New-York daily tribune., 1844-02-07

| Your first proof or argument as you teiLi ,'
and your call upon me to osProve II, are no ooups
| a very ingenious mode Oh ehoeaVorhg aga,ii ~
sccompGsh what in the outset you tried and have
constantly been aiming at, that is, to induce me
| to change places with you. shall do no SUCH
! thing. You are afirmant, l respondent You
are bound to prove exclusive Episcopacy, "un-
scrfptural" | am bound to defend It. HIS
DESIRE YOUR READERS NEVER TO FORGET
There are doubtless inconvenience to yourself
| in the attempt to prove negative as you have
! undertaken to do. That is not my fault. You
should have thought of that before.
3. But, thirdlyjI did not insist on holding youto
he strict rules of fair debate met your allega-
t;on with what consider abundant argument to
disprove it. The refutation employed was partly
! nd hominem mot ad inuidiam, as by a strange
confusion of different things you termed it, l
showed, namely, that whether the matter of your
first allegation were true not true, was not an
argument for you to offer; but in addition to this
positively denied, and as sass fully disproved,
! the matter itself of your allegation shall not 60
over that ground again.
submit to our readers that proved, from the
authoritative standards of your own Church, as
supported by Scripture, and the decision OF your
General Assembly, that a MINISTRY EXTERNALLY
| ORDAINED BY ORDAINED MINISTER'S is DIVINE Az
\ IT,
! CONSTITUTION OF A CHURCH, AND THAT 1T Is
sCRIPTURAL DOCTRINE.
A word now ON the extraordinary notion of or
dination put forth in your last letter Notwlth-
standing your intimaton that you know how to
interpret your standards better than do, will
be bold to affirm that neither the formulares oil
your Church, nor your accredited writers, teach
or countenance any such latitudlnarlan doctrine.
| You talk of man becoming lawful minister by
ID "strong and pious desires to honor our mas
ter in the preaching of the Gospel; ~ requisite
endow1nents and (3) the invitation Of the Church,
(embracing the ministry and the people, calling
the individual to the exercise of his gifts -! l
am persuaded that the most learned, sound and
accredited living doctors of your Church would
scout the idea of any man, whatever his e" strong
and pious desires" and his " endowments," ac-
curing any part of his authority as minister IN
virtue of an "invitation of the "people y
And they will tell you, moreover, that ne would
have the authority of minister II ordained Dy
imposition Of hands of the ministry" OF the
Church, even though he and his ordainers should
happen to have erred as to his strong and Plous
desires, and even though the "people should
never have invited - him 'to exercise his gifts"
In nv last two letters I pressed upon you
question in regard to ORDINATION, namely
,nhetAe, man can be lawtuJ minister OF
Christ unless he has been ordained by imposition
5 of hands by other similarly ordained ministers.
) You say that you have answered 1t again and
again" | am obliged to reply that, to my appre-
henson, you have not answered it at all. Ex-
cuse me for saying my belief is, that you dare
not categorically answer 1t, yes or no. At all
events, submit it to the judgement of the sound
theologians of your own Church, that you have
not answered it.
Instead of answering it you have over and over
again cenfounded it with another question, which
have not vet touched upon. You have confound-
ed ordination with succession, besides totally mis-
,, apprehendng the true notion of succession, as
will at a proper time show. 1t is enough for me
to tell you that ordination and succession, how
ever closely connected, are yet taoo perfectly dis
tinct things, and not to be confounded.
/ Whether, on the one hand, your instructive
foresight of what might build upon your ad-
mission of my doctrine concerning ordination,
(Which / contend is also your Church's doctrne,)
and on the other hand your dislike of the position
as toward your own Church in which you would
: be placed by an unqualified denial of it, led you
to euade the point concerning ordination, and
confound it in advance with an erroneous notion
Of succession-this | shall not decide.
That you have confounded ordination and sue
cession l assert, and leave it to your sound theo-
logans to decide between u.s.
If you had answered my question concerning
ordination the way would have been Immediately
open to the question concerning succession-a
question you most unaccountaby imagine am
desrous to avoid 1t is the very question am
anxious to reach.
pressed the point concerning ordination solely
to get at the question concerning succession.
assure you there was no design to entrap you-
no unworthy artifice In my course. supposed,
and still suppose, that between sound Presby-
terian and myself there is no difference, either in
regard to the necessity for an externally ordained
minister or in regard to the Apostolical success
, sion Of that ministry, but that the doctrine of
both our Churches on these two points is per-
r fectly identical; that there is no difference in
: principle; and that the sole question between us
0 s-whether the ordaining power is given by
Christ to all the Presbyters, or limited certain
3 number of chief Presbyters or Bishops.
The correctness of this supposition also refer
to the decision of the intelligent theologians of
your own Church
t In conclusion, simply desire intelligent
and candid readers to Judge whether the whole
, amount Of argument you have advanced in sup
port of your position, that exclusive Epscopacy
is unscrptural," is any thing more than so-
tarv allegation, unsupported by single proof
; from you, and on my part denied and disproved.
| Will you now produce other proofs for your al
legation or, will you Join with me in submitting
this which you term your first argument" as
sufficiently discussed, and proceed to your second
argument IN proof that my dogma-no Church
without Bishops {" unscnptural." submit
that one the other of these things is what the
public and myself have right to expect.
|, am Rev. and Dear Sir, your obedient servant,
JONA. Nj WAINWRIGHT.
February 3,h 1914