are predicted; not strangers proved to be false by their want of succession, but persons in the succession; among you, the apostle says, addressing the apostolical Church. And St. Paul gives a similar prophetic warning to the overseers of the Ephesian Church: "Also of your own selves shall men arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away disciples after them" (Acts xx 30). This is corroborated by our Lord's address to that Church a few years after. "I know thy works, and thy labour, and thy patience, and how thou canst not bear them which are evil; and thou hast tried them which say they are apostles, and are not, and hast found them liars" (Rev. ii. 2). If the persons here referred to had not been in the succession, they could not have even pretended to be apostolic ministers, and no trial of them would have been required-they would have stood ipso facto convicted as pretenders; but being in the succession, their outward pretensions were good; and the faithful pastor who detected their inward falsehood is highly commended. And thus it appears, that however important for various reasons of historical evidence, and to guard against various irregularities, succession from the apostles by an outward and visible ordination may be, there is yet nothing in it which can with safety be depended upon, for the continuance in a Church of apostolical truth in doctrine, or purity in practice. There is nothing in it which can be depended upon for preservation from even personal apostasy. This was made too awfully plain at the fountain-head of Christian ordination. If ever men were truly ordained to the Christian ministry, those were so whom Christ Himself ordained. In St. Mark (chap. iii. 14), it is written, "He ordained twelve;" and so little necessary connexion is there between ordination and the apostolical character of the persons ordained, that one of the twelve Beware of false prophets, said the Lord,—by was a devil. their fruits ye shall know them (St. Matt. vii.) Suppose a presbyter able to trace clearly his ordination or mission from the apostles who derived theirs from Christ; what then? Judas was ordained by Christ Himself. Suppose a bishop (say the Bishop of Rome) to make out his case of apostolical succession; grant, for argument's sake, that no link was broken, no step made void, by false pope, or antipope, or female pope,' but that he can show his ordination without a flaw from Christ Himself: what then? Why, then it may still be said to him, “The son of perdition" (St. John xvii. 12) was ordained by Christ Him The story of Pope Joan is not a popular fiction, as many seem to imagine; induced to that opinion, probably, not by any historical evidence, but by the grossness of the tale itself; but it is a well-authenticated fact. This extraordinary woman, concealing her sex, of course, contrived so to win all hearts and voices during the pontificate of Leo IV., that upon the death of that pontiff, she was, without a dissentient voice, raised to the chair of St. Peter. Platina, in his Lives of the Popes, gives the following account of this transaction: (Baptista Platina, or Bartolomeo Sanchi, was born at Piadena, near Mantua, 1421, and died at Rome, being then librarian to Pope Sixtus IV., 1481, æt. 60.) "Johannes Anglicus, ex Maguntiaco oriundus, malis artibus (ut aiunt) pontificatum adeptus est. Mentitus enim sexum, cum fœmina esset, adolescens admodum Athenas cum amatore viro docto proficiscitur: ibique præceptores bonarum artium audiendo tantum profecit, ut Roman veniens, paucos admodum etiam in sacris literis pares haberet, nedum superiores. Legendo autem et disputando docte et acute, tantum benevolentiæ et auctoritates sibi comparavit, ut mortuo Leone in ejus locum (ut Martinus ait) omnium consensu pontifex crearetur. Verum postea a servo compressa, cum aliquandiu occulte ventrem tulisset, tandem dum ad lateranensem basilicam profisceretur, inter theatrum (quod Coliseum vocant, a Neronis colosso) et sanctum Clementem, doloribus circumventa peperit: eoq. loci mortua, pontificatus sui anno secundo, mense uno, diebus quatuor, sine ullo honore sepelitur. Sunt qui ob hæc scribant pontificem ipsum quando ad lateranensem basilicam proficiscitur, detestandi facinoris causa, et viam illam consulto declinare, et ejusdem vitandi erroris causa, dum primo in sede Petri collocatur, ad eam rem perforato, genitalia ab ultimo diacono attrectari. De primo non abnuerim, de secundo ita sentio, sedem illam ad id paratum esse, ut qui in tanto magistratu constituitur, sciat se non deum, sed hominem esse: et necessitatibus naturæ, utpote egerendi subjectum esse, unde merito stercoraria sedes vocatur. Hac qui dixi vulgo feruntur, incertis tamen et obscuris autoribus: quæ ideo ponere breviter et nude institui, ne obstinate nimium et pertinaciter omisisse videar, quod fere omnes affirmant : erremus etiam nos hac in re cum vulgo, quanquam appareat, ea quæ dixi, ex his esse, quæ fieri posse creduntur. Sunt qui dicant hujus temporibus beati Vincentii corpus e Valentia citerioris Hispaniæ civitate, a quodam monacho in pagum albiensem ulterioris Galliæ deportatum. Dicunt præterea Lotharium jam grandem natu, sumpto monachorum habitu, filium Ludovicum imperatorem reliquisse, qui statim in Germaniam provinciam rediens, omnes ad arma spectantes sua præsentia in officio continuit." self, and therefore we may grant your ordination according to your own showing, and yet still call you and believe you to be "a son of perdition," if we find his marks upon you; if we find you like Demas loving this present world (2 Tim. iv. 10), or like Diotrephes desiring to have the pre-eminence (3 John 9), or like Judas betraying your Master with a kiss. St. Paul describes true ministers of the Christian Church as "workers together with God" (2 Cor. vi. 1). This supplies one of the simplest tests for discrimination. For what bath God done? He has given all Scripture by divine inspiration, and declared it to be profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness (2 Tim. iii. 16). He has commanded, saying, "Search the Scriptures," or commended, saying, Ye search (St. John v. 39). And "Thou shalt teach my words diligently unto thy children; and thou shalt write them upon the posts of thy house, and on thy gates" (Deut. vi. 1-9). Now, if we see an ordained minister commending the Scriptures, explaining the Scriptures, endeavouring, by judicious, patient, and persevering efforts, that men, women, and children may have opportunity "to hear, read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest" the contents of the sacred volume,-here we see a "worker together with God," and, in this particular at least, an apostolical minister according to St. Paul's description of such. On the other hand, if we see an ordained minister, whether bishop or presbyter, opposing the reading of the Scriptures by the people generally, on the plea that through the ignorance of the people, and the obscurity of the Scripture, more injury than benefit will arise from it; if we see him objecting to the children of his people being taught the Scriptures in the schools; if we know of his interference to prevent the attendance of his people at scriptural readings; if, as in one remarkable instance, we find him commending the zeal of the peasant who put a Bible in the fire, and enlarging in terms of high approbation on the orthodox horror of a contaminating touch, which induced that peasant to take the vile thing in the tongs rather than his fingers, do we here recognise a "worker together with God," or a worker against God: do we here recognise a successor of Peter, who earnestly recommended the Scriptures as a light to which the people did well to take heed; and exhorted all the faithful, "scattered throughout Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, Bithynia," to "desire the sincere milk of the word, that they might grow thereby " (2 Peter i. 19; 1 Peter ii. 2); or do we not rather recognise here a successor of Judas, who betrayed his master and His cause through worldly ambition? Peter and Judas had the same ordination. It is not by their mission in visible succession that ye shall know the true "ambassadors for Christ" from the false, but by their fruits. If this be so, what becomes of the vaunted infallibility of the Church? In whom, and in the virtue of what, does it reside? On this point, Romish controversialists are fond of referring to the analogy between the Jewish and Christian Churches. (1.) The Jewish Church had a charter of divine authority, invested in a regularly constituted council or ecclesiastical court, consisting of priests, with the high priest at their head. All matters of controversy were to be referred to that tribunal. The decisions of that tribunal were final; and if any of the people were at any time so refractory as not to submit to those decisions, such rebels were to be put to death. This charter is thus expressed in the word of the Lord: "If there arise a matter too hard for thee in judgment, between blood and blood, between plea and plea, and between stroke and stroke, being matters of controversy within thy gates, then shalt thou arise, and get thee up into the place which the Lord thy God shall choose. And thou shalt come unto the priests, the Levites, and unto the judge that shall be in those days, and inquire; and they shall show thee the sentence of judgment. And thou shalt do according to the sentence, which they of that place which the Lord shall choose shall show thee, and thou shalt observe to do according to all that they inform thee. According to the sentence of the law which they shall teach thee, and according to the judgment which they shall tell thee, thou shalt do: thou shalt not decline from the sentence which they shall show thee, to the right hand nor to the left. And the man that will do presumptuously, and will not hearken unto the priest that standeth to minister there before the Lord thy God, or unto the judge, even that man shall die: and thou shalt put away the evil from Israel; and all the people shall hear, and fear, and do no more presumptuously." This was decisive. 1 (2.) The Jewish Church had an assurance of the divine presence always dwelling with her. The Lord said, "I will sanctify the tabernacle of the congregation, and the altar: I will sanctify also both Aaron and his sons, to minister to me in the priest's office. And I will dwell among the children of Israel, and will be their God. And they shall know that I am the Lord their God that brought them out of the land of Egypt, This was referred to long after that I may dwell among them." 2 as being continuously fulfilled and never to be lost sight of. Thus the prophet Haggai, addressing Zerubbabel the governor, and Joshua the high priest, after their return from the captivity in Babylon, says, "I am with you, saith the Lord of hosts: according to the word that I covenanted with you when ye came out of Egypt, so my Spirit remaineth among you: fear ye not." 3 (3.) The Jewish Church had plain and reiterated promises of divine protection, such as this: "No weapon that is formed against thee shall prosper, and every tongue that shall rise against thee in judgment thou shalt condemn. This is the heritage of the servants of the Lord, and their righteousness is of me, saith the Lord."4 These all have been made the basis of an argument from analogy, to prove the divine authority and infallible decisions of the Christian Church. Shall the Church guides under the old law, it is asked, have such authority and such infallibility, and shall not those under the new law have as much? Shall the Jewish Church have such assurances of the abiding presence of her God, and shall not the Christian Church have at least the same? Shall the Church under types and shadows which were ready to vanish away, have such satisfying promises of 1 Deut. xvii. 8-13. 3 Haggai ii. 4, 5. • Isa. liv. 17. |