to be at variance with the above liberal interpretation of the Statute of Elizabeth. But the facts are nevertheless as we have stated them. "The practice of the Church during the century preceding the Act of Uniformity whilst the preface to the Ordination Service was in force" the Statute in question "recognising the holding of preferment by ministers not Episcopally ordained"—in conjunction with the twenty-third article of religion "recognising such orders as valid according to the general principles of the Christian Church," are all strongly in favour of the liberal view, and must be held to modify the seeming exclusiveness of the Ordinal. The language marked above as quoted is almost verbatim from a valuable opinion lately given by three eminent ecclesiastical lawyers of the present day regarding the legal relations of the Church of England and other non-episcopal Churches as to intercommunion, who express doubts whether, even since the Act of Uniformity, it is illegal for such ministers to preach occasional sermons in any Church of England, with the permission of the incumbent.*

The result of our narrative-in which we have kept closely to a few prominent points-is conclusively to show that the extreme theory of Episcopal orders is without legal or historical sanctioncertainly up to the time of the Restoration. For, giving every force that can be due to the preface to the Ordination Service, all that it amounts to is that no man can be a lawfully constituted minister of the Church of England who has not been Episcopally ordained. But this is not the point in question. In a sense, no one is concerned to deny such a proposition. Every Church has the right to determine the qualifications of its own ministers. The High Church theory, however, as lately propounded, goes greatly beyond this. It maintains, not only that a man cannot be a minister of the Church of England, but cannot be a minister at all, without Episcopal ordination. In other words, it shuts out all otherwise ordained from the pale of the Catholic Church as having no validly-constituted office or title to administer its sacred rites. A pretension so grossly offensive as this, proceeding from the ministers of a National Reformed Church, may very well excite indignation, if it were not more worthy of ridicule. Within the bosom of a Church, which, like the Roman Catholic, discredits all biblical and scientific inquiry, and warns its clergy from the free exercise of their reason, such a pretension may not at once Priest, or Deacon in the Church of England, or suffered to execute any of the said functions, except he be called, tried, examined, and admitted thereunto according to the form hereafter following, or hath had formerly Episcopal consecration, or ordination." The latter clause in italics was only added at the Restoration.

This important opinion has only within the last few months been given to the public in the pages of the Christian Observer, Nov. 1871, pp. 834, 835. It is signed H. M. Cairns, J. Parker Deane, J. Fitzjames Stephen.

provoke contempt. It passes for a piece of dogmatism, not more absurd than many other things sanctioned by the official authority of the same Church. Roman Catholicism claims the right to say what is true about everything without further inquiry. But even those members of the Church of England who disown the name of Protestant, have not yet put forward any such claim; and they have no absolute official authority to fall back upon, like the Roman clergy. Such a tenet, therefore, is greatly more obnoxious and degrading in them. It is held in defiance alike of sense, Scripture, and charity. It is at once superstitious and insolent-a falsehood and an offence.

Viewed scientifically or historically, such a question as that of the exclusive validity of Episcopal orders admits of no argument at all. There is not a single mind, I venture to say, whose judgments are entitled to any rational consideration that holds clearly the affirmative. Not to mention the host of general considerations opposed to it, every biblical scholar, who has looked at the question simply to ascertain the truth, is forced to admit that the distinction of Bishop and Presbyter has no foundation in the New Testament. The most elaborate examination of the point which has been lately made, is by the Hulsean Professor of Divinity at Cambridge, Dr. Lightfoot-probably the first Exegetical authority in the Church of England; and he has come without any doubt to the conclusion that the names of Presbyter and Bishop in the Apostolic writings are merely different designations of the same office-a conclusion, he says, "now generally recognised by theologians of all shades of opinion."* What then becomes of the Episcopal office as of special Divine institution? It has the same Divine sanction as any other function of useful order in the Church-and no other. The office, as Dr. Lightfoot explains, arose naturally as a "development from the subordinate office. In other words, the episcopate was formed not out of the apostolic order by localisation, but out of the presbyterial by elevation; and the title which originally was common to all, came at length to be appropriated to the chief among them."+ No development could be more natural, or possibly more important in the history of the Church; and coming as it did so immedialy after, or even within the verge of, the Apostolic age, the Episcopal office has a claim upon the reverential regard of every Christian student. But this is something entirely distinct from an exclusive Divine authority. Episcopacy as a useful fact generated by the historical necessities of the Church, and Episcopacy as a Divine right, limiting all other rights in the Church, are two very different things.

In the former of these aspects, Presbyterianism itself does not + Ibid., p. 194.

• Epistle to Philip, Diss. I. p. 93.

disown, and certainly does not denounce, Episcopacy; and there are few wise Presbyterians who do not see weaknesses in their own system arising from the disuse of it. In the Church of Scotland, this natural and practical form of Episcopacy has been frequently more or less recognised. Its early order of superintendents was nothing else than this, and its practice of appointing commissioners to visit parishes and committees to supervise Church work, show that the mere idea of oversight is not inconsistent with its ecclesiastical system -although its operation is naturally watched with jealousy. From the beginning, in fact, there has been in the Scotch Church a party, not only not inimical to Episcopacy in this sense, but strongly in favour of it a party of whom Leighton may be said to be the most distinguished representative. And as we have seen that there is nothing in the Confession of Faith against Episcopacy, so neither is there any legal obligation laid upon the clergy of the Church of Scotland to hold Presbytery as of exclusive Divine institution.

In the mere legal and constitutional status, therefore, of the two Churches, there is abundant room for practical Christian intercourse. They are both Churches of the Reformation, resting so far as their special government is concerned upon a legal compromise. Episcopacy is the fully equipped form of Church order to the one; Presbyterianism is the accepted and popular form to the other. The advocates of an ecclesiastical jus divinum have never been more than a party in either Church. Sacerdotalism is no part of the creed of the one; and Presbyterianism as held by the Covenanters was expressly rejected by the other. They represent different types of the reformed faith and of the ecclesiastical order developed at the Reformation-adapted to nationalities of different temper and quality. That is really all the difference in the eyes of rational people. Both Churches profess the very same doctrines. Betwixt the Thirty-nine Articles and the Confession of Faith there is no substantial difference, although the former may have followed more the Lutheran, as the latter has followed more the Calvinian, type of orthodoxy. When Archbishop Thomson preached at Glengarry I feel certain that the simple folks detected nothing different in his sermon from what they are in the habit of hearing from their parish minister. Her gracious Majesty, the Queen, worships with equal edification, it is understood, in both Churches. Are all these Christian realities to go for nothing in deference to certain conventionalities of Church order? Are the prejudices of party passion to subvert the Divine unities of a common faith and hope and charity. I cannot think this, notwithstanding fanatical outcry and Episcopal evasion.

Surely in a time like this the two National Churches of England and Scotland have something else to do than to call into view their

respective Divine rights, or the traditionary claims which they may reciprocally urge against each other. They had much better consider, I think, their undivine restrictions, and the hindrances, both dogmatic and practical, which interfere with their Christian usefulness. As the phrase is, they are both now on their trial, and the real question that will be asked of them in their day of judgment will not be as to their orders or forms of government, but as to what national Christian good they may have done and are doing. In a time when religious thought has reached a pitch of almost intolerable disorganisation, what are they doing to help men under speculative and spiritual difficulties ? What light have they for darkened minds? and what peace for perplexed and burdened hearts? In a time when pauperism and drunkenness and social misery in so many forms seem eating into the very vitals of our national prosperity, what power is there in them to meet these evils and help the great work of the statesman and the philanthropist ? When the Anti-State Church Society is thundering at their gates, and legislators are talking dubiously how long their fate can be postponed, is it not too much trifling to be prating of "mission services" in the parish of Glengarry?

Undoubtedly if our National Churches are to survive at all they can only survive in common work for the national good. Superstitions about orders and theories of Divine rights, which are utterly dead in the minds of all rational people, must be laid aside. The past may be accepted, but it cannot be resuscitated. "Let the dead bury their dead." It is really too absurd that we should continue to be dominated, not merely by the good thoughts, but by the evil prejudices which have descended to us from Mediaval, or even Patristic, Catholicism The clerical mind must clear itself of cant, and the episcopal mind of conventionality, if once more they are to be living forces in the national history. There are plenty of realities for them to cope with. Let them take to the work of Christian thought and of Christian charity, and try to build up once more the temple of Faith and Brotherhood on some spiritual basis that the modern mind will accept. And let them be sure they will best accomplish this, the less they think of their own ritual dignity, and the more they realise the spiritual equality of all Churches and all men in the sight of God.

J. TULLOCH.

JOHN HUSS AND THE ULTRAMONTANES.

NTELLECTUAL, political, and politico-religious movements in the East of Europe have scarcely as yet in this country attracted attention proportioned to the effect which they may, perhaps, be destined to produce on the future history of a considerable portion of the human race. Among the most remarkable literary, or politicoliterary controversies that have arisen in the Austrian Empire, under the present change of circumstances and régime, are two which have been, and still are being, carried on with considerable vehemence in Bohemia, with regard to the celebrated John Huss. The Czechs naturally consider him a kind of national hero, and claim for him, and for themselves, a high and noble position in the history of the world, and in that of the development of the human intellect, particularly in the assertion of the supremacy of conscience. The Ultramontanes assail the Czechian martyr as the mere victim of his own vanity and self-sufficiency, and point to the miseries and horrors of the Hussite wars, as the consequences of his ill-starred resistance to the authorities of the Church. The Austro-Germans, especially those of the "Diaspora" or non-German countries, look upon the resistance offered by the Czechs in general, and, as they suppose, by Huss in particular, to the progress of the Teutonic element, as high treason against light and civilization, which they appear to claim as the