blameless of the mifchief which after publication it may actually produce. But when an old book, on a fubje&t which has been difcuffed by modern authors, is republifhed by fubfcription, we must neceffarily fuppofe that the fubfcribers are at least so far acquainted with its contents, as to be able to form a judgment of its tendency and the ability with which it is written; that they adopt indeed the principles of its author; and that the blame which he alone incurred by the original publication is equally incurred by every individual of thofe who fubfcribe for the fecond.

This reafoning the author applies to thofe who have lately fubfcribed for the republication of Ward's ERRATA OF THE PROTESTANT BIBLE, a pamphlet which was firft published in 1688, and which could have given no juft offence to any man, had the author merely pointed out what he deemed errors in our version of the Holy Scriptures, and modeftly propofed different readings as expreffing more exactly the fenfe of the original. But Ward's pamphlet contains many things of a very different tendency from candid criticifm. He boldly affirms, not that our tranflators fometimes miftook the feufe of the original, which, as our Church lays no claim to infallibility, could have given no offence, but

"1. That we Proteftant Divines do obftinately teach contrary to our own confciences, and handle the fcriptures impiously *.

2. That bishops, priefts, and deacons, being Proteftants, are without confecration, ordination, miffion, fucceffion, and paftoral jurifdiction t. And

3. That all thefe and their flocks are guilty of facri

lege +."

Of the first of thefe accufations Dr. Kipling truly obferves, that it not only is not fupported even by a fingle witness even to a single tact, but that from its very nature it is incapable of proof, God alone difcerning the fecrets of all

hearts.

"How then are we to clafs this imputation? among acts of loyalty or among tokens of difaffection? The King of this united kingdom is by an act of the legislature fupreme head of the Church established in it. Therefore the minifters of this Church are fervants of the Crown; and they are all Proteftants. If this accufation then is groundiefs, the accufers have flandered their Sovereign."

* Errata, p. 21

+ Ibid, 97..

In

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In the catalogue of thefe accufers then are many members, both ftudents and teachers, of the college at Maynooth, for the erection and fupport of which the legislature has at different times decreed large fums of money. Was this done that youth may be taught to revile their benefactors and flander their Sovereign?

"Much has been lately faid about certain conceffions made at various times by the King and Parliament to the Papifts in Ireland. Is a privilege to traduce Proteftants without cause and with impunity among those parliamentary boons? Or is the recent practice of traducing us in this manner one of the pernicious effects only of thofe conceffions? No declaration of this nature, that the minifters of the eftablished Church obftinately violate their confciences, are impious interpreters of fcripture, and guilty of facrilege, had ever been openly made by a multitude of Irish Papifts previous to the year 1780. It must be therefore, either that fuch a privilege, as has been juft now defcribed, has fince that period been granted by Parliament, or that fome other parliamentary conceffions have emboldened thofe Papifts to attempt, by calumnious untruths and abufive language, to difcredit the Proteftant Clergy, and render them abominable in the eyes of their congregations. Until the Pope's authority (hall) have been abolished in Ireland, the manners and understandings of the Papists there been confiderably meliorated, and their fentiments. and difpofitions refpecting us Proteftants totally changed, let the legislature beware what other privileges it confers upon them." P. 16.

The ground-work on which the truth of every article of the fecond accufation depends, fays Dr. Kipling, is, mutatis mutandis, the following forites.

"The Bishop of Rome was chief patriarch of the weftern church, and confequently of this nation, when Dr. Parker was appointed Archbishop of Canterbury.

The chief patriarch of the western church, or fome one authorized by him, can alone give paftoral jurifdiction to the primate of England, or to the primate of Ireland.

"The primate of a nation, or fome one authorized by him, or his fuperior, can alone give paftoral jurisdiction to the metropolitan of a province.

"The metropolitan of a province, or fome one authorized by him or his fuperior, can alone give paftoral jurifdiction to the bishop of a diocefe within that province.

"The bishop of a diocefe, or fome bishop commiffioned from him, or his fuperior, can alone institute a paftor to a parish church within that diocefe.

" Dr:

613 "Dr. Parker, the firft Protestant primate in England, did not receive paftoral jurifdiction from the Pishop of Rome.

"Confequently neither this primate, nor any metropolitan confecrated by him, nor any bishop confecrated by fuch metropolitan, nor any paftor of a parifh church inftituted by fuch bishop, nor any fucceeding primate, metropolitan, bishop, or parish priest, of the church established in England, from the time of Archbishop Parker's confecration to the prefent moment, ever had, or pow hath, paftoral jurisdiction‡.”” P. 19,

By the rules of logic, if the premises of a farites be refuted, the conclufion muft fall to the ground. Dr. Kipling therefore fets himself to prove, and proves very completely, that the Bishop of Rome never was invefted, by a divine ordinance, with thofe ecclefiaftical and fpiritual powers which are implied in the firft of these theses; and that when, in 1534, he was bereft of his English patriarchy, he was only deprived of what he had acquired by ufurpation. In the courfe of his reafoning he examines the arguments lately urged by Dr. Troy and others for the fupremacy of the Pope, and fhows every one of them to be inconclufive, and fome of them to be absolutely ridiculous; but when he attempts to prove that St. Peter never was Bishop of Rome, and that Linus and Clement fucceeded to him, not as a bishop, but as an apoftle, we cannot fay that his fuccefs appears to us fo complete. If St. Peter refided in Rome before the appointment of Linus and Clement to the fee, we think that during his refidence he muft have been Bifhop of the Church there, though he was not known by that title. Is not a bishop a clergyman invefted with authority to ordain other clergymen, and to fuperintend and direct their condu&t? Such furely was St. Paul, for he fays exprefsly that" on him came daily the care of all the churches;" (2 Cor. xi. 28.) and if St. Peter refided for any time in Rome, on him likewife must neceffarily have come the care of that church, at least till the appointment of Linus, or whoever was his immediate fucceffor. It was indeed only to that part of his office which was properly epifcopal, over a particular church, that Linus could fucceed; for it appears, from the election of Matthias into the place of Judas, and from St. Paul's proofs (1 Cor. ix. 1.) of his own apostleship, that to the plenitude of the apoftolical

Cranmer was furely the firft Proteftant primate in England, although the clergy of the prefent age derive their orders from Parker. Rev.

+ Errata, p. 97.

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character

character it was effential to "have feen the Lord," which there is no reafon to fuppofe that either Linus or Clement ever did. From the circumflance, ho ever, of fucceeding to St Peter as the Bishop of Rome, or overfeer of the Roman clergy, Linus could derive no authority, which had not been already conferred on the firft Bifhop of Antioch, where we are much more certain that St. Peter founded a church, than we are that he ever was in Rome If the bihops who were ordained by St. Peter to churches, in which he had aunfelfrefided for fone time as fupreme ecclefiaftical governor, had any fuperiority over those who were ordained by the other apoftles to other churches, furely thole privileged piclates were all equal to one another, unlefs it can be clearly fhown from the word of God that the Bishop of ROME was pelerred over the reft. This, however, has not been shown, nor, we believe, attempted to be fhown; and therefore, upon the principles of the Papifts themfelves, the Bishop of Antioch, and indeed of every other church of which St. Peter was the founder, muft poffefs all the fpiritual and ecclefiaftical powers, which by divine ordinance were ever poffeiled by the Bishop of

Rome.

Much has been written on the fupremacy of St. Peter in the college of the apoftles;-much nonfenfe indeed, as well by Proteftants as by Papifts. The reader who wishes to fee the queftion candidly and ably difcuffed, may have recourfe to Bishop Horfley's admirable fermon preached before the Incorporated Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, on 'the 20th of February, 1795. He will there find it proved with the force of demonftration, that " to be the carrier of the keys of the kingdom of heaven," in any fenfe which the paffage of St. Matthew, xvi. 18, 19, will bear, was a personal diftinction of the venerable primate of the apoftolic college, appropriated to him in pofitive and abfolute exclufion of all other perfons: in exclufion of the apoftles his contempora ries, and of the Bifhops of Rome his fucceffors;" that it

We announced fome time ago that two volumes of Sermons by that learned prelate and truly Chriftian preacher are foon to be published by fubfcription. We have access to know that they are now advanced in the prefs, and will be given to the public early in the cnfuing feafon; and we hope either that the fermon to which we have referred will be in the number, or, which would perhaps be more eligible, that all the Sermons which his Lordship publifhed himself, together with his Charges, will be republished in a third volume.

relates

relates folely to the opening of the kingdom of heaven or the Church to the Gentiles, who were formerly excluded from it by the rites of the Mofaic law; and that the keys there promifed were actually given for this purpose to St. Peter, by that vifion, which taught him that all diftinctions of one nation from another were then at an end.

It being proved, by whatever arguments (and it may be proved by a variety) that the Bishop of Rome, whether fucceffor to St. Peter or not, has by divine ordinance no jurifdiction-fpiritual or temporal-over other bifhops, Ward's third accufation alfo falls at once to the ground.

"The third accufation preferred against the Proteftant Church of England and Ireland, by the fubfcribers for the republication of Ward's pamphlet, is, that bifhops, priefts, and deacons, being Proteftants, and all their flocks, are guilty of facrilege. This charge is the fubftance of the two following corollaries to the conclufion of Ward's forites.

"Do they not commit a moft heinous facrilege, who, having neither valid ordination nor paftoral jurifdiction, do notwith ftanding take upon them to adminifter facraments, and exercise all other acts of epifcopal and prieftly functions?

"Are not the people alfo involved with them in the fame fin, fo often as they communicate with them in, or co-operate to, those facrilegious prefumptions?"

"There are two fpecies of facrilege, one of which is a forcible and unjuft appropriation of the church's revenues; the other, a profanation of facred things. Now, if it were true that bifhops, priefts, and deacons, being Proteftants, are without confecration, ordination, and paftoral jurifdiction, it would alfo be true, that all of them who claim and receive tythes, or any other ecclefiaftical property, do rob the church; and moreover, that all of them who adminifter the facraments, feeing that they adminifter them with unhallowed hands, do profane things facred. But the conclufion of Ward's frites, that bishops, priefts, and deacons, being Protestants, are without confecration, ordination, and pastoral jurifdiction, has been difproved: confequently this laft charge, which is wholly founded upon that conclufion, is a grofs calumny."

Yet that calumny has lately been circulated by a multitude of Irifh Papifts, against the Proteftant Clergy of the British Empire, in return for greater favours than the faid Irish Papifls had ever before received from a Proteftant King, a Proteilant Legislature, and a Proteflant Clergy!