might here leave him, having shown that he has assailed a position which, among us, he will find no adversary to defend; and in regard to which if he will fight, is must be with a mere fiction of his own imagination.

But, although Mr. Wesley held the identity of the order of bishops and presbyters in the primitive Church, and consequently that the right of ordaining, which flows from the intrinsical power of order, was equally in both, yet it was farther his opinion, and also is ours, that presbyters may agree, for the sake of avoiding confusion, to restrain themselves as to the individual exercise of this right, and to commit its execution to one or more chosen from among themselves, on whom shall be devolved the exercise of this power and of an enlarged jurisdiction as to presidency and oversight. This was the true origin and the true nature of that episcopacy which took place in the Christian Church after the death of the Apostles, and is the principle of that which exists in the Methodist Episcopal Church. Will Titus undertake the task of proving that such a frame of polity, on the principles held by Mr. Wesley, is either unlawful or absurd? Until he accomplishes this, his sarcasm falls harmless at our feet.

On what principle it was that Mr. Wesley, assisted by other presbyters, considered himself justified in ordaining Dr. Coke for the office of a general superintendent in the American Methodist Church, then about to be organized, is already sufficiently 'matter of history.' His acknowledged power of jurisdiction, in relation to the societies of which, under God, he had been the founder, was such as no other man, presbyter or not, did or could possess. This power he was solicited to exercise in behalf of his suffering societies in America, at a time when their case was clearly one of the exigence of necessity,-when the Church of England in America had become extinct, and the Protestant Episcopal Church had never existed. This was a case which justified his proceeding, and that of the original organizers of the Methodist Episcopal Church, on principles conceded even by high-church authorities themselves. For this branch of the argument, were it necessary to enter into it, we might rest our defence on the principles asserted in a pamphlet published in Philadelphia, in 1783, by Dr. (now Bishop) White, entitled 'The Case of the Episcopal Churches in the United States considered.' The arguments and authorities there adduced, so far as regards the general principle in question, were as strikingly adapted to the necessities of the Methodist societies in America, at that period, as to the case of the Episcopal Churches. Perhaps Titus has seen that pamphlet. If he has not, perhaps the publisher of the Episcopal Recorder can furnish him with it. It has been before the public now nearly fifty years, and we are not aware that it has ever been retracted. Indeed, in any case, we might well say of it as Dr. White so appositely remarked of Stillingfleet's Irenicum,—it would be 'easier retracted than refuted.'* But Titus adds, these gentlemen, [Dr. Coke and Mr. Asbury,] considering that superintendent was a long Latin word, and bishop a Scriptural one, assumed the latter as their title, in the face of Mr. Wesley's disapprobation and reprehension.'

Is it then merely the 'title' borne by our bishops that offends Titus? or does he mean to stake both his understanding and his conscience on the desperate position that the solemnities used by Mr. Wesley in setting apart Dr. Coke, and through him Mr. Asbury, were not intended as an ordination, and as the institution of an episcopacy in fact, on Mr. Wesley's principles of episcopacy, for the American Methodist societies? If this be what he means to insinuate, (with the kind design of garnishing Mr. Wesley's sepulchre to be sure, but of slaughtering before it, at the same time, the American Methodist bishops,) we beg leave, since he has so much regard for matters of history,' to quote for his information a passage from a review of Moore's Life of Wesley, for which we believe ourselves indebted to the pen * The editor of the Recorder has asserted that Stillingfleet afterward publicly renounced and opposed' the opinions defended in the Irenicum. We shall be very much obliged to him to inform us where this may be found, in Stilling fleet's own words. The special pleading by which he has attempted to sustain his assertion, scarcely even touches the case. Stillingfleet himself denies that in the business which he had in hand in The Unreasonableness of Separation,' the work to which the Recorder refers, there was any contradiction of what he had said in the Irenicum. The great point maintained in the Irenicum is, that no one form of church-government is so founded upon Divine right that all ages and Churches are bound unalterably to observe it. If it can be shown that Stillingfleet afterward publicly renounced and opposed this position, we pledge ourselves, on conviction, for ever thereafter to renounce his name, as authority on this point, though still not his arguments, or the authorities quoted by him.-As to the passage cited by him from the preface to the book of ordination, Bishops White and Hoadly shall answer both for Stillingfleet and us.-' Dr. Calamy having considered it as the sense of the Church [of England,] in the preface to the ordinal, that the three orders were of Divine appointment, and urged it as a reason for nonconformity; the Bishop [Hoadly] with evident propriety, remarks, that the service pronounces no such thing; and that therefore Dr. Calamy created a difficulty, where the Church had made none; there being "some difference," says he, "between these two sentences- -bishops, priests, and deacons, are three distinct orders in the Church by Divine appointment,- -and- -from the apostles' time there have been in Christ's Church, bishops, priests, and deacons."- The same distinction is accurately drawn and fully proved by Stillingfleet in the Irenicum.'-Case of the Episcopal Churches considered, p. 22, and note.

of the Rev. Richard Watson,-a writer who, perhaps, may be supposed as sincerely concerned for Mr. Wesley's just fame as even Titus.

The author has spent some time in showing that episcopacy, by name, was not introduced into the American Methodist Society by the sanction of Mr. Wesley, who, though he in point of fact did ordain bishops for the American societies, intended them to be called "superintendents." To the statement of this as an historical fact, no objection certainly lies; but the way in which it is enlarged upon, and the insertion of an objurgatory letter from Mr. Wesley to Mr. Asbury on the subject,-can have no tendency but to convey to the reader an impression somewhat unfavourable to Dr. Coke Mr. Moore, indeed, candidly and Mr. Asbury, as though they were ambitious of show and title. enough relieves this, by admitting that, on Mr. Wesley's principle itself, and in his own view, they were true Scriptural episcopoi, and that Mr. Wesley's objection to the name, in fact, arose from its association in his mind rather with the adventitious honours which accompany it in Church establishments, than with the simplicity and pre-eminence of labour, care, and privation, which it has from the first exhibited in America, and from which it could not, from circumstances, depart. Aecording to this showing, the objection was grounded upon no principle, and was a mere matter of taste or expediency.-Whether the name had or had not the sanction of Mr. Wesley, is now of the least possible consequence, as the episcopacy itself WAS OF HIS CREATING." Wesleyan Methodist Magazine for 1825, p. 183."

One other historical authority we will quote for Titus's information :

"Peace being now established with the United States; and Mr. Asbury and the other preachers, having been instrumental of a great revival during the war, solicited [Mr. Wesley] to send them help. Hence, in February this year [1784] he called Dr. Coke into his chamber, and spoke to him nearly as follows: That as the American brethren wanted a form of discipline, and ministerial aid; and as he ever wished to keep to the Bible, and as near to primitive Christianity as he could, he had always admired the Alexandrian mode of ordaining bishops. The presbyters of that great apostolical Church, would never allow any foreign bishop to interfere in their ordinations; but on the death of a bishop, for two hundred years, till the time of Dionysius, they ordained one of their own body, and by the imposition of their own hands. Adding withal, that he wished the doctor to go over and establish that mode among the American Methodists.

All this was quite new to the doctor. The idea of an Alexandrian ordination was at first somewhat revolting to his prejudices. However, being about to set out for Scotland, he weighed the subject for two months, and then wrote his entire approbation of the plan. Accordingly, he was ordained bishop, and brothers Whatcoat and Vasey, presbyters.' Crowther's Portraiture of Methodism, second edition, pp. 412-13.'

This is the 'fact' as to the thing, though it is admitted that Mr. Wesley's desire was that Dr. Coke and Mr. Asbury should retain the title of superintendents. The reasons for this, however, did not exist in America as they appeared to Mr. Wesley in England. And had he been in America, and witnessed the style and the labours of Methodist bishops, (who, we undertake to say, practically, and as to the Divine seal on their commission, exhibit at least as near a resemblance to the apostolical pattern as any in existence,) we are persuaded that the reprehension which, under the influence of misrepresentations and some peculiarly exciting causes about that period, he subsequently expressed in regard to the title, would have been greatly mitigated, if not wholly prevented. Be this, however, as it may, the change of the long Latin word' superintendent for the Scriptural one' bishop, was sanctioned by the American conference, in the exercise of a lawful liberty. But it was a change in the name only. No change whatever was made in the thing. And it is the thing,-the simple fact of episcopacy, in the language of Bishop White,-for which we are concerned.

Titus's taunt is grounded on the assumption that the title 'bishop,' in itself, ex vi termini, imports an order essentially higher than that of a presbyter. But this is a sheer begging of the question-an assumption which certainly has no warrant in the authority of Mr. Wesley. Neither has it any in philology, or in Holy Scripture. We use the term in its true and legitimate sense;-primarily, as signifying an order identical with that of presbyter; secondarily, as the title of a superior officer in that order ;-a primus inter pares,-to whom is committed an extended jurisdiction, with the executive power of ordination and oversight. This we think a sufficient reason both for our original adoption of it, and for refusing to abandon it, now that it is established and well understood. It is those who arrogate exclusive ministerial authority,' and attempt to support this 'extravagant pretension' by an unwarranted use of the term 'bishop,' who abuse and pervert it. As to the possibility of its being misconstrued, in our use of it, if this be a valid objection, what title is there, civil or ecclesiastical, which, on this principle, ought not to be repudiated. Nay, the better course, we think, is to rescue' the title 'from the reproach incident' to its abuse, by explaining, defendding, and retaining it, in its proper sense. This, by God's blessing, we have already in a great measure effected, and hope yet, by the same grace, to prosecute it to so complete a triumph, that Protestant Episcopalians themselves shall be made ashamed of their extravagant pretension,' and of the 'strange [twin] doctrine' of 'uncovenanted mercies;' as we have good reason to believe very many of them already are.

In one respect, however, we are happy to be able to agree with Titus, we mean in the well merited eulogy which he pronounces on Mr. Wesley,-that highly eminent minister of Jesus Christ, who lived and died a presbyter in the Church of England, and whose indefatigable and laborious ministerial exertions, through a long life, tended more to the advancement of vital godliness in England, Ireland, America, and other parts of the world, than those of any other man since the reformation.' We should be willing to ascend even higher. Yet, from such a one as Titus, thus much, perhaps, ought to content us. Possibly, indeed, since even he makes so ingenuous a concession, he may at least bear with our weakness should we indulge the idea, that, if that extraordinary man was not an apostle to others, yet doubtless he was to us, the seals of whose apostleship, or of whose bishopship if you please, we believe to be more numerous, both on earth and in heaven,' than those of any other man," not only since the reformation,' but since the apostolic age.