Simony? And what more than this did Simon Magus? Now let us contrast in two parallel

columns, the proceedings of the Church and Dissent.

A person in holy orders may not purchase for himself the Advowson with next presentation, while it is vacant-he cannot enter into a lawful agreement for the resignation of the incumbent-neither can he remove him. If he make any such agreement, he acts not not only against the Canons of the Church, but he is guilty of gross perjury, and sins in the teeth of that solemn oath which the Church exacts before she will admit him. Simony in the Scriptural sense, cannot be committed by either Priest or layman in the Church. If it be committed in the legal sense-it must be in spite of her censures, and her strict precautions.

The buyer whether Minister or no Minister, may enter upon his pastoral speculation the next hour-he may purchase when the thing is vacant, or he may agree that the present Minister shall go out at his convenience, or he may turn him out without any agreement. There is no bar-no oath, nothing whatever to prevent the whole being a barefaced and immediate matter of profit and loss. The system of dissent has not only no legal impediment to oppose, but not even a principle against this worst of simony-simony in the Scriptural, as well as legal construction.

Now good people just use "Common Sense," Look upon this picture, and look upon that. Say whether the Church, or Dissent, ENCOURAGES SIMONY! Say what impudence, as well as wickedness, must be requisite, to insinuate (for they dare not specify any charge) that the Church encourages Simony, and that dissent is pure.

But perhaps our readers would like to see some (we cannot afford space for many) of the advertisements which Mr. Maitland has collected from Dissenting journals, shewing the regular business-like way, in which their direct Simony is carried on. These shall appear in our next number.

(To be continued.)

THE ABSURDITY OF DENYING THAT THE PRIMITIVE CHURCH WAS EPISCOPAL.

But we have still to prove, that this government was not only universally established in the ages next

to the Apostles, but it was established by the Apostles themselves, or by their authority. And this is no difficult task. That, which was primitive and catholic, must surely have been also apostolic. Had the apostolic constitution of the household of Christ been one of parity, or presbyterian, a government of elders, all having equal authority, it is impossible that in so short a time it should have been universally changed into episcopal, and that, tacitly and unobservedly, without notice or reclamation of any kind: and yet so it must have been effected, if it was effected at all; since there is no historical account of any measures taken for that purpose, no canon of a Council, no decree of an emperor, no consent of different Churches. Either episcopal goverment was in conformity with the known mind and will of the holy Apostles, or it was not. If it was, the question is settled. If not, can we possibly believe that the companions and scholars of the Apostles, and those who where their companions and scholars, should have conspired to effect so great and total a change in the regimen of the Church, or have tacitly submitted to any attempt on the part of others to enforce it? Were all the watchmen asleep, and all the dogs dumb, when the spirit of ambition crept into the fold and secured to himself the mastery of God's heritage? Were those persons, who contended so fiercely about an outward observance, the time of celebrating Easter, likely to surrender the rights of their presbyterate into the hands of new and unauthorised governors? "When I shall see," says the acute and learned Chillingworth, "all the fables in the Metamorphosis "acted and prove stories; when I shall see all the "democracies and aristocracies in the world lie down "and sleep, and awake into monarchies; then will I "begin to believe, that presbyterial government, "having continued in the Church during the Apostles' "times, should presently after (against the Apostles'

"doctrine and the will of Christ) be whirled about "like a scene in mask, and transformed into episcopy. "In the meantime, while these things remain thus "incredible, and, in human reason, impossible, I hope "I shall have leave to conclude thus: Episcopal "government is acknowledged to have been univer"sally received in the Church, presently after the "Apostles' times. Between the Apostles times and "this presently after, there was not time enough, nor "possibility of, so great alteration: and therefore "there was no such alteration as is pretended. And "therefore episcopacy, being confessed to be so "ancient and catholic, must be granted also to be "apostolic, which was to be proved."

Let it be observed, that this demonstration would hold good, even if there were no direct evidence in the writings of the New Testament to the apostolical origin of episcopal government; but it is rendered, if possible, doubly sure, when we find St. Paul beseeching Timothy to abide in Ephesus, and to charge the presbyters to teach no other than sound doctrine; to judge of accusations brought against them, and to rebuke them that sinned; to lay hands on those that were to be ordained to the ministry; to commit unto faithful men the things that he had heard from the Apostle, that they might teach them to others also. We could not have a more full or precise description of the essential functions of a Bishop. Again he reminds Titus, that he had left him in Crete, that he should set in order the things that were wanting, and ordain elders in every city; to rebuke sharply the Judaizing teachers, and to instruct Christians of all ages and classes how to behave themselves; to speak, and exhort, and rebuke, not merely in the way of brotherly admonition and counsel, but with all authority; to reject, or excommunicate, heretics, after the first and second admonition. Here again we have all the chief lineaments

of the episcopal office. Lastly, each of the Asiatic Churches, to whom a message of warning was sent in the Apocalyptic vision, was addressed through its Angel; and that the Angel was the Bishop of that church, and not, as some have pretended, the guardian Angel of the Church, is clear from this, that a message sent by a man, must have been sent to a man, and not to one of the heavenly intelligences; and if to a man, then to one that was answerable for the government of the Church. And if each of these seven Churches had its Bishop, we may infer, with certainty, that every other Church had also the same spiritual government.

That the authority of ordination to the ministry, and of ordering things necessary to edification, was committed by the Apostles to chosen men of the brethren, and by them conveyed in succession to others; that these men were called, from the time when the Apostles were taken to their reward, Bishops, or Overseers; that they ruled and directed the Church in doctrine and discipline; that no mode of ordination, independent of their authority, was pretended, or attempted, or spoken of, in the primitive Church; that there was no branch of that Church, which was not governed by its own Bishop, taught by its own presbyters, and served by its own Deacons; -all these points are so prominent and plain in the Church's history, and were for so many centuries unquestioned, that some of the most learned opponents of episcopacy in later times, being also, as was natural, the most candid, have admitted them as facts, and have endeavoured to elude the force of them as well as they could.

From Bishop Blomfleld's Three Sermons on the
Church.