this very ceremony, when he says, 'I will wash my hands in innocency, and so will I. go to thine altar? Therefore to wash the hands is an emblem of innocence.

"Then the deacon cries out, 'Embrace and kiss each other.' Do not thou suppose that kiss resembles such as pass between acquaintances at the market-place. It is a union of soul, and pledges a mutual oblivion of injuries. It is a sign of reconciliation and forgiveness. Therefore Christ said, 'If thou bringest thy gift to the altar, and thou rememberest that thy brother hath aught against thee, leave thy gift before the altar, and go thy way; first be reconciled to thy brother, and then come and offer thy gift. The kiss, then, is the reconciliation, and therefore holy. As St. Paul says,

Greet one another with a holy kiss;' and St. Peter speaks of the ‘kiss of charity.' "Next the minister cries out,' Lift up your hearts;' for truly in that most awful hour it is needful to set the heart on God, and not on the earth beneath, or things of the earth. His exhortation then means, that we should, at that season, put off all worldly thoughts, family cares, and fix the heart in heaven, on our merciful God. You answer-We lift them up unto the Lord,' assenting to him by this response. Let no one say so with his mouth, while his mind is set on thoughts of the world. We ought ever to have God in our thoughts: if this be impossible, through human weakness, then at least we must earnestly strive to do so.

"Then the minister says, 'Let us give thanks to the Lord.' Truly, it is his due, who has called us unworthy to so great a grace,-has reconciled us when enemies, -has vouchsafed unto us the spirit of adoption. So you make answer:-"It is right and meet;' for thanksgiving surely is meet towards him who has done, not what is meet, but what is far more than your deserts, in vouchsafing to you blessings, and so great ones.

"Next, we make mention of heaven, and earth, and sea, sun and moon, stars, and all the creation, rational and irrational, visible and invisible, angels, archangels, powers, dominions, principalities, authorities, thrones, the cherubim veiling their faces, as if to say with David, 'O magnify the Lord with me.' We make mention, too, of the seraphim whom Isaiah saw in the Holy Spirit, as standing round God's throne, and covering their faces with twain of their wings, and with twain their feet, and with twain flying, and saying, 'Holy, holy, holy Lord of hosts.' We repeat this hymn, which the seraphim have provided for us, with a view of sharing in the praises of the heavenly hosts; so that, sanctifying ourselves by these spiritual songs, we may beseech the God of loving mercy to send forth his Holy Spirit upon the offering, that he may make the bread the body of Christ, and the wine the blood of Christ. For certainly whatever the Holy Ghost may touch, that is sanctified and changed."

And thus he speaks of the church in one of his catecheses :-

Concerning the catholic church much might be said; but let us confine ourselves to a few remarks. It is then called catholic, as being over the whole world, from one end of the earth to the other; also, because it teaches universally and entirely all the doctrines which man ought to know, concerning things visible and invisible, heavenly and earthly; also because it brings to godliness all orders of men, governors and governed, educated and unlettered; also because it is a universal remedy, healing every kind of sin, whether of soul or body, and containing in it every kind of virtue which has a name, in work, and word, and manifold spiritual gifts. Fitly is it called the church [congregation], as being a calling forth and gathering together of all. The psalmist says, ' Bless ye God in the congregations [churches,] even the Lord from the fountain of Israel.' When, however, the Jews had fallen from grace, by taking counsel against the Saviour, he provided out of the Gentiles a second holy society,-viz., the church of us Christians, of which he spoke to PeterUpon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. Concerning the holy catholic church, St. Paul writes to Timothy, That thou mayest know how to behave in the house of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and foundation of the truth.'

"Since, however, the name of church means different things,. . . . and one might properly and truly describe the meetings of sectaries, such as Manichæans and the rest, as the congregation,' or church of the wicked,' therefore the creed commits to thee, to prevent mistake, the article of the one holy catholic church; that fleeing their polluted meetings, thou mayst remain continually in that holy church catholic in which thou obtainedst regeneration. And should you happen to be in foreign cities,

do not simply ask for the place of worship; for the sects of the ungodly attempt to call their hiding-place by that name; but ask for the catholic church, for this is the characteristic title of that holy one who is the mother of us all, and the spouse of our Lord Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of God. For it is written, Christ loved the church, and gave himself for it, &c.' It is a type and resemblance of Jerusalem, which is above, which is free, and the mother of us all; which before was barren, but now abounds in children. For when the former one was rejected, in this second catholic church, as St. Paul says, God placed first apostles, next prophets, thirdly teachers, then powers, after that gifts of healings, helps, governments, kind of tongues, and every sort of virtue; I mean wisdom and understanding, temperance and justice, compassion and benevolence, and unconquerable patience in persecutions; and now, in times of peace, by the grace of God, it receives the honour due to it from kings, and those who are in power, and from every class and race of men; for the authority of kings is limited by place; but the holy church catholic alone, spread throughout the world, has power without circumscribing line; as it is written, 'God maketh peace in her border;' concerning whom, did I wish to say everything, I should need many hours for my account of her."

He thus speaks of exorcisms in the case of the unbaptized; an usage in which he even goes beyond us of the English church in what ultra-protestants would call superstition :

God requires nothing of us but good purpose of heart. Say not, How are my sins blotted out? I tell thee then, by willing and believing. What is easier than this? If thy lips express the will, but thy heart speaks otherwise, the judge is a searcher of hearts. From this day forward, break off every evil work...

Let thy feet hasten to the catechetical instructions; receive with seriousness the exorcisms; whether thou art breathed upon, or exorcised, consider it a means of salvation. If gold be adulterated with many metals, brass, tin, iron, and lead, and we seek to disengage it, fire is necessary for the purifying of it; so without rites of exorcisms the soul cannot be cleansed."

While Cyril goes beyond the popular notions of this day, on the points contained in the above extracts, he expresses himself, with respect to the grounds of belief, in a manner which so accurately coincides with what, in my last paper, I called the Anglican doctrine, "as distinguished from popish and puritanical innovations," that it may be well to quote it :—

"Believe of thine own faith on him, and he will give thee from himself a living faith, above man's strength. Obtain the faith by teaching and by profession, and keep it alone, which is now committed to thee by the church, and proved from all scripture. For since all cannot study the scriptures, whether through want of learning, or want of leisure, lest the soul should perish from lack of knowledge, we comprise the whole doctrine of the faith in a few sentences, which I wish you to retain as I read them, and diligently to repeat afterwards by yourselves. . . .. Keep this faith as a companion of your way all the days of your life, and admit none other but it, though we ourselves should change, and unsay our present teaching, or an angel should oppose it in the form of an angel of light, and wish to pervert thee. Whenever you

hear that text read, remember the faith. Receive, at a fit season, proofs from holy scripture for each particular point of it; for the doctrines of faith are not the opinions of men, but the most opposite texts, being brought together from all scripture, fill up the teaching of faith; and as a grain of mustard-seed, however small, contains many branches, so the creed, in a few words, implies all the truths of religion, both of the Old and New Testament."

Here then, for the present, I take leave of my readers, and of St. Cyril of Jerusalem.

ON THE EPISCOPACY OF THE HERRNHUTERS.

SIR, I have been for some time waiting for some notice, on the part of your numerous and well-read correspondents, of the dissertation entitled "On the Episcopacy of the Herrnhuters," in the Numbers for May and June, 1835. The writer of that dissertation would involve the whole English episcopate, together with Archbishop Potter, in the charge of permitting themselves to be deceived and duped by a very poor and inconsiderable sect, who assumed episcopacy only to procure favour in the eyes of protestant episcopalians. This is a heavy charge, and not having any opportunity at this time of having recourse to all the documents referred to by the writer, I shall not now enter into a minute examination of all that he has asserted. But if he can admit the evidence of Rimius, I fear that he may have allowed himself to be led astray by other allegations of testimony equally uncertain. Nor can I yet be induced to believe that Potter and Herring, Butler and Chandler, Lavington and Secker, with the other bishops of their day, were without better opportunities of detecting forgeries than the anonymous writer. He professes, indeed, a readiness to believe that for two centuries the United Brethren have been unscrupulous impostors, pretending to an episcopacy which they cannot with justice claim; and, surpassing strange it is, that he has not ventured farther, and asserted that, with the same intent, they pretended to a liturgical worship, to a system of ecclesiastical discipline, and to a modified institute of religious orders.

The writer insinuates that Regenvolscius details a false account of the origin of the Moravian episcopacy; for since the first members of the unity of the brethren did not hold episcopacy to be of divine or apostolic, but of ecclesiastical institution, therefore it is not likely that they had bishops at all, or sought to have. On the other hand, let any one read Latrobe's translation of "Crantz's History of the United Brethren," and he will deem them from the first to have been anything but that jesuitical body which the writer to whom I advert assumes them to have been. This I ground on the internal evidence of the work itself, in which, throughout, both the faults and graces of this communion are delineated with simplicity, and without that constant effort at palliation which unhappily distinguished so many ecclesiastical historians and biographers. But why should the account of the first bishops of the Moravians be suspected from their low view of the origin of episcopacy? Are there not too many in our own communion who think as, if not more, slightingly of the origin of episcopacy, than did the first Moravians, according to Regenvolscius? Yet these hold that, as an human institution, episcopacy is preferable to every other form of church government. Are the apostles to be condemned because they observed, with the Jewish Christians, some things the reason and necessity of which had ceased, for the sake of peace and unity, and because under certain circumstances they were innocent? And was there nothing laudable in the United Brethren desiring to adhere to episcopacy, that they might give no causeless offence to those amongst whom they lived, but might the more easily win their

attention to those blessed truths, for the sake of which they had separated? This is of a piece with their preserving that liturgical form of worship, and that primitive discipline, which distinguishes them from all sects, and the influence of which upon their conduct and habits all have witnessed who have lived in friendship with them. Their episcopacy Regenvolscius, a Lutheran, has registered; and that of the Waldenses, the anti-episcopal Mosheim has asserted in his account of the twelfth century. Birkbeck, in his "Protestant Evidence," also adduces it; a work of very considerable merit, and commended by Southey. That the Waldenses have deserted episcopacy, no more proves that they never revered it, than the heterodoxy of many presbyterian congregations in this age disproves the Christianity of Lady Hewley and the trinitarian presbyterians who built so many chapels, in which now the Godhead of our Lord is blasphemed. The ancient connexion of the Moravians with the Greek church a stranger would at once infer, from their liturgy. In the morning service, you may recognise a striking resemblance to many passages, which the common reader may remark as oriental, if he is in the habit of using Bishop Andrewe's incomparable prayers, of which much is selected from the eastern church.

The whole spirit of the Moravians is that of an episcopal communion. It is a spirit of order, subordination, and loyalty; again, they have certain practices which the writer on the episcopacy of the Herrnhuters will find it extremely difficult to derive from the spirit of imposture. Whence their annual commemoration of the faithful departed, but from primitive antiquity?

PRESBYTER CANTABRIGIENSIS.

ON THE EPISCOPACY OF THE HERRNHUTERS.

SIR,-I thank you much for allowing me a sight of the letter of "Presbyter Cantabrigiensis" upon this subject, which I hope you will insert, as anything which helps to throw light upon a point of history, particularly ecclesiastical history, and, more particularly, upon a point of ecclesiastical history of so much importance, must be interesting to your readers, and of advantage to the truth: and though the letter of "Presbyter Cantabrigiensis" throws no light itself, it may be the means of eliciting it from others. One thing I can assure him, and all your readers, that if he, or any of them, can remove the doubts and difficulties which have presented themselves to my own mind in investigating this subject,-and which I submitted to their consideration, in May 1835, and can clearly establish the apostolic character of the Moravian community, there are few individuals, if any, who will more rejoice than myself. All I would venture to remind "Presbyter Cantabrigiensis" of at present is, that those doubts and difficulties arose from an examination of their own histories; of their own statements of their principles and practice, as set forth by their own writers, and in their own esteemed and authorized books. As for Rimius, though I know no reason for disbelieving him, beyond the suspicion which

always attaches to a changeling, if "Presbyter Cantabrigiensis" will do me the favour to look over the papers in the "British Magazine" again, he will perceive that I have only cited him once, and that not for any fact which would rely upon his credibility, but simply as containing an extract from another work to which I had no means of referring directly, but for which he gives a reference to the edition and the page. The passage is one of hardly any importance at all; be it correct, or be it false, it cannot affect the truth of the statements and opinions furnished by Regenvolsch, Crantz, Bost, and Holmes, all writers of estimation among the Herrnhuters; still less can it affect the statements contained in the "Acta Fratrum Unitatis," and the "Exposition of Christian Doctrine as taught by the Church of the United Brethren," works put forth by the authority of the community. Unless it be supposed that any documents have been lost since the middle of last century, we have in these works all the evidence upon the strength of which Archbishop Potter lent his countenance to this sect; and, in a question of mere evidence, one man is as good a judge as another. Nor does it seem to me to be a very "heavy charge" against a Christian bishop, that he should have been persuaded to believe that to be true which he could not but hope to find so, although the grounds for his belief might, upon strict examination, be found inadequate to the importance of the belief which rested upon them. I observe that your correspondent enumerates the name of Bishop Lavington among those affected by this "heavy charge." If he is acquainted with that bishop's "Moravians compared and detected, Lond. 1755," it can only be through inadvertence that he has inserted his name. If he is unacquainted with it, perhaps he will be at the pains to consult it before writing again upon the subject: and when he finds that I have not even once alluded to the fearful horrors contained in that book, he will, I trust, acquit me of all unkind and uncharitable feelings towards the Moravians of the present day. In the absence of proof to the contrary, I am bound in charity to believe that they would reject those shuddering and insane enormities as easily as any other Christian denomination. While to the value of their devoted labours in the propagation of Christian faith, I am so far from being insensible, that, on account of those labours, I should rejoice with heartfelt joy, could they make good their claim to the apostolic character, or, failing to do so, would endeavour to obtain it, and thus seek to "fulfil all righteousness." But, in a matter of historical and ecclesiastical truth, we are not at liberty to make our kindly wishes a substitute for reasonable proof. As to what your correspondent says about the Waldenses, surely their own moderator Leger is higher authority than Mosheim, who, being "anti-episcopal," is not likely to have understood the distinction between a mere outward approach to an episcopal form of government, and the internal preservation of the essential apostolic succession. It is from Leger that I have cited, who himself laughs to scorn all cause of such succession, except in the preservation of doctrine. ALPHA.

There is an erratum in the paper, British Magazine, vol. vii. p. 650, which it may be as well to notice, as it destroys the force of the passage: p. 650, line 10, for "1555," read " 1655."