests under the Mosaic 
 dispensation a similar tendency, I reply, for 
 his peculiar benefit, (for only an Episcopalian 
 or a Roman Catholic could make the objection 
 or need the reply,) that the Deity himself pre- 
 scribed the fashion of the Jewish ecclesiastical 
 garments, and expressly commanded that they 
 should be worn by the Jewish priests while en- 
 gaged in performing the duties of the priestly 
 office; and that the obedience of those priests 
 to the positive command of God could not 
 possibly have any tendency to encourage super- 
 stition. It is the uncommanded and voluntary 
 adoption of similar garments by the Episcopa- 
 lian priests, without even a warrant from any 
 creditable tradition of apostolic usage or sane- 
 
70 
 
 tion, that distinguishes their case from that of 
 the Jewish priests, and leaves their own practice 
 open to the charge of superstitious tendency, 
 •while no such charge can without irreverence 
 and blasphemy be applied to that which pre- 
 vailed in the service of the Jewish tabernacle 
 and temple. 
 
71 
 
 V. I believe that some parts of the Communion 
 Service of the Episcopal Church tend directly to 
 Inculcate superstition and idolatry. 
 
 1. At a certain stage of the communion ser- 
 vice, before the consecration of the bread and 
 wine, the priest reads to the people a few sen- 
 tences from the Scripture, and then exhorts 
 them to lift up their hearts, and invites them 
 to join him in giving thanks to the Lord ; to 
 which the people make suitable responses. The 
 order of the service then presents the following 
 direction: ''Then shall the priest turn to the 
 Lord's table, and say. It is very meet, right, 
 and our bounden duty, that we should at all 
 times and in all places give thanks unto thee, 
 Lord, Holy Father, Almighty, Everlasting 
 God." 
 
 This brief address to the Deity contains a 
 simple acknowledgment of the obligation to 
 render to him the homage of thanksgiving. 
 Not even a reference to the sacrament or to 
 the table is contained or implied in the words 
 spoken by the priest. Why then is he required, 
 before he utters them, to turn to the commu- 
 nion table, turning, of course, his back upon 
 
"72 
 
 tlie congregation ? The idea naturally suggested 
 by such a requisition is, that the Deity is more 
 immediately present in that direction. But if 
 that idea, thus naturally suggested, is in fact 
 intended to be conveyed, I think that the intent 
 is to inculcate a plain and unequivocal super- 
 stition. Christ has indeed promised that where 
 two or three are gathered together in his name, 
 there he will be in the midst of them ; and 
 Episcopalians are therefore warranted in the 
 belief that, when they assemble for public wor-i 
 ship, the presence of Christ is with them. Butt 
 there is no warrant whatever for the belief thatt 
 his presence is exclusively or peculiarly in one 
 direction, or in one part of the church. I know, 
 that under the Mosaic dispensation the presence 
 of the Deity was not only vouchsafed to the 
 tabernacle and the temple, but was peculiarly 
 and visibly manifested in one particular part, 
 —upon the mercy-seat, between the cherubim. 
 Do Episcopalians thence infer that in a christ- 
 ian church also there must be a local and mate- 
 rial mercy-seat, upon which the divine presence^ 
 sits peculiarly though invisibly enthroned ; and 
 that the communion table constitutes such a 
 mercy-seat ? If the action required from the 
 priest is required without any definite meaning 
 
73 
 
 or object, the requisition becomes frivolous and 
 absurd, and consequently objectionable on that 
 ground : if it has a definite meaning and object, 
 as I presume the Episcopalians must believe 
 that it has, I can imagine none that would not 
 be liable to the charge of superstition. 
 I 2. At a stage of the service earlier than that 
 |to which I have just referred, the priest is re- 
 I quired to return to the Lord's table, and begin 
 I the Offertory, at a later stage, immediately 
 ; following the consecration of the bread and 
 I wine, the service of the Episcopal church of the 
 United States (differing in that respect from 
 the service of the Episcopal church of England, 
 as I learn from a note of the American editor 
 of Whytehead's Key to the Prayer Book) con- 
 tains a part called the Oblation. These ominous 
 names are taken from the mass book of the 
 Roman Catholic church, in which they refer 
 directly to the offering of that idolatrous sacri- 
 fice which all protestants Profess to hold in 
 devout abhorrence. The Oblation of the Epis- 
 copal church of the United States is in the 
 following words : " Wherefore, Lord and 
 heavenly Father, according to the institution 
 of thy dearly beloved Son our Saviour Jesus 
 Christ, we, thy humble servants, do celebrate 
 7 
 
74 
 
 and make here before thy Divine Majesty, v.ith 
 these thy holy gifts, which we now offer unto 
 thee, the memorial thy Son hath commanded 
 us to make ; having in remembrance his blessed 
 passion and precious death, his mighty resur- 
 rection and glorious ascension ; rendering unto 
 thee most hearty thanks for the innumerable 
 benefits procured unto us by the same." In 
 like manner, in the mass book of the Roman 
 Catholic church, immediately after the conse- 
 cration of the bread and wine, there follows an 
 Oblation, of which the following is an exact 
 version : ^'Wherefore, Lord, we thy servants, 
 as also thy holy people, having in remembrance 
 the so blessed passion of the same Christ thy 
 Son our Lord, and likewise his resurrection 
 from the dead, as also his glorious ascension 
 into heaven, offer to thy illustrious Majesty, of 
 thy donations and gifts, a Victim pure, a victim 
 holy, a victim unspotted ; the holy Bread of 
 eternal life, and Cup of everlasting salvation." 
 In order that those who may wish to test the 
 accuracy of the version may have no trouble in 
 doing so, I subjoin the words of the Latin origi- 
 nal : "Undo et memorcs, Domine, nos scrvi 
 
 tui, sed ct plebs tua sancta, ejusdem Christi 
 Filii tui Domini nostri tam beatse passionis, nee 
 
75 
 
 non et ab inferis resurrectionis, sed et in coelos 
 gloriosc^ ascensionis, offerimus prseclarse Maje£- 
 ^ati tu«, de tuis donis ac datis, Hostiam puram, 
 hostiam sanctam, hostiam immaculatam: Pa- 
 nem sanctum vitse seternge, et Calicem salutis 
 ■perpetuae." 
 
 The oblation of the Episcopal church, it will 
 be observed, contains the remarkable words, — 
 ^ these thy holy gifts, which we now offer unto 
 ■ thee." Why are the bread and wine here called 
 [the holy gifts of God? Is it meant that they 
 'are at all times and in their own nature holy; 
 lor that they are holy by reason of the conse- 
 ,cration which they have just i^eceived from^ the 
 'priest? As I cannot suppose that the Episco- 
 palians attribute to bread and wine any inherent 
 sanctity by which they are distinguished from 
 other gifts of God, I must presume that the 
 holiness intended in this place is that which 
 they derive from the consecration. We find 
 the Roman Catholics, then, offering to God, of 
 his own gifts, a victim pure, holy, unspotted; 
 we find the Episcopalians offering to God his 
 own holy gifts of bread and wine, rendered thus 
 holy by the priest's consecration. What is the 
 effect that Episcopalians suppose to be produced 
 upon the bread and wine by the consecration, 
 
76 
 
 in virtue of wliich eflfect, whatever it may be, 
 it becomes admissible and proper to speak of 
 those elements as holy ? If it be meant that 
 the bread and wine are holy because the conse- 
 cration has converted them into the body and 
 blood of Christ, then the clause under con- 
 sideration contains a direct offer to God of the 
 body and blood of Christ, and is unequivocally 
 tantamount to the words used in the Roman 
 Catholic oblation, which all Protestants under- 
 stand, and all Roman Catholics acknowledge, 
 to import the offer of a visible and tangible 
 sacrifice ; words which all Protestants therefore 
 profess to condemn as superstitious and blasphe- 
 mous, even as they profess to believe that the 
 practice of the Roman Catholics in adoring 
 their own sacrifice, under the designation of 
 the body and blood of Christ, is idolatry. If 
 it be meant, not that the elements of bread and 
 wine are converted by the consecration into the 
 body and blood of Christ, but that by the con- 
 secration the body and blood of Christ become 
 united to the elements of bread and wine, and 
 incorporated with them, there will obviously be 
 no material difference in the case ; the Episco- 
 palians will only be found offering to God, 
 instead of the unmixed body and blood of 
 
77 
 
 t 
 
 Christ, tlie same body and blood mixed and 
 incorporated with the material elements of bread 
 and wine. If the bread and wine are rendered 
 holy neither in the one of these modes nor in 
 the other, so that the holiness resulting from 
 : their consecration implies neither the Roman 
 Catholic doctrine of transubstantiation, nor the 
 Lutheran doctrine of consubstantiation, but 
 something different from both ; what is the 
 nature of that different effect which the conse- 
 cration produces, and in what sense are the 
 elements to be termed holy ? When we examine 
 the words spoken by the priest in what is de- 
 nominated the prayer of consecration, we find, 
 previous to the oblation, nothing more than a 
 brief expression of praise and thanks to God 
 for the blessings procured to men by the sacri- 
 fice of Christ upon the cross, with the addition 
 of a recital, taken from the evangelical history, 
 of the actions and words of the Saviour at the 
 time of instituting the sacrament. Consequently 
 the words thus far spoken by the priest, contain- 
 ing not even a prayer to God that the bread and 
 wine may become sanctified, are not a consecra- 
 tion, and we must look to the actions of the priest 
 as the means through which the consecration is 
 effected. We find that he is directed, as he 
 7* 
 
78 
 
 utters the words " This is my body," in his re- 
 cital of the evangelical narrative, to lay his 
 hands upon all the bread (which he has just 
 before broken) ; and as he utters the words 
 " This is my blood," to lay his hand upon every 
 vessel in which there is any wine to be conse- 
 crated. It is clear, therefore, that the bread 
 and wine receive their consecration from the 
 imposition of the hands of the priest, and by 
 virtue of that imposition alone do they acquire 
 the character of holy things. But whence does 
 the priest himself derive the power of conferring, 
 by the imposition of his hands, holiness upon 
 that which possessed no holiness before ? I 
 presume it must be from his own possession of 
 the Holy Ghost, received at the time of his 
 ordination by the bishop. And I suppose 
 farther, that the effect which Episcopalians 
 attribute to the consecration, and the sense in 
 which they denominate the consecrated ele- 
 ments holy, must (if the doctrines of transub- 
 stantiation and consubstantiation be rejected) 
 amount at least to this : that the elements of 
 bread and wine have a virtue and an efficacy 
 imparted to them by the consecration, which 
 cause them to become, to him who worthily re- 
 ceives them, the medium of participation of the 
 
79 
 
 body and blood of Christ; and consequently 
 that, unless such virtue and efficacy are so im- 
 parted to them, they cannot serve as the medium 
 of such participation. I have already stated, 
 in some detail, my reasons for believing that 
 the priest does not, by the ordination he re- 
 ceives from the bishop, become, in any proper 
 sense, invested with the Holy Ghost ; and it is 
 scarcely necessary to remark, that I certainly 
 do not and cannot believe him to acquire by 
 ordination any such power of the Holy Ghost 
 as would be implied in the virtue and efficacy 
 which Episcopalians attribute to his consecra- 
 tion of the sacramental elements. Indeed, the 
 very claim of such a power, as resulting from 
 ordination by the bishop, is to my own mind a 
 convincing proof that irreverence and blasphemy 
 are the proper characters of the form of ordina- 
 tion itself. For, what, in effect, is the doctrine 
 of Episcopalians on the subject of the priestly 
 consecration of the elements, as that doctrine 
 is above deduced (and properly deduced, I doubt 
 not) from the words of their own communion 
 service ? It is, not only that the priest has the 
 power to make that holy which was without 
 holiness before, but that, unless he has duly 
 exercised that power by the imposition of his 
 
80 
 
 hands upon the sacramental bread and upon 
 the vessels containing the sacramental wine, the 
 bread and the wine, though they may be re- 
 ceived by the pious christian in all reverence 
 and with the fullest assurance of faith, are not 
 and cannot become the medium of conveying 
 to him a participation of the body and blood of 
 the Saviour. The priest does not indeed assume 
 the power of controling the effect which the 
 elements he has consecrated shall produce upon 
 the spiritual condition of him who receives them, 
 nor even the power of judging with infallible 
 certainty what that effect will be ; he is content 
 to leave the Deity in undisturbed possession of 
 both that power of control, and that power of 
 infallible judgment; and accordingly, without 
 undertaking to pronounce that any recipient of 
 the consecrated elements will thereby become 
 assuredly participant of the body and blood of 
 Christ, he proceeds, in the part of his prayer 
 called the Invocation, which follows the conse- 
 cration, to beseech that the Deity will vouchsafe 
 to bless and sanctify those elements with his 
 AYord and Holy Spirit, so that those who re- 
 ceive them may be partakers of the most blessed 
 body and blood of Christ. Still the power 
 which he does claim is so vast and wonderful, 
 
81 
 
 that I cannot comprehend how anything short 
 of blasphemy can be attributed to the claim 
 itself, or anything short of the grossest super- 
 stition to the concession of it. 
 
 But whatever be the effect which, according 
 to the Episcopalian doctrine, the consecration 
 produces ; whether it converts the bread and 
 wine into the body and blood of Christ, or in- 
 corporates the substances of the body and blood 
 with those of the bread and wine, or imparts to 
 the consecrated elements some mysterious and 
 ' undefinable quality which they had not before, 
 or leaves them, altogether unchanged ; certain 
 it is that the Episcopalians, according to the 
 express words of their own Communion service, 
 present those elements, substances material, 
 visible and tangible, as an offering to the 
 Supreme Being. Is not this the offence of 
 Nadab and Abihu, who offered strange fire 
 before the Lord, which he commanded them 
 not ? I have always supposed that, whatever 
 other portions of the Law given to the Jews may 
 have been retained in force under the christian 
 dispensation, the system of material sacrifices 
 and offerings was certainly not so retained, 
 either in whole or in part. But those who take 
 for their standard of religious doctrine and duty 
 
82 
 
 the Prayer Book of the American Episcopal I 
 church will there learn a very different lesson. 
 They will learn that the sacrifices and offerings 
 of the christian are not exclusively of a spiritual I 
 and moral nature ; that prayer, praise, thanks- 
 giving, contrition for sin, the holiness and self- 
 denial implied in the christian life, the exercise 
 of charity and benevolence towards fellow beings 
 of the human race, and whatever other moral 
 virtues, religious exercises, and spiritual dispo- 
 sitions may have been described by the figura- 
 tive appellation of sacrifices and offerings to 
 God, if they be not of themselves insufficient,, 
 at least are not exclusively proper, and that; 
 christians may still come before the Most High 
 God with an offering of material things, provided 
 those things be bread and wine consecrated by 
 imposition of the hands of an Episcopalian 
 priest. 
 
 3. The communion service of the Episcopal 
 church requires that the consecrated elements ; 
 shall be received by the communicants, <'all 
 devoutly kneeling ;" and this attitude Hooker 
 pronounces to be ''the gesture of piety." The 
 same attitude is assumed upon the same occa- 
 sion by the Roman Catholics, with whom it 
 certainly is not the gesture of piety ; for it is 
 
83 
 
 the very attitude they have selected as the most 
 appropriate for the purpose of manifesting by 
 an outward sign their idolatrous worship of the 
 consecrated elements, which they believe to 
 have been transmitted by the consecration into 
 the actual body and blood of the crucified 
 Saviour. This attitude being thus pre-occupied 
 by the Roman Catholics, and perverted into a 
 sign and very badge of idolatrous w^orship, the 
 adoption of it by the Episcopalians, as the ap- 
 propriate gesture of piety, seems to come within 
 the precise scope of St. Paul's reprehension 
 before noticed, of the practice of praying and 
 prophesying with the head covered. And yet 
 more remarkable is that adoption, when we 
 reflect that, from the account which the evan- 
 gelical historians have given of the institution 
 of the sacrament in question, it is a matter of 
 almost absolute certainty that the apostles of 
 Christ were not kneeling when they received 
 the bread and wine from the hands of their 
 divine master. Indeed, the Evangelists could 
 not well have rendered that point more unques- 
 tionable, except by expressly stating that the 
 apostles did not kneel ; and an express decla- 
 ration to that effect might well be deemed by 
 the inspired writers a mere superfluity, when 
 
84 
 
 they had just before stated that Christ and his 
 apostles sat down together at the Paschal sup- 
 per, in the course of which the sacrament was 
 instituted. Why then should the Episcopalians 
 deviate from the example furnished at the very 
 institution of the sacrament, and abandon the 
 attitude w^hich the apostles, with the sanction 
 of Christ himself, maintained upon that solemn 
 and memorable occasion, for a " gesture of 
 piety," which, by their own acknowledgment, 
 is also the chosen gesture of idolatry ? Were 
 the apostles, when they received from the hands 
 of the Saviour himself the bread and wine 
 which he himself had blessed and sanctified, 
 less benefitted, and for that reason less bound 
 to assume the attitude of devout thankfulness ? '' 
 or were they less pious, and therefore less 
 inclined to adopt the appropriate gesture of 
 piety, than the Episcopalians are at the present 
 day, when a priest of their church administers 
 to them the sacrament of the Lord's Supper ? 
 Are the Episcopalians better judges of the; 
 attitude which piety and thankfulness require, 
 upon such an occasion, than Christ and his 
 apostles were? Or, finally, is it their belief 
 that the apostles did actually rise from their 
 seats at the table, and kneel down before the 
 
85 
 
 Saviour, to receive from his iiands the bread 
 and wine of the sacrament ? It might seem 
 indeed that such is really their belief, the 
 evangelists to the contrary notwithstanding ; 
 for, in a recent edition of the Prayer Book, I 
 have observed a picture purporting to represent 
 the scene at the institution of the sacrament 
 in which some of the apostles are kneeling at 
 the table on the side opposite to the Saviour, 
 while others (either waiting, we may presume, 
 for the proper time to kneel in their turn, or 
 having already risen from the kneeling posture) 
 are seated. If this picture indicates the belief 
 of Episcopalians respecting the attitude of the 
 first communicants, it would be but an idle 
 expenditure of time and astonishment to mar- 
 vel how they attained that belief; for their 
 capacity of believing without reason or evi- 
 dence, and against the strongest reason and the 
 clearest evidence, has been sufficiently evinced 
 in several of the articles that have already 
 fallen under review. If, however, those who 
 authorized the publication of "the picture in 
 question, did not believe that which it indicates, 
 and which it was evidently designed to impress 
 upon the minds of others, then, in proportion 
 as their own intellectual discernment was clear, 
 8 
 
S6 
 
 ^their conscience must have been blinded, if it 
 failed to perceive that the publication of such 
 a picture was an unworthy and discreditable 
 artifice. 
 
 4. The order of the communion service 
 directs that, at the communion time, the table 
 shall have a fair white linen cloth upon it ; and 
 that, when the minister and people have all 
 communicated, the minister shall reverently 
 replace upon the table what remaineth of the 
 consecrated elements, covering the same wath a 
 fair linen cloth. A fair linen cloth is a very 
 common covering for a table, though not a very 
 common one, I believe, for bread and wine. 
 But why should the order of the service pre- 
 scribe that a fair linen cloth shall exclusively 
 and always be used to cover the table and the 
 remains of tlie consecrated bread and wine ? 
 This direction appears idle and frivolous at the 
 first view ; but it becomes quite significant 
 when we recollect that the crucified body of 
 the Saviour, when removed from the cross, was 
 wrapped in a clean linen cloth, of fine linen, 
 and so was laid in the sepulchre. 
 
 5. The order of the service directs that, if 
 any of the consecrated bread and wine remain 
 after the communion, it shall not be carried out 
 
87 
 
 of the cliurcli; but the minister and other 
 communicants shall, immediately after the 
 blessing, reverently eat and drink the same. 
 These strange regulations, which might utterly 
 confound the simple christian who has deemed 
 it sufficient to study the New Testament for the 
 purpose of understanding the nature of the 
 sacrament which the Saviour instituted at his 
 last supper with the apostles, receive immediate 
 illumination when we turn to the sacrificial 
 law of the Jews : for we find in that law the 
 following injunctions : 
 
 "And this is the law of the meat-ofi'ering ; 
 the sons of Aaron shall offer it before the Lord, 
 before the altar. And he shall take of it his 
 handful, of the flour of the meat-offering, and 
 of the oil thereof, and all the frankincense 
 which is upon the meat-offering, and shall burn 
 it upon the altar for a sweet savour, even 
 the memorial of it, unto the Lord. And 
 the remainder thereof shall Aaron and his 
 sons eat; with unleavened bread shall it be 
 eaten in the holy place ; in the court of the 
 tabernacle of the congregation they shall eat 
 it." (Levit. vi. 14-16.) 
 
 "And this is the law of the sacrifice of peace- 
 offerings, which he shall offer unto the Lord. 
 
If he offer it for a thanksgiving, then he shall | 
 offer with the sacrifice of thanksgiving unlea- 1 
 vened cakes mingled with oil, and unleavened ; 
 wafers anointed with oil, and cakes mingled i 
 with oil, of fine flour, fried. Besides the cakes, ; 
 he shall offer for his offering, leavened bread, 
 with the sacrifice of thanksgiving of his peace- 
 offerings. And of it he shall offer one out of ] 
 the whole oblation for an heave-offering unto 
 the Lord, and it shall be the priest's that 
 sprinkleth the blood of the peace-offerings. 
 And the flesh of the sacrifice of his peace-offer- 
 ings for thanksgiving shall be eaten the same 
 day that it is offered ; he shall not leave any 
 of it until the morning." (Levit. vii. 11 — 15.) 
 
 A similar direction was given, that no part of 
 the flesh of the paschal lamb should be suffered 
 to remain until the morning. (Exod. xii. 10.) 
 
 To my own apprehension it is quite plain 
 that the tendency of those parts of the commu- 
 nion service of the Episcopal church, upon 
 which I have remarked, is to connect with the 
 consecrated bread and wine the inseparable 
 notion of a material sacrifice offered to God, 
 and consisting of the actual body and blood of 
 the Saviour; and consequently I cannot but 
 
89 
 
 believe that those parts of the service tend 
 directly to inculcate superstition and idolatry, 
 I am perfectly aware that the 28th of the 
 Articles of Religion set forth by the Episcopal 
 church contains the following declarations : 
 '''Transuhstantiation (or the change of the Sub- 
 stance of Bread and Wine) in the Supper of the 
 Lord, cannot be proved by Holy Writ ; but it 
 is repugnant to the plain words of Scripture, 
 overthroweth the nature of a Sacrament, and 
 hath given occasion to many Superstitions. — 
 The Sacrament of the Lord's Supper was not 
 by Christ's Ordinance reserved, carried about, 
 lifted up, or w^orshipped." I am aware also 
 that the Articles of Religion are contained in 
 the Prayer Book, and that Episcopalians may 
 there read the 28th article among the rest. 
 But as the Articles are never, I believe, read 
 in the church to the assembled congregation, 
 and as no question is asked about them, and no 
 reference made to them, either in the catechism 
 or in the confirmation service, it is quite within 
 the range of possibility for an Episcopalian to 
 remain for years, or for life, in ignorance that 
 any such synopsis of doctrine as that contained 
 in the Thirty-nine Articles has existence ; nor 
 is it at all improbable that, of those Episcopa- 
 
90 
 
 lians who know the Articles to exist, and to be 
 contained in the Prayer Book, many have never 
 read them. Meanwhile the communion is ad- 
 ministered, and the communion service read at 
 least once in each month ; and though the spirit 
 and doctrine of the 28th article are in a great 
 degree repugnant to the spirit and doctrine of 
 those portions of the communion service which 
 I have made the subject of comment, it is easy 
 to discern that, under such circumstances as 
 those which have just been mentioned, the ser- 
 vice is far more likely than the article to mould 
 the opinions of the worshipper. 
 
 I neither assert, nor believe, that all Episco- 
 palians are given over to superstition and idola- 
 try ; for I cannot pretend to define in how many 
 cases, or to what extent, purity of heart and 
 right affections toward God, or even a fortui- 
 tous encounter with their own 28th article, may 
 enable them to withstand and counteract the 
 contaminating influence of their own liturgy. 
 Forms of doctrine and worship, however, are 
 not designed to try the strength, but to aid the 
 weakness of the worshipper ; and while the fact 
 that some or even very many of the Episcopali- 
 ans are neither superstitious nor idolatrous does 
 by no means exclude the possibility that supersti- 
 
91 
 
 ion and idolati-y may be the constant teachings 
 f their Prayer Book, but at most can only show 
 hat, even if such be the case, other and better 
 cachings may occasionally or frequently be 
 Qterposed with success, I am afraid that in a 
 auch larger number of instances the opinions 
 ntertained by Episcopalians would afford indu- 
 (itable evidence that the general tendency of 
 heir liturgy is such as the foregoing remarks 
 lave attributed to it ; that it is not only in all 
 :ases a severe trial of the strength of the wor- 
 hipper, but in very many cases atrial altogether 
 )eyond his strength. There are several grounds 
 )n which that suspicion rests; but I need only 
 efer to the fact that defection' from the Epis- 
 opal church to the church of Rome is far more 
 common, and obviously more easy, than similar 
 lefection from any other denomination of Pro- 
 :estants ; while many of those who remain within 
 ihe pale of the Episcopal church do not hesitate 
 ;o avow sentiments which so closely approxi- 
 naate them to Roman Catholics, that it is diffi- 
 ult to understand why they retain the name 
 of Protestants at all ,when their protest has 
 ;become as gentle as the " roar ofa sucking dove." 
 Few readers of these concluding remarks will 
 be at any loss to find for them, in the range of 
 
92 
 
 their own acquaintance with Episcopalian pro 
 fessors of religion, and with the writings oi 
 Episcopalian authors, ample materials for spes 
 cific application. 
 
 The considerations I have thus assigned an 
 sufficient to determine finally my own course; 
 and the result is, that I cannot become ail 
 Episcopalian. 
 
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