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and ordination was performed by ordained ministers, and not by a bishop, as a distinct and superior officer. Now, Sir, any church that retains these grand outlines, of the apostolic church, I can put with its government, for it is so far scriptural; and must be essentially republican. But your church, excludes every one of these principles. You have six or seven grades in the ministry, rising one above another, in point of office and authority. You do not permit the people to sit nor to vote in your judicatures; you deny them the sacred right of choosing their own spiritual teachers, and of permitting the pastors of their own choice to reside among them; in a word, I see no vestige of liberty or republicanism in your form of government; nor one single principle of government like what we clearly trace in the New Testament, and the oldest writings of the christian Fathers. Yet, notwithstanding, you may be a godly, pious people, just as the subjects of a civil monarchy may be just and upright citizens. But you must excuse me, for not becoming the subject of an ecclesiastical monarchy with my own consent; since there are so many denominations that have republican forms of church government. Preacher. Good episcopalians will never acknowledge that there is no foundation in scripture for Episcopacy, or that the writings of the first Fathers shew, that Episcopacy was not the primitive form of church government.

Citizen. I do not know what all Episcopalians may do, but I know some of the greatest advocates of episcopacy have acknowledged all this. Mr. Henry Dodwell, a flaming Episcopalian, and a very learned man, who made the very existence of christianity depend on the reception of episcopacy, admits that this very episcopacy is destitute of a scriptural warrant, and is not properly of apostolical origin, not having been instituted till after the death of the apostles, in the sixth or seventh year of the second century.See Campbell's Lectures, page 49. This same Dodwell says, that in the days of Ignatius, the bishop's authority was a perfect novelty, unknown in the church, and this was the reason Ignatius had to exert himself to the utmost to recommend and establish it. See Campbell, page 97. Both Dodwell and Hammond, strenuous Episcopalians, renounce the apostolic origin of episcopacy, and admit that there was no subordination among the ministers of the word in the churches planted by the apostles. See Campbell, page 124.

I shall next give you a quotation from the celebrated bishop Bur net. "Among the Jews," says he, he who was the chief of the synagogue, was called the bishop of the congregation, and the angel of the church. And the christian churches being modelled as near VOL. II:

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the form of the synagogue as they could be, as they retained many of the rites, so the form of the government was continued, and the names remained the same." And again, "In the synagogues there was, first, one who was called the bishop of the congregation; next, the three orderers and judges of every thing about the synagogue, who were called Trekenem, and by the Greeks Presbuteroi, or Gerontes, that is, Elders. These ordered and determined every thing. that concerned the synagogue, or the persons in it. Next them were the three deacons, whose charge was to gather the collections of the rich and distribute them to the poor." See Miller's letters, p. 103

Dr. Lightfoot, another episcopal divine, not less distinguished for his learning and talents, after stating that the officers of the Jewish synagogue were bishops and deacons, says the names of the ministers of the gospel were the very same, bishops and deacons. And the celebrated Grotius says, "The whole polity of the christian church was conformed to the pattern of the synagogue."

I might have shewn, by other testimony, that the officers of the Jewish synagogues were bishops, elders and deacons, and that the christian church was settled by the apostles, pretty much on the plan of the synagogue, with respect to officers and government. But I thought it would be sufficient to shew that learned and candid Episcopalians admit these facts.

Preacher. These were, not such Episcopalians as I admire, or they would never have made such concessions, or uttered or published such things.

Citizen. Perhaps the sentiments of Lainez, a Jesuit, delivered in a speech in the council of Trent, would please you better.

Preacher. What were they?

Citizen. Take them in his own words. "There is a great difference, nay, contrariety, between the church of Christ, and civil communities, inasmuch as these have an existence previous to the formation of their government, and are thereby free, having power in them originally as in its fountain, which without divesting themselves of it, they communicate,to magistrates. But the church did neither make herself, nor form her own government. It was Christ, the prince, and monarch, who first established the laws whereby she should be governed; and then assembled his people, and, as Scripture expresses it, built the church. Thus she is born a slave, without any sort of liberty, power, or jurisdiction; but every where, and in every thing, subjected." This is true episcopacy. If your church has never held out such language, does she not act on the very principles delivered by this Episcopalian?

Preacher. That is a most provoking question. But, Sir, I must tell you that the very learned Adam Clarke, who knows more about these things than any other man, says, "Episcopacy in the church of God is of divine appointment, and should be maintained and respected."

Citizen. Where does he use this language?

Preacher. In his explanation of I. Tim. iii. 1.

Citizen. Here is Clarke's work, let us examine the place. The passage reads thus: "Episcopacy in the church of God, is of divine appointment and should be maintained and respected. Under God there should be supreme governors in the church, as well as in the state. The state has its monarch, the church has its bishop; one should govern according to the laws of the land, the other according to the word of God." I thank you, sir, for directing our attention to this passage. Here, Clarke, the most learned and celebrated writer the Methodist Church has ever produced, acknowledges, that the ernment of the church should be monarchical; and as the state has its monarch, so should the church have its bishop. Why then should you be displeased with one for saying, your church government is a monarchy? When, one of your own writers, who is almost idolized among you, says, it ought to be so, and is so by divine appointment. Preacher. I had forgotten all but the words that I had quoted, or Ì should not have referred to Clarke.

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Citizen. Let us compare this passage to another that I have just cast my eyes upon. Titus i. 1. "It appears that those who are called Elders in this place, are the same as those termed Bishops in the 7th verse. We have many proofs that Bishops and Elders were of the same order in the Apostolic church, though afterwards they became distinct."

Here Clarke admits the very thing for which I contend, that Bishop and Elder are one, and the same office, that Episcopacy, (as the term is now understood,) did not exist in the Apostolic church. If you or he can can reconcile this with the assertions, that Episcopacy is of divine appointment, and that the church should have her bishop, as the state has her monarch, it is more than I can do.

Preacher. I am willing you lay Clarke back in the book-case. You promised to tell how and when Episcopacy took its rise. Citizen. Let this be the subject of another conversation.

WATCH AND PRAY.

Watchfulness will not avail without prayer, nor prayer without watchfulness. Watch and pray saith our Lord.

CHARACTER OF CALVIN.

JOHN CALVIN, the celebrated Reformer, was born at Noyon, a city of France, on the 10th July, 1509. At an early age he gave indications of distinguished intellectual endowments, and through all the stages of his education made very rapid progress in the ac quisition of knowledge. As he exhibited in his whole deportment an uncommon degree of piety and moral virtue, he was early devoted by his parents to the service of the Catholic Church. But his almost intuitive apprehension of the corruptions and errors of that church soon led him to renounce the tonsure for the study of the civil law. Light was now beginning to dawn upon the world, after a night of centuries. In Germany, the intrepid Luther had commenced his attack upon the prescriptive and exorbitant claims of the papal power. In Switzerland, France and England, a few undaunted souls had arisen and resolutely espoused the cause of religious truth and freedom. At this important crisis in the most valuable interests of men, the enlightened and efficient mind of Calvin did not sleep. At the age of twenty-three, having become firm ly established in those views of religion, now embodied in his Institutes, he renounced the profession of the law, and devoted himseli exclusively to the interest of the Protestant cause. Calvin was peculiarly qualified to act at the time and in the scenes he did. Luther had gone before. Possessed of a harsh and impetuous temperament a reckless energy of soul, he convulsed, agitated, and roused, the sleeping elements of society-stirred up the public mind to active and independent investigation. Hence, when Calvin came upon the stage, the whole mass of intellect about him was in a state of bold inquiry, of perilous agitation. An impulse had been given to society; it required the hand of a master to regulate the motion. The storm had been raised; some presiding energy was needed to control its rage, or it would have spread, over the dearest interests of men, entire and unlimited desolation. Calvin was the man for this delicate and difficult task. God raised him for the work.He was calm, intellectual, collected. He had outstripped the world in the discovery and developement of truth. As an expositor of the Scriptures he was sober, spiritual, penetrating. As a theologian he stands in the very foremost rank of those of any age or country. His Institutes, composed in his youth, amidst a pressure of duties and the rage and turbulence of the times, invincible against every species of assault, give him indisputably this pre-eminence. As a civilian, even though the law was a subject of subordinate attention, he had few equals among his cotemporaries. Ip

short, he exhibited in strong and decided developement, all those moral and intellectual qualities, which marked him out for one who was competent to guide the opinions and control the emotions of inquiring and agitated nations. Through the most trying and hazardous period of the Reformation, he exhibited invariably, a wisdom in council, a prudence of zeal, and at the same time, a decision and intrepidity of character which were truly astonishing. Nothing. could for a moment deter him from a faithful discharge of his dutynothing deterred him from the path of rectitude. When the very foundations of the world seemed to be shaken, he stood erect and firm, the pillar of truth. He took his stand between two of the most powerful kingdoms of the age-resisted and assailed alternately the whole force of the papal dominion-maintained the cause of truth and God against the intriguing Charles on the one hand, and the courtly and bigoted Francis on the other. The pen was his most effective weapon; and this was beyond the restriction or refutation of his royal antagonists. Indeed, on the arena of theological controversy, he was absolutely unconquerable by any power, or combination of powers, which his numerous opponents could bring against him. He not only refuted and repressed the various errors which sprang up so abundantly in consequence of the commotion of the times, and which threatened to defeat all the efforts which were making for the moral illumination of the world, but the publication of his Institutes contributed in a wonderful degree to give unity of religious belief to the friends of the reformation, and of course, to marshal the strength and combine and give success to the efforts of all the saints. But time will not allow me to give any thing like a detail of the excellencies of this illustrious reformer's character, or of the invaluable services which he has rendered to society. He was a great and a good man. To the full import of the phrase, he may be styled a benefactor of the world. Most intensely, and effectually too, did he labor for the highest temporal, and especially for the eternal interests of his fellow men. He evidently brought to the great enterprise of the age, a larger amount of moral and intellectual power than did any other of the Reformers. Even the cautious Scaliger pronounces him the most exalted character that has appeared since the days of the Apostles, and at the age of twenty-two the most learned man in Europe. And the immediate influence of his invincible mind is still deeply felt through the masterly productions of his pen, and will continue to be felt in the advancement of the pure interests of the church until the complete triumph of her principles.

But notwithstanding the noble virtues of Calvin's character, and