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INDEX to Biographies, Ordinations, Institutions, Removals, Deaths, &c. of Clergymeri

recorded in this volume.

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INDEX to Conventions, the proceedings of which are recorded in this volume.

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To the Editors of the Christian Journal. Messrs. EDITORS,

HAVING read with pleasure and profit a review of Bishop Ravenscroft's Sermon before the Bible Society of NorthCarolina, in your ninth volume, p. 129 -143, and a review of the attacks on Bishop Ravenscroft, and of the Bible Society controversy at the south, in the same volume, p. 371-379, I have waited with much impatience for some notice of Bishop Ravenscroft's last publication on this subject, which has now been some months before the public. Believing the practice of noticing such publications in a regular periodical to be of use, and to contribute much to the dissemination of a knowledge of their contents, and somewhat to the circulation of the works themselves, I am induced to offer you the following brief sketch for your Journal, since others better qualified for the task have chosen to be silent. Bishop Ravenscroft's title, "The Doctrines of the Church vindicated from the Misrepresentations of Dr. John Rice; and the Integrity of Revealed Religion defended against the 'No Comment Principle' of promiscuous Bible Societies," is a fair statement of the subjects of his work, (for so a book of 166 pages deserves to be styled,) and in some measure a specimen of his plainness and boldness of manner. The first impression produced by Bishop Ravenscroft's introduction (which is characteristically short and pithy) is that of delight in the honest open-heartedness of his style and the manly firmness of his conduct. As we proceed in the work this strengthens, and at the end the reader is left with the conviction, that if ever man spake from the sincerity of his heart and in the fulness of persua sion, Bishop Ravenscroft has done so. Thus much I premise concerning the manner in which the book is written, VOL. XI.

[VOL. XI.

because it is so glaringly remarkable that no account of the work would be faithful in which this circumstance should be omitted. The occasion of the pamphlet—a controversy adulterated with a share of personal attack greater even than that which is proverbially prevalent among theologians

necessarily renders much of its matter of only secondary importance to churchmen in our section of country. A reader of the pamphlet, indeed, will find no single page of merely local reference, or on which he can lay his finger and say, "This concerns not me, or the subject in general;"-so well has Bishop Ravenscroft contrived to blend instruction with self-defence, and subjects of general importance with personal disputes;-but in my hasty sketch I must of necessity omit all that part of the work (p. 6-21) which is expressly devoted to the notice and refutation of Dr. Rice's perversions of Bishop Ravenscroft's language and meaning. The remainder comprizes three great divisions: 1st. An answer to Dr. Rice's objections to Bishop Ravenscroft's Farewell and Convention Sermons; this part takes up the doctrine of the origin, nature, and constitution of the church: 2d. An answer to Dr. Rice's objections to Bishop Ravenscroft's sermon before the Bible Society, and that on the study and interpretation of Scripture; this embraces the subjects of private judg ment on matters of faith, the exclu sive sufficiency of the Scriptures for their own interpretation, and the use of ecclesiastical tradition: 3d. A notice of Dr. Rice's attempt to fasten upon the Episcopal Church the imputation of foreign influence, and a design to obtain exclusive power.

1st. On the origin, nature, and constitution of the church, Dr. Rice, agreeing fully with Bishop Ravenscroft as

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to the divine origin, unity, and perpetuity of the church, the divine institution of its ministry, and the necessity of a lawful call to that ministry, objects to the bishop's views, 1st. of the use or purpose of the church as a visible body or society; 2d. of the nature and kind of the unity which is its inseparable characteristic; and, 3d. of the divine right of the ministry, and the manner in which it is communicated.

Of the use or purpose of the church, Bishop Ravenscroft's doctrine, as stated by himself, is as follows:"In my Convention Sermon, p. 5, I lay down this position, that the church, as a divine institution, is not an abstract idea to be entertained in the mind; but an actual, visible body or society for practical use, deriving its constitution, laws, and authority directly from God. As such, it is placed beyond the reach of any human appointment, addition, or alteration; and this so strictly, that all the wisdom, piety, and authority in the world, congregated together, is just as incompetent to originate a church, as to call another universe into existence. In the next page I proceed to show, that the purpose of this divine appointment was-to give a covenanted character to the religious condition of man-to confer upon men, by out ward and visible marks, a new relation to God, henceforth confined and limited within this institution;-that this, and this only, marks its separation from the world as the church, the peculium, the elect of God; and that, because of this, its distinctive character, it was made the

visible and only depositary of his revealed will and precious promises. Hence I draw the conclusion, as well of the New as of the Old Testament church, p. 8 and 9That it was competent to no man, not even to Lot or to Melchisedeck, to obtain its privileges without its seal. Whatever of mercy might be in store for them, and the rest of mankind, observing the law written in the heart, it was not the pledged and promised mercy made over to the church. Whatever the truth or reason ableness of any religious duty might be, however well founded the hope of God's favour, from conformity to the dictates of natural conscience; it was not the truth confirmed by express revelation-it was not the hope which springs from the promise of God certified by outward, visible, and appointed ordinances, as helps to faith, means of grace, and assurances of a relationship to God, in which none other stood-transacted through an authorized and accredited agent."-P. 22, 23.

Dr. Rice, when it suited his purpose

as a defender of the sacrament of baptism, had maintained the same doctrine almost in so many words, as is shown by Bishop Ravenscroft, by quotations from Rice on Baptism, pp. 14, 15, 16, 17, 18. Forgetting these his maintained and recorded opinions, the doctor, in his review of Bishop Ravenscroft, thought it best to avoid any contest as to the relative claims of Presbyterial and Episcopal ordination to be considered as the divinely instituted succession by which the unity of the church is maintained and its purposes are effected, by striking at the root of the matter in a denial that the church is the sole depositary of the promises of God, the only authorized agent between God and man. bishop had asserted the unchangeable nature of the church. Dr. Rice, foreseeing the bearing of this position against his latitudinarian scheme, denies it, because, forsooth, some of the rites and ceremonies of the Protestant Episcopal Church happen not to suit his taste. As if the rites used by a particular branch of the church catholic, because, under her circumstances, she judges them the most conducive to edification, had any necessary connexion with the essential, and, consequently, unchangeable, characteristics of the church!

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Bishop Ravenscroft had declared the church "the authorized source of agency between heaven and earth." Dr. Rice, in order to excite the alarm of his readers at this position, chooses to connect it with the acknowledged authority of the church to ordain rites and ceremonies, and thence to draw the conclusion, that whoever may object to any rite that the church thinks proper to impose, must, according to the bishop, be cut off from the covenanted mercies of God. Bishop Ravenscroft, after exposing this trick of argument, defends his original position in the following masterly paragraph:

"What is the Gospel, but a message of grace to rebels and enemies to Almighty God, offering them pardon and reconciliation on certain prescribed conditions? What is the church, but the heaven-appointed visible and accessible depositary and dispenser of this grace, through her commissioned officers? Now, where must

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