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Jolly, he must submit to the public discipline of the Church;' that is, as he explains the matter, which is too important to be left in any dubiety, the bishop, or a priest commissioned by him, is to prescribe a suitable penance.' When this penance has been dreed, then follows absolution, by which the penitent is reconciled (to God) and restored to the peace and communion of the Church and admitted to the holy eucharist,' by which, as we have already seen, all sins are forgiven, and body, soul, and spirit sanctified and prepared for glory! And all this without so much as an allusion to the mercy of God or the merits of Christ.

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Is it not amazing how, under this system, any man should be lost at all? Baptism pardons all sins, actual and original, committed up to the hour in which it was received. Confirmation makes assurance doubly sure, by bestowing anything that might by possibility be lacking in baptism. Only gross, scandalous, and habitual, or, as Papists call them, mortal sins, such as murder and adultery, 'defile baptism,' and all who are free of such sins retain their baptismal purity' to the end, and of course need no after cleansing or pardon. But if a Christian' should be so unfortunate as to have committed such scandalous and habitual sins, he is by no means to despair of the saving efficacy of Scottish Prelacy. It has a remedy even for him. He has only to confess his sins to a priest (he must be sure, however, he has met with a real, that is a prelatically ordained priest;) and to make an act of contrition;' and to punish himself' by saying his prayers; and, if he can, paying his debts, or the priest's dues; and do whatever else the priest tells him; and partake of the eucharist kneeling at the altar; and receive the priest's absolution; and he is certain of salvation, that is to say if Scottish Prelacy can bestow it. Or even should it be necessary for him to reside for a time in hades,' he is not to despair; the sacrifice of the altar' and the prayers of the faithful' will, as we will immediately show, provide his emancipation in due time!

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Such is Scottish Prelacy; such the system which receives the patronage of peers, landowners, and would-be fashionables; and such the party which the Christian Observer, in his charity' for us miserable Presbyterians, wishes to see the Established Church of Scotland! How the god of this world must have blinded the minds of men, to make them enamoured of such a soul-ruining system!

But we fancy we hear some one ask, 'Is there no place assigned to the Saviour in this scheme of salvation?' Of course, we answer there is; for were there not, the system would become, not what it is, a gross perversion, but a total abnegation of Christianity. But then the place assigned to the Saviour in this system is pre

cisely the place assigned him in Popery. According to both systems, the sacraments, in the words of Skinner, (p. 56,) are the means and instruments' by which we are united to Christ, and 'the channels by which the blessings and benefits of the gospel are conveyed to us; or, in the words of Jolly, it is by the sacraments that the merits of Christ's death are applied to us.' Even the Douay Catechism (p. 64,) assigns this place to the Saviour; for it says, that the sacraments have their force and efficacy from the blood, passion, and merits of Christ, which they apply to our souls,' and, again, that this is effected by the divine power of using them as means or instruments by which grace is bestowed on

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In both cases, the priest, on whom the validity of the sacraments entirely depends,* stands between the Saviour and the sinner, and it is only through his hands that any blessings can be conveyed to man. Skinner (p. 36,) says expressly, that God made over, by Christ, a delegated power to the priests to forgive sins, and made the apostles and their successors (who, according to him and all his party, are only prelates and priests ordained by them,) instruments for conveying his pardon and forgiveness to such as duly apply and are properly qualified for it;' and that the means' by which these benefits are to be obtained are the absolution of the Church (that is of the priests,) and a participation of the sacraments.' Faith without the sacraments has no place or power whatever. The priest is all in all. Christ, indeed, has satisfied divine justice and procured remission of sin. But then it is the priest, and the priest alone, who applies the merits of Christ. Faith, indeed, is useful, but it is only as bearing on the sacraments. The priests and the sacraments are the channels of conveying grace, the instruments for procuring pardon, the agents for reconciling to God. The doctrine of Scripture is, that God has committed all power to Christ, that men might honour the Son even as they honour the Father. The doctrine of Scottish Prelacy is, that Christ has delegated all power to the priests, and we might almost add, in order that all men might honour the priests even as they honour the Saviour.

Such then is Scottish Prelacy-such the sect in which Mr Bagot is a minister-such the party which the Christian Observer desires to see the Established Church of Scotland. We have said before, and we say again, and say advisedly and deliberately, that we would just as soon, and in all probability much sooner, embrace undisguised Popery, than that hybrid, hypocritical thing, in name Protestant, (if it does not indeed repudiate even the name), but in

Never did Papist maintain this dogma with more rigorous stringency than Skinner, pp. 57, 58, and Jolly, pp. 18, 19.

spirit, age, and in letter too, Popish, which is called Scottish Prelacy.

III. We had purposed, under the second head, to show that the Scottish Prelatic communion office contains a sacrifice for the dead. But in order to avoid repetitions, and as our space is fast expiring, we prefer to conjoin that subject with the discussion of prayers for the dead, which, as our third and last head, we now proceed to show as shortly as we may is contained in that office.

Every person is aware that both dogmas are contained in the offices of the Church of Rome, and were from thence transferred into the first liturgy of Edward VI. In the second prayer-book of Edward, however, they were expunged, and though various Romanising alterations have been since made in the Anglican liturgy, many maintain that it affords no countenance to these Popish dogmas. They have never ceased, however, and in all ages, too, particularly the tenet of prayers for the dead, to be held by a very large and increasing number of the most authoritative divines of the Church of England. Let any one who doubts this assertion, just consult the catence patrum, that is, passages from standard writers of the English Church, which are given in the Oxford Tracts, or even Skinner's Dissertation on the Scottish Communion Office. Nor indeed could it well or consistently be otherwise, with men who admitted the authority of tradition. For as Brett says, after quoting most ample proof in point, thus there is an universal consent and harmony in all these (the ancient) liturgies; not one of them has omitted prayers for the dead, in their prayer at the altar for all estates and conditions of men, though in other particulars to this very prayer there be a variety... But here there is an unanimous harmony and consent, all praying for those dead who have died in the Lord and are at rest from their labours.' In favour of prayers for the dead, therefore, we have the three essential elements of traditive authority, (quod semper ubique et ab omnibus); in other words, the man who rejects prayers for the dead must, to be consistent with himself, reject liturgies altogether. In order to render this tenet of prayers for the dead consonant to reason, and consistent with itself, it was necessary to maintain that departed saints have not been admitted into heaven, but are reserved in some intermediate state' or locality, which is neither heaven nor hell. This tenet accordingly has been, and is now, held by all who advocate prayers for the dead, and has been maintained throughout the whole course of their history, and is maintained at the present day by Scottish Prelatists. This we shall establish by such evidence as cannot be gainsaid. In doing so,

⚫ Collection of Liturgies, 270-275, 318, &c. VOL. XVI. NO. III.

however, it will not be necessary to go back to the days of Forbes, or even of Campbell, Gadderar, and Dunbar, although we are prepared to do so should it be required. We confine ourselves to the writings which have appeared in the present century, and from these we shall prove, that Scottish Prelatists maintain that there is 'intermediate state,' in which departed saints are reserved in a condition of imperfect happiness,' and in which they are benefited by the prayers of the living, and especially by the sacrifice offered in the eucharist.'

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Mr Skinner says, The primitive and catholic doctrine of the Christian church is this, that the souls of the faithful departed remain in the mansions prepared for them, in hades, the invisible place, the appointed habitation, and that until the day of the general resurrection; but that the happiness to be enjoyed in that state being imperfect, and capable of final improvement, the eucharistic oblation is particularly adapted to this salutary purpose.' The souls of the faithful departed, then, are in a condition, if not of positive, certainly of negative suffering; and in order to procure them present relief, remove their necessary imperfections, and secure their final salvation, the eucharistic oblation is particularly adapted,' and for this salutary purpose' it is daily presented to God on their behalf.

The author of An Historical Outline of the Episcopal Church in Scotland,' says, 'According to the doctrine of all these Churches, (the primitive, the Anglican, and the Scottish Prelatic), the departed soul of no man is at present in the highest heaven or in the lowest hell; but the souls of all are "in places of safe keeping," as Bishop Horsley well expressed it, and will not be judged till they be again united to bodies.' If there is no judgment pronounced till the last day, we should like to be informed if the souls of all, righteous and unrighteous, are confined in the same habitations. And if they are separated, and the one class enjoy a less 'imperfect happiness' than the other, we much desiderate to know whether this division has been effected without a judgment having been passed upon either? But this by the way.

In some forms of prayer prepared by Primus Skinner for private Christians at the communion, they are directed to offer the following address: That holy and venerable sacrament, of which I have been a happy partaker, has united me to all the faithful here on earth, and to those that are departed hence in the true

⚫ Scotch Com. Off. Illust., p. 140; see also from 135 to 145.

P. 63; see also 61-65, 80, 81. This work, if we may believe Mr Lawson, was written by Prelate Russell in Leith.

Layman's Account, &c., 148, 153, which work, the reader will bear in mind, is an authoritative formulary of Scottish Prelatists.

a prayer of in

faith of thy holy name.' And in what he terms tercession,' the communicant is directed thus to pray:- Grant that these holy mysteries may convey to me the pardon and forgiveness of all my sins, a supply of fresh grace and support, and a sure preservative of my whole spirit, soul and body, unto the day of his (Christ's) coming. And now, O Lord, in obedience to thy commands,' (we wonder where he found them), with a full trust in the prevailing and all-sufficient sacrifice which we have once more commemorated, I hereby implore the benefits of it, not only for myself, but for all mankind, especially for the whole Christian church, for all the faithful, in whatever place or state they be.' This, of course, includes, and was purposely designed to apply to the faithful departed from the earth, and now in hades.

We have already seen, that according to Skinner's Catechism, (p. 26), our Saviour, after his death, went into hades, or that invisible place, to which the souls of men are conducted after they leave the body, there to remain in what is called an intermediate state, till the general resurrection.' In another place (pp. 35, 36) he says, that the communion between saints' in this life and those departed is maintained or kept up by mutual prayers and thanksgivings, they no doubt praying for our salvation, and we blessing God for their good examples, and wishing the increase of their happiness.' In a note to this passage he says, Indeed this way of holding communion with the saints departed, not by praying to them, as already "made perfect in bliss," but by praying for them, as still in an imperfect and expecting condition, is agreeable to the doctrine and practice of the Church in her purest ages, before Popish superstition had swelled to an enormous height, or the frenzy of modern sectaries had brought down almost to nothing this comfortable article of our faith, the communion of saints." Jolly (pp. 15, 20, 32) maintains precisely the same doctrine, and in addition, in answer to a question which seems purposely expressed very ambiguously, viz. What do we as to the saints besides praying for them ?' he says, We celebrate their memorials, imitate them, rejoice for them, and thank God for their virtues and examples.'

This is a very suspicious passage. We have already shown, that when Scottish Prelatists use the phrase, to celebrate the memorials of Christ's body and blood, they mean that Christ's body and blood in a sacrificed form are offered up unto God, to put him in mind of what Christ did for us, and to procure from him the benefits of Christ's death. But what are we to understand by celebrating the memorials of departed saints? Is it that we offer up the bread and wine, accompanied by our prayers to God, to remind him of the merits of the departed, and to procure from

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