Episcopacy, the succession is interrupted. No, Sir! as long as there remains a single Bishop in the world, one lawful successor of the Apostles, the apostolic succession remains. We are under no apprehension that it will ever be lost. It is founded on the ROCK OF AGES; on the unfailing promise of the divine Head of the Church, "Lo, I am with you alway, even to the end of the world."

t

The "Episcopal Priests" in this State, because they maintain tenets obnoxious to you, you have been pleased to load with every epithet of contempt and opprobrium. I wish not to repeat expressions which I deeply regret you ever descended to use. If you consider your language as merely "playful," it would have comported better with the dignity of truth, and with the dictates of charity, if, on a serious subject, you had yourself been grave. If you mean to awe the advocates of Episcopacy into silence, be assured you will fail in your aim. Your attack on Episcopacy has already called forth in her defence "A Layman" and "Cyprian," who do honour to themselves and to their cause. I am not even without the hope that this discussion, which you have provoked, "will produce some effect upon those who are teaching things contrary to sound doctrine;" will lead the candid and dispassionate to examine and to acknowledge the claims of that Priesthood, which has subsisted from "the Apostles' times," and which was never laid aside, until the sixteenth century, in any part of the Christian world.

To the author of the "Companion for the Festivals and Fasts" you apply the remark-" Into what vagaries and absurdities will men sometimes run to maintain a cause which they have inconsiderately espoused." Now, Sir, to impress on you the impropriety of rash judgment, I will inform you, that the opinions advanced by that author were the result of a serious and full investigation of the subject on which he wrote; and that the sentiments which you style absurd, are expressed in the language of Divines, who ever have been and ever will be considered as the brightest ornaments of the English Church. But from you, Sir, a charge of this kind surprises me-you, Sir, who, when you explained texts of Scripture, disdained to employ the lights of commentators; and who recently made it your boast that, in the present discussion, you have scorned to take either "counsel or assistance."

I confess I am both surprised and pleased with a concession in one of your late numbers. You observe, "I would be cautious in asserting the divine right, either of Episcopacy or Presbyterianism." And yet you set out with considering Episcopacy as a usurpation; you commenced this controversy with the positive assertion that "the Classical or Presbyterial form of Church government is the true and only one which Christ hath prescribed in his word.” I congratulate you, Sir, on this candid renunciation of error-I congratulate you on the traces of mildness and moderation which you display towards "An Episcopalian." O si sic omnia! On sacred subjects we should disdain those little arts that are worthy only of the dabbler in the sinks of party politics; and should wield the manly weapons of candour and truth. Pardon me, Sir; I honour in you that conscientious exercise of judgment which I claim for myself. But when I review the numbers of your Miscellanies, and

discover in them so little argument, and so much bold assertion; so little dispassionate investigation, and so much artful appeal to the prejudices and passions of the public; so little seriousness and candour, and so much ridicule and finesse; I am disposed to reject the belief that the author of Miscellanies is a gentleman, for whose talents, piety, and sacred character I cherish the sentiments of esteem and respect.

VINDEX.

THE END.

ERRATUM.

Page 53, line 14, instead of "Surely a word cannot be men

tioned," read, Scarcely a word can be mentioned.