of power continued without question in the primitive Church, and descended without interruption to bishops, the acknowledged successors of the Apostles; that a prerogative, which did not exist in the beginning, could not exist in the descent, unless it were innovated and introduced by a new authority; that consequently, by the law of Christ, there is no sovereign hierarch to be "lord over God's heritage'," no pontifical potentate to exercise supremacy of dominion, or universality of jurisdiction, over his brethren; but that all bishops are, by Divine right, possessed of equal authority; and that every member of the episcopal order is stamped with the same character; and asserts a perfect and entire share in the same episcopate, according to the sentence of the Nicene Council, and the constant doctrine of the primitive Catholick Church.

We know that her character has been impugned, and her faith pronounced insufficient for salvation, because her creed contains not certain adscititious articles of belief, which the Apostles knew not, which have no resting place in the Apostles' doctrine, but which are indeed mere modern gratuitous innovations, unwholesome excrescencies, corrupt appendages on the apostolical and primitive faith;

in many instances directly opposed to God's holy word, and incompatible with the true Catholick faith of Christ's Church.

We know that her character has been impugned, and her rule of faith pronounced to be "a cold, uncertain, unprofitable, dumb, killing, and dead letter;" incapable of teaching men what they must do to be saved, and unfit to be made the ground of our hopes of salvation, unless the true written word of God be accompanied by another unwritten word, and expounded by a paramount interpreter, from which even the Scripture itself derives its authority: although she perceives, in the word of God itself, no intimation of any such partner and interpreter; although such an addition would in her estimation be derogatory to the excellence of the written word, and inconsistent with its own high pretensions, as alleged in its behalf by Christ and his Apostles; and although the Catholick fathers and bishops of the primitive Church had recourse to nothing but the acknowledged writings of the Prophets and Apostles, for the establishment of the truth, and the confutation of heresy and error: appealing to the holy Scriptures as their sole authority; as the voice of God, by which He hath declared to us his will; as the refuge, wherein alone the soul of man can find rest; as the medicine, which fully and abundantly contains every thing necessary for the

soul's health; as the revelation, wherein alone is manifested the power of God unto salvation.

We know that her character has been impugned, and her doctrine and practice concerning the sacraments reprobated and condemned as at variance with "the true Catholick faith, out of which no man can be saved:" because, in respect of number, she admits "two only as generally necessary to salvation," and does not allow of five adventitious sacraments, which yet she retains for the most part as useful and religious rites, but not under the notion of "sacraments of the gospel, seeing they have not like nature of sacraments with Baptism and the Lord's Supper: for that they have not any visible sign or ceremony or dained of God 1;" nor in fact were the five adventitious sacraments recognized as such, in their proper signification, by the primitive Fathers; nor was the number seven ascertained and defined by any writer previous to the twelfth century. And again, she has been impugned in respect to her ministration of the sacraments, ministered though they be according to Christ's ordinance, in all things that are requisite of necessity for the same" because they are not ministered with such rites and ceremonies, as she is persuaded are contrary to Christ's ordinance2; and not made the

1

1 Art. xxv.

"Art. xxv. xxviii.

vehicle: of such doctrines, as she is: persuaded to be "blasphemous fables and dangerous deceits

Finally, we know that her character has been impugned, and the commission of her ministers vilified, and their acts accounted of no avail, as if they were unqualified intruders into their holy office, unauthorized to be preachers of the word of God, and administrators of the sacraments of Christ: although the stream of their commission is derived, equally with that of her impugners, from the pure source of primitive and apostolical antiquity, through the unadulterated, uninter mitted channel of legitimate episcopal ordination; and thus her ministers, being duly called and rightfully appointed to their ministry, may claim, equally with her impugners, the divine sanction of Him, in whose name and behalf they act.oin Objections, such as these, we know to be alleged against our national Church, as if she were not a true member of the Catholick Church of Christ, nor capable of conducting her children to salvation. But these things move her not whilst, with the holy Paul, she can make a good confes+ sion," after the way which they call heresy, so worship I the God of my fathers, believing all things which are written in the law and the prophets and whilst accordingly, with profound

1

1 Art. xxxi.

2 Acts xxiv. 14.

gratitude to her divine Founder and Head, she feels confident in the persuasion, that those characteristick marks, which distinguished the primitive apostolical Church, and those requisites for salvation, which the Apostles were God's instruments for dispensing, are substantially found in her offices and ministrations.

II. If, indeed, for we will suppose a case, wherein, could her character be justly impugned, it might be well deemed incapable of vindication; if, "intruding into those things which she hath not seen, and vainly puffed up by a fleshly mind," she were so far to estrange herself from the allegiance exclusively due to her supreme Head, even Christ, as to be "beguiled of her reward in a voluntary humility, and worshipping of angels and other created beings; advancing them to the dignity of mediators and intercessors between God and men; and honouring one in particular with a participation of the majesty and sovereignty of heaven, and with the right, in virtue of her maternal authority, of commanding the Redeemer:

If she were to invest one of her earthly rulers with the dignity of supreme head and governour of the whole Church on earth; ascribing to him a sovereign power and authority over all other

1 Col. ii. 18, 19.