yet seen, should comprise all the fascinating influences of learning, talent, wealth, and decorous morality. To them it belongs to admit no hazardous amalgamation between the church of which Christ is the living head, and the world that lies in the wicked one; no fictitious distinction in that unquickened mass, into the secular and ecclesiastical world, the ecclesiastical itself being in everything but name and form identical with the secular. Let not the enlightened admit that a succession of names can supply the place of a succession of things; or that the apostles and early disciples of Christ can have any others to inherit their privileges, than those who are actuated by similar views, and endowed with the same life-giving power from on high, not indeed in miraculous, but in sanctifying energy.

Library of Ecclesiastical Knowledge.

THE BROKEN CHAIN OF APOSTOLICAL
SUCCESSION.

We have never been told-though we should like to be-how the believers in the necessity of direct and unbroken Apostolical Succession, for the existence of a ministry and a church, supply the many broken links of their chain, which can be pointed out, Without recurring to the fractures which the history of the papacy discloses, the following stubborn instances in the English episcopal church, in recent times, give something of a shock to the high church pretensions, and seem to deserve an explanation. We quote from the Record:

"A correspondent wishes us to ask those of our readers who are well versed in the apostolical succession controversy, how the matter stands on the following points.

"1. As to the baptism of Archbishop Secker, Adam Clarke distinctly asserts, that being the son of a dissenting minister, he received dissenters' baptism, and afterwards entered the church, and became successively Rector of St. James's, Dean of St. Paul's, Bishop of Bristol, and Archbishop of Canterbury. So that, if the fact be so, a man became primate of all England, who, according to Tractarian views, had not even been so much as admitted into the christian church! But has not the fact

been denied, and some baptismal register been adduced? It is very desirable that the truth should be fully ascertained.

"2. The like question may be asked of Bishop Butler, also of Bristol, and subsequently of Durham. It is a strange thing, if these two men should have been occupied for many years in ordaining clergymen and consecrating other bishops, without being christians (i. e. regularly admitted members of the church of Christ) themselves. And we must also remember, that, if the fact be so, of these two bishops, or either of them, it merely attracts notice because of their great personal celebrity. What occurred in their cases must unquestionably have occurred in many others, although the other prelates, being men of little note, have escaped all remark and all inquiry.

If

"3. Of Archbishop Tillotson the doubts are various. Did he ever receive baptism at all? Was he not often challenged to show when and where he was baptized, and did he ever satisfy the inquirer? Again, was he ever ordained a deacon at all; or a priest, by any one entitled to confer orders in England? none of these questions can be satisfactorily answered, what sort of a succession does it leave in the church of England, except, indeed, it can be argued, that an unbaptized and unordained bishop can yet confer orders, and consecrate other bishops?

"4. Is the fact denied or questioned, that king Charles I received no other than Presbyterian baptism? 'This blessed saint,' says Mr. Newman, 'died for Episcopacy;' and yet it seems never to have occurred to him that baptism, in order to be valid, according to the Laudean scheme, must be received at the hands of an episcopally ordained minister.”

WHO CAN UNTIE THE KNOT?

This is emphatically a period for searching inquiry. All things, secular and sacred, are passing through the ordeal of a more rigid scrutiny than any to which they have been hitherto subjected. Especially is this true of the adventitious adjuncts and meretricious appendages of religion. As the architectural erections of past ages accumulate mosses and weeds on their superfices, and become blackened by the breath of time, until these

very defilements come at length to be consecrated in the eyes of the beholders, and regarded with a species of venerating admiration-so, in the lapse of years, the majestic fabric of truth becomes overgrown with the wild luxuriance of error, and encumbered by unsightly human inventions, by which its fair proportions are distorted, its grace and elegance marred, and its sanctity profaned. Hence it becomes necessary, ever and anon, to strip it of the exuberant disfigurements which centuries of comparative neglect had fostered, and bring it under a process of severe and unsparing expurgation. Such an ordeal awaits the church. All things must be tried by fire. All religious rites-all ceremonial ordinances—all magniloquent titles —all sacerdotal usurpations—all haughty pretensions—all adulterated doctrines-are destined to be brought to the testing furnace. The live coals are already kindling. The hot blast, by which error is to be fused and transmuted, is already felt around. The alloy-the vile admixture—the human which is attempted to be amalgamated with the divine shall perish. The pure metal, the sparkling gold, shall alone survive. A sterling currency of truth shall be restored to the church. The sons of the illustrious nonconforming heroes of a former age are heralding this glorious change. Some of these intrepid men, with a true sublimity of holy daring, are gone forth from the half-awakened camp of dissent, as the vanguard, or pioneers, to precede the dense phalanxes of that mighty host, which the Great Captain shall lead on to the discomfiture of "the man of sin," and the ransom of a priest-stridden world.

But, oh, let us not bedeck ourselves with the plumage of the adversary. Let us not be detected symbolizing with Babylon. Let us not covet her embroidered vestments, her princely titles, her courtly honors. Let us not be encumbered with the heavy baggage of terrestrial treasures. Let our religious garb be simple and unostentatious. Let our actions be guileless. Let us see to it that we foster no heresies—that we are enamoured of no errors. Let our weapon be single and of etherial temper. They who stand forth to award religious freedom must not themselves be in bondage. They who would instrumentally purify the church, must first have washed their own hands from all corrupt adhesions. This has not been accomplished yet. There is rust upon our sword-blades-too much assimilation to

the spirit and bearing of a religious oligarchy-too much conformation to the image of hierarchs. We are, promiscuously speaking, more unlike Peter and Paul, than we are unlike the priests of Judah, and the Pharisees of Jerusalem.

The writer is perplexed and confounded at a strange anomaly exhibited by our dissenting ministers in the present day. He casts his eyes through the clustering hosts of the church, and perceives a multitude wearing to their names the titled affixes of doctor of divinity, doctor of philology, master of arts, bachelor of arts, &c. The writer then turns to Matthew xxiii. 8, 9, 10, and there reads as follows :-" But be not ye called Rabbi; for one is your master, even Christ; and all ye are brethren. And call no man your father upon earth; for one is your Father, which is in heaven. Neither be ye called masters; for one is your Master, even Christ," &c. Now here is an obvious discrepancy between the tolerated and patronized practice of acknowledged good men, and the seemingly plain and unmistakeable prohibition of Christ our Lord and Master, to whose authority alone we profess to bow, and the registered statutes of whose kingdom we reckon it our highest glory to obey! Who can untie this knot? Who can educe harmony out of this discord? Who can unriddle this enigma? Who can reconcile such apparent contradictions? If one of those loved and venerated men, who wear these reputed popish appendages—the authority of whose example in this, as in all other matters, is so commanding in the church of God, both for good and evilwould condescend to explain this prohibitory passage to give us their approved interpretation of Christ's apparent interdict of titulary honors and distinctions-he would confer a large favour on many minds, and, peradventure, dissipate misapprehension from many judgments. The inquirer desires it to be distinctly understood, that he designs to cast no breath of reproach on any of those illustrious men who may wear these titles. Some of them he honors too highly to permit such a reflection on their consistency. Their conscientiousness in all things none will deny. All he respectfully asks is-that some kind friend will explain what to him appears inconsistent with the spirit and letter of some portions of the New Testament. If honorary titles are sanctioned by scripture, let it be distinctly known. If they are prohibited, let every honest, faithful servant of Christ

however exalted in official rank, however gifted and extolledrenounce them-deny them—trample upon them.

Ye fathers! soon must your spirits accomplish their transit from the horizon of the church below to the firmament of glory. In the hour of your departure, leave no LEGACY OF ERROR to the rising heirs of nonconformist principles. Whatever you stamp with your approbation acquires a comparative sanctity in the estimation of those who love to follow you as followers of Christ. Many accept the coin you issue without examination, deeming your name, your position, your sagacity, and your accredited fidelity, sufficient guarantee for its sterling quality. Look to it then that you circulate no base, unscriptural error. Give us "the TRUTH-the WHOLE truth-and NOTHING BUT the truth!" QUITO.

CULTIVATION OF ENGLISH COMPOSITION. The ability of expressing our thoughts in simple, clear, and elegant language was never more worthy of cultivation than in the present day, when the power of the press for good or evil has become so vastly increased.

There is no kind of employment to which the old saying of Dr. Johnson is more applicable than the study of compositionthat nothing truly valuable is to be obtained without labour. If you would arrive at any degree of perfection in this art, you must devote yourself to its acquisition, with untiring energy and unconquerable perseverance. There is much that is tedious and perplexing in being obliged to review, over and over again, a piece of writing for the purpose of making the necessary corrections, before the writing could be submitted to the eye of a critic; but you have this encouragement, that every such effort will improve your taste, so that your future efforts will gradually require less labour of the kind. The labour bestowed even by the most celebrated authors on the correction of their works, may without exaggeration be said to have been truly stupendous. Cowper, with all his refinement of taste, refers continually in his letters to the diligence with which he attended to the work of correction. And Dr. Johnson, the great critic, whose employment as a lexicographer rendered him unquestionably more conversant with the true definition of words than any