on this point, because the whole practice and principle of the catholic church, and even of the ancient heresies, limited ordinations to the chief pastors of the church. It is not to be wondered at, perhaps, that the reformed caught eagerly at one or two misinterpreted passages in the Fathers, which they supposed to countenance merely presbyterian ordinations; but the weight on the other side is so great, that there must at all events be most serious doubts of their validity. Even conceding, however, that presbyterian ordinations are valid, there would still be considerable uncertainty whether they were preserved in the Lutheran and reformed societies; for it appears that several of their ministers at the beginning acted, and probably ordained others, without having been ordained presbyters themselves. Calvin was not even a deacon. Beza was never ordained; Bullinger, Brentius, and many others, seem to have been in the same case ". Luther and Zuinglius appear to have claimed extraordinary mission sometimes, and Beza, in the Colloquy of Poissy, to the discredit of his party, denied the necessity of any imposition of hands, and admitted that many of them did not receive it ". It was afterwards declared in the confession of the reformed of France, that in their time, when the state of the church was interrupted, God had raised up persons in an extraordinary manner, &c. and their Synod of Gap decided that the vocation of their ministers who had reformed the church, was derived not from their ordinary vocation, but from one which was extraordinary and internal. Now we may infer from all this, that a good many of the first ministers of the Refor

mation were not themselves presbyters, and therefore that there is considerable uncertainty as to the continuance even of presbyterian ordinations in those communities.

That the reformed were sensible that the mission of their preachers was not ordinary, and that it was only justified by necessity, we may fairly conclude from their relinquishing the ancient and scriptural appellations of the ecclesiastical ministry, and no longer pretending to ordain bishops and presbyters. Luther and Zuinglius assumed the titles of "ecclesiastes," while their adherent ministers were called to the various offices of "antistes," "pastor," "superintendent," "inspector," "abbot," "præpositus," &c. The ancient orders of bishop and presbyter were appropriated by the church. The Lutherans and Calvinists ordained to other offices, and thus evinced their secret persuasion that the church alone retained the ordinary and apostolic vocation of ministers. It would seem, indeed, as if the Lutheran preachers were originally regarded in somewhat the same light as the first Wesleyan methodist preachers in more recent times. They were not to intrude on the sphere of the established clergy of the church, but to cooperate with them where they could. Luther himself declared that he preferred that Lutherans should retire from a parish rather than preach there by intrusion; that no one ought to preach without the knowledge of the lawful minister; which should be so religiously observed, that an evangelical ought not to preach in the parish of a papist or a heretic, without the participation of the pastor, because no truly pious man ought to attempt anything without vocation, &c. "

In ps. lxxxii. de Magistrat. tom. iii. fol. 488, 489. A.D. 1534.

W

In speaking of the Lutheran ordinations, and generally of the

I conclude from all this, that the societies of Lutherans and Calvinists could not have been considered as churches of Christ, properly speaking; though they might have been called so in a general and popular way, as being internally united to the church. It is to be lamented, that in process of time the societies of the foreign reformation forgot the principles on which their founders had set out, and deemed it necessary to assume the office and character of churches of Christ in the ordinary sense; for this not only placed them in a false position in their controversies with Rome, but interposed a new obstacle to any accommodation between them and the church, while it led them to reject that catholic tradition which did not support their novel system, and thus to open the door for the intrusion of heresy and infidelity.

I have spoken throughout of the foreign reformation as of a thing that has passed away. Lutheranism and Calvinism are indeed now little more than matters of history, for the feeble and lifeless relics which they have left behind, and which still bear their name, are but painful memorials of systems whose imperfections and faults, whatever they might be, were dignified by a holy ardour and zeal for God and for God's revelation. Now, when the confessions of faith for which Luther, and Zuinglius, and Calvin would have laid down their lives, are thrown aside as obsolete, or subscribed with salvos and declarations which render the act of subscription a mere mockery: how can we recognize the existence of their faith? Overrun by the audacious impiety of ncologism, an infidelity which clokes itself under the

state and position of the foreign reformation, I do not include the Swedish Lutheran church, because it forms a peculiar case, and

I have not yet examined completely the question of their orders and reformation.

name of Christianity in order to inflict a more grievous wound on faith, or sunk into the deadly slumber of Socinian and Arian apostacy, Lutheranism and Calvinism, as religious systems, seem to have nearly perished in the countries where they arose.

SECTION V.

WHETHER IT WAS LAWFUL TO HOLD ANY RELIGIOUS INTERCOURSE WITH THESE SOCIETIES.

If there were probable reasons for considering the Lutherans, &c. as not guilty of schism or heresy, then it was lawful on the principles of Christian charity, to hold intercourse and communion with them. (1.) Now it has been shown that they did not voluntarily separate, in general, from the church, but were excommunicated by the Roman pontiff; and this excommunication was not that of the whole catholic church, for it was only received and acted on by some of the Western bishops, who were apparently under the influence of the pontiff and the emperor. It has also been shown, that they did not wish to remain separate from the church, that they acknowledged its authority, and were willing to communicate with and obey their bishops, if they had abstained from persecuting them in obedience to the papal commands. Hence, more especially when they testified a desire to communicate with the Gallican, the British, and other parts of the church, it seemed that they might be considered very probably as not formally schismatical". Doubtless the writings of

* See the Abbé Gregoire's Histoire des Sectes, &c. Reports of the Continental Society; but above all Mr. Rose's State of Protestantism in Germany.

Melancthon thus states the

case of his party: "We are not deserters from the church, we are not separated from the body of Christ; for those who retain the true doctrine of the Gospel and are obedient to it, remain mem

some of them were too violent, and they were not free from the imputation of tumult and disorder, but the more wise and moderate among them discouraged all such proceedings, and their violence of language was rivalled by that of their opponents. (2.) It was also very probable that they were not heretics. For, whatever their doctrines might be, it did not seem that they generally defended them with obstinacy against the evident truth. They received all the creeds of the church, professed to be guided by Scripture and tradition, and to introduce no heresies or novelties. Their opinions were not condemned by any clear judgment of the universal church, for the Synod of Trent, as I shall prove in Part IV., was not of binding authority. They varied in their doctrines, and some things which had been incautiously said by Luther and Zuinglius, were modified and corrected by their adherents. The error of Zuinglius, Ecolampadius, and Carlostadt on the Eucharist had been apparently given up by Calvin, who obtained a great influence in the Zuinglian and reformed communities. His language was strongly in favour of the real presence, though, at the bottom, his doctrine was inconsistent with it; and the differences between the

bers of Christ though the pontiffs should expel them from their communion. . . . This difference arose at the beginning from the reproof of a most scandalous sale of indulgences. Then the pontiff and his adherents met together, and the excommunication was fulminated. Are we said to be cut off from the church on account of those unjust decrees?"-See his Epistles, lib. i. ep. 67. which well merits a perusal. In another place he puts the argument very strongly from their Appeal to a

General Council. "Those who ex animo, and not feignedly, appeal to the judgment of the church, are by no means enemies of the church, or seditious, or schismatics, or heretics: for it is written, If he neglect to hear the church, let him be unto thee as a heathen or a publican. Therefore so long as he does not refuse to accept the judgment of the church, he cannot be called an enemy or a schismatic."-Melanc. Enarr. in Evang. Joh. tom. iii. Oper. p. 797.