The Express.
London, England, 1851-05-22 00:00:00

TO Tllll =ITO II OF TIM DAILY NNW.

Bta,—lt follows hum the argument carried on in
ay pr.eviime letters that the Anglo-catholic theory
of episcopacy ultimately resolves itself into the in-
deper.dent sovereignty of each single bishop, subject
only to au universal council of all the bishops of
Christendom. The combination of a particular num-
ber of bishops into one church, seeing that it rests
on accidental and extraneous limitations, cannot
furnish a binding and imperative reason to any in-
dividual bishop for abandoning what he holds to be
orthodox truth or fur submitting the spiritual
charge of his 'diocese—a charge entrusted to him
by apustolical commission—to the opinions and dicta-
tion of other bishops, superior to him in no one res-
pect but that of numbers. Accordingly this is the
very theory. which the Bishop of Exeter is practi-
eally carrying out. He repudiates the authority,
religious and ecclesiastical, of his metropolitan; ho
anathematises him as a heretic ; he openly announces
his resolution not to submit to the supreme tribunal
of the church of Eughuid, thereby proclaiming
most emphatically that he acknowledges no superior.
The concurrence of the metropolitan in the judgment
given be that tribunal has not the weight of a feather
with him in commanding, if not his personal assent,
at host his canonical obedience ; and there is not the
smallest room for doubting that, even if the assem-
bled episcopate of Englund were to sanction and
ratify that judgment, he: would, with undiminished in-
trepidity and confidence of being right, denounce
them as abettors of heresy and traitors to the truth.
The llishop of Exeter is the recognised champion of
the Anglican doctrine of the episcopate : his course,
in my opinion, is the legitimate application of that
doctrine, for he is working out in practice that con-
clusion, which I had established by argument and
by an analysis of the principles of Anglicanism. I
find therefore no fault with the bishop's logic, what-
ever opinion I may entertain of his loyalty to that
church which gave him his bishopric and its emolu-
ments: only, I ask, what is the irresistible inference
from these premises? The disintegration, the disso-
lution of the church of England: its extinction as a
single church. Remove what, if these principles
and this conduct be correct, is the only link which
binds the church of England together into one
whole, the connexion, namely,
_with the state :
let that church cease to be established, and the laws
of the realm to have any control over the pro-
ceedings of its members, and the inevitable result
both in theory and in fact, will be that the church
of England will disappear altogether. Here might
be 25 churches in so many dioceses; one united
church of England would be a non-existent thing. It
could only be at best, according with what is really
involved in the Anglo-catholic doctrine, but a loose
conglomeration of so many bishops as chose for the
time to act together : for the Bishop of Exeter's con-
duct establishes the accuracy of my conclusion, that
there would be no true, lawful, church bond of union,
which could over-ride the independence of a single
bishop.

But the Anglican appeals to the existence of dis-
tinct national churches from the earliest ages. The
fact is certain, but it does not help the Anglican.
His appeal does not enable him to escape from the
two fundamental principles of protestantism—the
right of private judgment, and that of Christian
ar ietie. or churches to govern themselves; nor does
t-itablish for him in their stead the Anglo-
c.cliolic dogmas of the divine rule of bishops and the
• oval oracle of truth. The history of national
churches, as I showed in my last letter, is pre-emi-
nently the history of discord, disunion, and conflict-
int opinions ; and the episcopate, as such, provides
no guiding light for the distressed searcher after
prate and truth. The appeal to national churches
▪ proves the fact of tfictr existence as separate
and .elf-governed societies; but does nothing for
cliaril; up the points in debate, the principle,
Dan ly on which their legitimacy is founded and the
authority on which the creed they professed was
held to he true. I do not dispute he right of the
witty of Christians in England to act as an inde-
-13,14:nt body, and to lay down their own articles
of f.uth ; quite the contrary; I strenuously
mainflin it. To show me that the church
of -kinea did the same, only. confirms my assertion.
Ti' rt weyt of doctrine, it tells me nothing as to the
rowel• on which African orthodoxy rests; and as
"' mune, the historical existence of the African
rti. rill only records one, among many other in-1
st3l'-'", of the exercise of the inherent right of self-
itinuumetit. Their creed, it is replied, was deter-
by the African bishops; and their church was
rub cl he. epiimpal sway. True; but that creed was
4ritt°74 because it wee decreed by bishops,
hr e. that many other creeds, equally put forth
eat, philotw, have been adjudged to be hereti-
. anti the naked fact that the African
t so-
ciety:l'l'4 theiwerre..f °verlad' es an ind"den •
eatiou mumps, contains noground or josh&
whiten to build the universal doctrines that

Talliis the necessary and only lawful form of
clovernment, and that the bishops of every
separate nation have the right to detach them-
selves from a church of many nations, in which
they had been incorporated. It might just as rea-
, sonably be argued, that because separate nations
have often in the history of the world formed
independent sovereignties, therefore Ireland has an
inalienable right to detach herself from England,
Lombardy from :Austria, and so on. The Greek
!church is one of the greatest of national churches.
The Anglican condemns it as guilty of rejecting one
of the most cardinal points of the Christian faith.
He recognises the apostolicity and legitimacy of the
Greek episcopate, yet that episcopate has not pro-
tected millions of Christians from damnable error,
and does not make the Anglican pause an instant in
exercising his private judgment against it,
and taking side with other bishops against
those of the Greek church. The English episcopate
pronounced a similar judgment of corruption against,
the Roman church, and acquiesced in the disruption
which the state, in the name of the Christians of
England, effected from Rome. Yet the validity of
the Roman episcopate is unchallenged, although
it could not prevent its English members
from judging of religious opinion for them-
selves, and justifying a government founded
ea the revolution carried ant by the State.
We know that episcopacy was for many
ages universal throughout the Christian, as mo-
narchy was universal throughout tho civil world.
We know, too, that the opinion was general tkat
episcopal government was instituted by divine ap-
pointment as the only legitimate form of rule
for Christians, precisely as the same opinion was
generally held respecting kingly power. We
know that, in the absence of any principle
founded on the laws of human nature and
human society, the opinion of the exclusive
legitimacy of kingly rule has been exploded,
and the full and complete title to lawful sove-
reignty of any settled government, whatever be
its form, is acknowledged by the universal consent
of mankind; and I say that it is for the Anglican to
show, the burden of proof lying wholly upon her,
that the parallel form of ecclesiastical polity, episco-
pacy, does not full under the same category, but
possesses an absolute, universal, and eternal preroga-
tive, founded on an express and peremptory charter,
or on its own nature and the nature of the Christian
church, to be the solo legitimate organ of govern-
ment for Christians.

And here it is where the fatal weakness of the
Anglican theory plainly reveals itself. It is utterly
Unable to assign any great and adequate ends for the
sake of which this perpetual and exclusive privilege
should have been conferred on episcopacy. There
are, indeed, two great and glorious ideas which have
been the objects of the most ardent aspirations of the
heat and noblest of men : two final causes, so blessed,
me exalted, as to be able to worthily justify the crea-
tion of any special institution for their attainment.
Truth and unity in every age have kindled the most
longing desires and the most vehement affection in
the hearts of the holiest Christians, and have been
the objects of their keenest search, amidst the con-
flict of creeds and Christian churches. Truth and
unity are the priceless legacy which good men
fondly believe their departing Lord must have
bequeathed to his sorrowing people, and they are the
divine blessings of which catholic theory proclaims
the episcopal church to be the sole depositary. To
realise truth and unity for Christians was the catho-
lic episcopate instituted; and therefore truth and
unity are the indispensable logical conditions of the
catholic theory. One holy and aixxitolical church is
Se motto of all catholics. Cathclieity and unity
ace, if not identical, at least cognate ideas,
mutually implying each other. The Anglicans
emphatically claim to be catholics. They rest their
legitimacy as Christians on their catholicity. Yet,
alas! truth and unity are precisely the results for
which the Anglican theory does not offer the least se-
curity. It sees episcopate battling against episco-
pate—one national creed warring with another: a
doe p and inward principle whereby to ex-
tract truth and unity from such elements the
Anglican theory has none. If the catholicity and
legitimacy of the church of England depend on the
principles of her constitution providing for truth and
unity, according to the tractarian theory (and this
must be dune in such a manner as that every appeal
to the fatal protestant principle of private. judgment
in establishing the orthodoxy of her doctrines by ca-
tholic consent, stall be rigorously excluded), then
hopeless indeed is the task to acquit her of
being a schismatic, and to prove that she
has not cut herself off by rebellion from
the communion of the one only church. Does
catholic unity consist in the confession of the same
orthodox doctrine? By the belief in the procession of
the Holy Spirit, and the denial of transubstantiation,
the English episcopate is separated from almost the
whole episcopate of Christendom. Is catholicity
union? Then shall the Anglican layman be told
that he possesses it in the communion of some 30
bishops, proscribed and repudiated by thousands of
the undoubted successors of the apostles ? How is
he to defend his church against the terrible sentence
of schism, except by invoking that glorious principle
which is the birthright of every Christian, as well as
of every man—the name and power, and intrinsic
majesty of truth, as she reveals herself within every
human breast ? And if catholicity cannot be found
by the Anglican, either in uniformity of doctrine,
or in social union with other episcopal churches, in
what does it consist? In the institution of episcopacy
But what is that in the Church of England but
mere similarity of outward polity, an external form,
a rite; no reality or power. I say similarity ;
far an episcopate which has neither the right of de-
claring the faith, nor of judging supremely in the
church, nor of acting as its legislature, is no more
identical with an episcopate which possesses all them
powers, than the monarchy of Russia is identical
with the monarchy of England. To say that Eng-
land had political catholicity with Russia would in-1
deed be a strange assertion ; and would at any rate
Iplace catholicity. in the most purely superficial re-
'semblance in no inner life or principle.
Since then the church of England, by her confes-
sion of faith and her isolated existence, bears witness
to the fact that episcopacy gives no guarantee far
truth of doctrine or ecclesiastical unity, what moral
or spiritual end can be assigned for its being
made an indispensable element of a Chris-
tian church ? It is a priesthood, replies again
the Anglican; it alone is empowered to impart vali-
dity to the sacraments. But what is this, I ask, Intel
a:claim founded on a purely arbitrary enactment-1
a condition resting on no moral law or principle, but
solely and simply on the Lord's good pleasure ? God
forbid that I should question with the faintest breather
doubt the Lord's right to create such an arbitrary
condition of church membership. We are saved by
his grace and mercy ; it is not for us to challenge
the terms he is pleased to impose on the salvation
we owe to his bounty. But the whole question
here is the evidence we have of the Lord's will.
If the privilege claimed by the episcopate to have
been made priests between God and man, and to
be alone empowered to constitute the sacraments
• mesas of grace is not founded on any natural
fltnesa, of any inherent spiritual qualification
' presaged by bishops, as compared with any other
ofileers, appointed in any other manner by the
Christian people, but rests solely on the simple ex-
pression of the Lord's good pleasure, then the
Christian church is entitled to demand the clearest,
most indisputable, and peremptory evidence of soak
an enactment—the must explicit and unchains..
able charter for such a prerogative. It is menden*
by the confession of eatholics of every age, that sari
a charter is not to be found in Scripture, as inter-
preted by the ordinary laws of language ; and ae the
Church of England claims no power of affixing to the
words of the sacred volume any other sense than
such as is warranted by those laws, and rejects every
doctrine, as an essential part of revelation, which Is
not found in that volume, we tell the Anglican
is the name et the Christian ; that the divine