on his death, A. D. 91, by Clement. The liturgy of the Episcopal Church corresponds closely with that early used in the Church of Ephesus, ascribed by early history to St. John, and is traced from Britain to Lyons, and thence through Bishop Paulinus, a disciple of Polycarp, the pupil of St. John, to Smyrna and Ephesus, the seat of the favored apostle of our Lord.

"Let me invite your attention to the historical evidence that St. Paul first planted the Church in Britain. From those valuable documents, the Triads, preserved in the Welsh monasteries, it appears that about A D. 52, Caradoc, a British prince, his son Brennus, and grandson Linus, were carried to Rome, and detained seven years in bondage. While in Rome they became converts to Christianity. At the end of seven years Brennus returned to Britain with Aristobulus, whose household St. Paul salutes in his Epistle to the Romans.

"This account is supported by Gildas, a British historian, a. D. 560, who affirms in the evidence of ancient records, that Christianity was introduced into Britain about the time of the revolt and overthrow of Boadicea, A. D. 61. Linus, the son of Brennus, of Britain, was probably ordained by St. Paul, first Bishop of Rome,* and appears to have been his convert and particular friend, for he refers to him in his second Epistle to Timothy. Clement, another disciple of St. Paul, and third bishop of Rome, commended by that apostle in his Epistle to the Corinthians, A. D. 87, states, that St. Paul, in preaching the Gospel, went to the utmost bounds of the West,' which not only includes Britain, but is the very expression by which Britain was then described. Eusebius, A. D. 305, says, one of the apostles visited the British isles,' and Theodoret, A. D. 415, mentions the Britons and Cimbrians as nations who had received laws from the apostles; and we are not to forget that St. Paul himself proposed to make a visit to Spain, a point still more remote.

"Were further confirmation wanting, the old writer Dorotheus mentions the fact that Aristobulus, the friend of St. Paul, was one of the first bishops of the British church, made many converts, ordained priests and deacons and bishops, and died in Britain. Aristobulus being a Greek, would of course carry with him the Eastern ritual, and this may explain the agreement between the Greek and British ritual, and the variance from the Roman. We may then safely infer, from the evidence of history, that St. Paul planted the Church in Britain between A. D. 60 and A. D. 67, when he was beheaded at Rome, under the Emperor Nero. The Triads further prove that Lucius, a grandson of Linus, the first bishop of Rome, was permitted by the Romans to reign over part of Britain, and exerted himself to promote Christianity in Britain. The venerable Bede, the

Apos. Cons. VII. 46.

+ 2 Tim. 4: 21.

See Monos. Angli. Vol. III. p. 188; Hopkins, P. C., 364.

favorite author of King Alfred, records a severe persecution (A. D. 303) of the Christians in Britain, and the names of the first martyrs, Verolamus, Aaron, and Julius, the last of Legion, or Cair Leon, in Wales."-pp. 70-74.

The learned Jurist appears to have two theories, which do not precisely harmonize. The one theory is, that the British Church was founded by St. Paul, who it will be recollected our Jurist maintains was the principal, if not sole, founder of the Church of Rome; the other is, that it derived from St. John through the Church of Ephesus in Asia. We hope in the second edition of his Letters, he will decide which of these two theories he will abide by, for we shall not allow him to hold both. With regard to the important historical documents he speaks of, all we have to say is, that the Welsh Triads have about as much historical authority as the romances of Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table, or of Charlemagne and his Twelve Paladins. There is not the slightest historical authority for supposing St. Paul ever visited Great Britain, and certain it is the British Church was never reckoned among the churches founded by an Apostle. The pretence that the Church in Britain was derived from the Apostle St. John, through the Church of Ephesus, has no foundation, except that there was, down to the time of Pope St. Victor, a difference as to the time of keeping Easter between certain churches of Asia Minor and the Church of Rome, and there was also a difference in the sixth century on the same subject, between Rome and the British churches. But though there was a difference, it was not the same difference. The British Christians differed as much from Ephesus as they did from Rome. St. Linus was an Etruscan, the son of Herculanus, not a Welshman, and grandson of Caradoc,at least such is the best historical account of him extant. Whether St. Linus was a married man or not, does not disturb us, unless it be proved that he had a wife and lived with her as his wife while he was Pope.

The controversy the learned Jurist opens as to the original establishment of the Church in Great Britain has a certain antiquarian interest, but it is not of the slightest importance in the question before us. St. Paul could not have founded in Britain a Church not one with the Church Mr. Derby contends he founded in Rome. The Church is

a polity, a kingdom, and therefore must be, wherever it is, under one and the same regimen. It is only on this ground that there can be such a sin as schism. The supposition that the Church in Britain was an independent Church, complete in itself, would imply that it was different from the Church in other countries, and therefore deny the unity of the Church. But even suppose the British Churches were independent of the Apostolic See, that would not help the present Anglican Establishment, for this Establishment derives no Apostolic succession from them, since they had, at the time it was founded, no Apostolic succession, as they had no Apostolic character, except what they had derived from communion with the See of Rome. If they had ever existed as distinct and independent Churches, they had for ages ceased to exist as such. The Welsh prelates had, to say the least, for nearly a thousand years, maintained their Apostolic succession only through the See of Peter, and any other channel through which it could be derived, if other channel there was, had long since ceased to exist for them. Even if the present Anglican Establishment, which is not the fact, derived from them, as both they and it rejected the succession through Rome, it would not and could not have contained the original British Churches, and through them have reached the Apostles, and maintained an unbroken succession. The supposed or alleged British succession had been abandoned or lost, if it ever existed, by the connection with Rome and recognized dependence on the Papal See. Independence of the Papal See did not revive that succession, which had not merely been in abeyance, but had wholly lapsed. Supposing, then, the original British Church was founded by St. Paul, and was independent of Rome, the Anglican Establishment did not enter into the rights of that Church with which it had never been connected, and from which it was separated by a distance of a thousand years. This fact alone would be fatal to the Church claims of the Establishment. During the period of its union with the See of Peter, it was Catholic, or it was not. If it was, it is not now, because it has separated from that See; if it was not, it also is not now, because during all that period it wanted the Apostolic succession, and as it was united with no other See, that by another channel connects with the Apostles, it is not Catholic, for

the Church must be Catholic in time as well as space, and it can be Catholic in time only by means of an unbroken Apostolic succession.

Mr. Derby proceeds on the false assumption, that bishops, if validly consecrated, can transmit the Apostolic succession, thus resolving the Apostolic succession into simple Episcopal succession. There is no doubt that the Episcopal succession, although it has not been in the so-called Church of England, may be kept in heresy or schism. Heretical or schismatical bishops may be validly consecrated, and may confer valid orders, and if orders were what is meant by Apostolic succession, that succession might be claimed by heretics and schismatics. Indeed, no one validly ordained could be regarded as a schismatic or a heretic,-certainly not as a schismatic. But the succession essential to the Church is not simply the Episcopal succession, but also the Apostolic succession, and this is not simply a succession of orders, but also a succession of authority. Orders carry with them a character, and an indelible character, but they do not carry with them jurisdiction, or the authority to exercise Episcopal functions. The Church of Christ is Apostolic, not simply Episcopal, and bishops are successors of the Apostles only in the respect that the Apostles were Bishops, and can transmit only the Episcopal, not the Apostolic succession. Take the case of the British Bishops, as Mr. Derby presents it; they could have transmitted only the Episcopal succession, for that was all they had; but the Episcopal succession is simply a succession of orders, not of authority or jurisdiction. This would have given to the Establishment no Apostolic character, and no participation in the Apostolate which our Lord established. The Apostolate is above the Episcopate, and is under God the origin and source of all authority in the Church. Our Lord placed, as St. Paul tells us, Apostles first, that is, made the Apostolic authority the supreme authority in His Church. Bishops, by the simple fact that they are bishops, do not participate in this authority, for if they did no bishop could be deprived, even for schism or heresy, since the Episcopal as the sacerdotal character is indelible. The Episcopal character of itself carries with it no jurisdiction, no authority whatever, and the bishop can licitly perform no Episcopal function till authorized or assigned his jurisdic

tion by the Apostolic authority. The Greek schismatic bishops have orders, and are real bishops, but they have no rightful jurisdiction, have no authority to govern the faithful, and no voice in defining the faith, simply because they have not the Apostolic succession, or have interrupted it, by breaking away from the Apostolic See. The Church must be Apostolic as well as Episcopal, as even Anglicans themselves virtually concede in asserting, though falsely, for themselves the Apostolic succession.

That orders do not of themselves carry with them Apostolic authority, or jurisdiction, even Anglicans must and do admit. Their bishops receive the Episcopal character from their brother bishops, but not their jurisdiction, or authority to exercise their Episcopal functions. That they receive from the crown or civil power, which, though it preserves for them a civil, can hardly be said to preserve for them the Apostolic succession. Anglicans were more consequent than are our American Episcopalians. They saw clearly enough that Episcopacy was not in itself a governing authority, and having resolved to reject all ecclesiastical authority above bishops, they transferred the governing authority, hitherto exercised in the Church, from the Papacy to the crown, and as they were aware that with bishops alone they could not retain the Church, they merged it in the state, and made the bishops simply civil functionaries. The Archbishop of Canterbury may be a prelate, but he is a civil not an ecclesiastical prelate. The Episcopalians with us, having no civil power to govern them, no king or queen to be their head and governor, are acephalous, and without authority of any kind. They have bishops in name, but no authority to assign them a diocese, and authorize them to exercise their Episcopal functions. Their convention is a self-constituted body, and is a ridiculous attempt to extract something from nothing. The bishops distributively have no power to confer jurisdiction, how can they then collectively? Can the whole be more than the sum of the parts?

But passing over this; it is clear that what Mr. Derby calls the Church of England has and can have neither Catholicity nor Apostolicity, both of which even he concedes to be essential marks of the true Church. It is not Catholic, for it is national, and there is a period of nearly a thousand years when it had no existence; and it is not