the year 1610, and no attempt to consecrate Bishops, until their lawful jurisdiction within the Church had been established. In short, it was not till 1606-two years after the Bidding Prayer had been authorized-that the Scottish Parliament even yielded to the pressure brought to bear upon it and passed an Act "for the restitution of Bishops" (the very wording of the title betraying the fact that Bishops had not been restored at that time) and even then the Kirk held out against the measure, nor did it finally surrender until June, 1610, four years later, when it finally assented to the "Nine Resolutions." After the action of the Scottish Parliament in 1606, James succeeded in getting the Kirk to allow his appointees to preside over their Assemblies, but aside from the fact that this again was two years after the Prayer in question was authorized, and so can affect our argument in no way whatever, aside from all this, we repeat, it was even then with the distinct understanding that they were "Moderators" or Presidents in the Presbyteries only. This was a strictly Presbyterian arrangement, nor did James or any one else in England flatter themselves that this concession meant an Episcopal form of Government for the Church. They well knew, and the King admitted, as we have seen, in so many words, that they were not Bishops, for they had never been consecrated, and could not, therefore, in the very nature of things, presume to exercise episcopal functions. They were simple Presbyters presiding as Presbyterian "Moderators" over a strictly Presbyterian Church. There was no Episcopal Church in Scotland, then, before 1610, and the petition in the Bidding Prayer of 1604 was for the Presbyterian Church of Scotland. Moreover, what is thus admitted by so prejudiced an authority as Blunt, is of course corroborated by numbers of other writers not so hostile to the cause of Presbyterianism. We need mention only one of these. Neale, in his History of the Puritans tells us that, “In the year 1580, the General Assembly with one voice declared Diocesan Episcopacy to be unscriptural and unlawful. The same year King James, with his family, and the whole nation, subscribed a Confession of Faith, with a solemn league and covenant annexed, obliging themselves to maintain and defend the Protestant doctrine and the Presbyterian Government. After this the Bishops were restored by Parliament to some parts of their ancient dignity; and it was made treason for any man to procure the innovation or diminution of the power and authority of any of the three estates; but when this Act was proclaimed, the Ministers protested against it, as not having been

agreed to by the Kirk. In the year 1587, things took another turn, and his Majesty being at the full age of twenty-one, consented to an Act to take away the Bishops' lands and annex them to the crown. In the year 1590 it was ordained by the General Assembly that all that bore office in the Kirk, or should hereafter do so, should subscribe to the Book of Discipline. In the year 1592, all Acts of Parliament whatsoever made by the King's Highness, or any of his predecessors, in favor of Popery or Episcopacy, were annulled; and, in particular, the Act of May 22, 1584, 'For granting commissions to Bishops or other ecclesiastical judges, to receive presentations to benefices, and give collations thereupon.' This act, for the greater solemnity, was confirmed again in 1593, and again this present year (1594), so that from this time to 1610, Presbytery was undoubtedly the legal establishment of the Kirk of Scotland, as it had been in fact ever since the Reformation. (Id., vol. i., pp. 294, 295.) These facts effectually dispose of the objection in question. They also lead us to speak of another matter of even more vital import to our argument.

It is a very significant fact, though one that is not generally known, that even in the transaction of 1610, whereby the Kirk was finally induced to consent to Episcopal Government, such consent was only obtained after the Church of England had formally agreed that the Episcopacy to be established should be modelled after that particular conception of the Episcopate which many Presbyterians had all along regarded as admissible (though, for practical considerations unadvisable), and had further officially acknowledged the essential validity of Presbyterian ordination as such,—admissions which, it will readily be seen, are fatal to the "catholic" theory of the Episcopate, and their further contention that that theory represents the official view of the Church. In order to understand what is meant by such a conception of the Episcopate, we have only to remind our readers that the Presbyterians did not deny that in the beginning a Presiding Elder or Presbyter, commonly called a Bishop, presided over the meetings of his brother Presbyters in the capacity of a "Moderator" or Chairman of the Assembly. They only denied that such Bishops, as referred to in the New Testament, and in the early Church, were any thing more than Chairmen or Moderators. They denied that they were a separate “Order" over and 'above the Presbyterate, possessing peculiar and inherent powers. They denied that they could act in any official capacity in independence of the Presbytery, or exercise any power not delegated to them by the same, and that in the

matter of ordination specifically, the sovereign power being resident in the Presbyters as a body, the Bishop only conducted the ceremony, being always assisted by certain of his fellow Presbyters, and both of them merely exercising a power delegated to them by "the ordaining Presbytery." What they feared in the Church of England was the tendency to overstep the bounds of this primitive arrangement. They claimed that the "Prelacy" of the Church of England was not truly representative of primitive Episcopacy, that too much governing power had already been placed in the hands of the Bishops, and that although the Church herself, had not, indeed, asserted that the Episcopate was a separate "Order" from the Presbyterate, yet that individual utterances were beginning to be heard to that effect, and there was positive danger that such a theory would eventually be maintained, a presentiment which, as we now see, was too well founded. In view of such a menace, Scotchmen resisted the idea of Episcopacy to the last, and when forced to yield, they did so only after the Church of England had given official assurance that such a conception of the Episcopate as they were willing to recognize, and such a pattern only, would be established. Nor, in acceding to this demand, did the Church of England in any way stultify her official position, for as we have seen (contrary to the opinions of our "catholic" friends) the Church of England, as a Church, i.e. officially, has never endorsed this exclusive view of the Episcopate at any time, either before or since that date. Accordingly, when the Nine Resolutions, forming the basis of the union, were drawn up in June, 1610, it was explicitly agreed to by the Church of England that when the socalled "titular" Bishops, appointed by the King, should have been duly consecrated, they were to be recognized as "Moderators" of the various Presbyteries within their jurisdiction, and that, while all ordinations were to be placed "substantially" in their hands, it was only in the sense that they were the heads, or representatives of "THE ORDAINING PRESBYTERY," and that no ordinations were to be consummated by them alone, but only with the consent of the Presbytery, and with the actual co-operation of Presbyters in the ordaining act. We have clear evidence of this from a number of authorities, among them again being the unwilling witness, John Henry Blunt. In recording the details of the transaction, he tells us that "(2) The titular Bishops being ex officio Moderators of all Presbyteries within their Dioceses, Ordinations of Ministers were placed, substantially in their hands as the head of THE ORDAIN

ING PRESBYTERY." (Dict. Sects, Heresies, etc., Art. "Scottish Kirk," p. 544.) To the same effect is the testimony of Calderwood who, in citing the Article on Ordination, quotes what is apparently the exact language of the original-that the Bishop “being assisted by some such of the Ministers of the bounds where he is to serve, as he will assume to himself, he is then to perfyte the whole act of ordination." (Hist. Kirk of Scotland, vol. ii., p. 100.) Spottiswoode also gives like testimony (vide, Hist. Ch. Scotland, vol. iii., p. 211.) We may also, in this connection, and as evidence of the complete subjection of the Bishops to the authority of the Assembly, cite the further testimony of Lawson that “Bishops were to be subjected ‘in all things concerning their life, conversation, office and benefice to the censure of the General Assembly, and if found guilty to be deposed by advice and consent of the King.'' (Epis. Ch. of Scotland.)

Finally, not only were these the terms of the agreement between the two Churches, but when the actual Consecration of the Scottish Bishops was consummated, the same year, it was carried out in complete accordance with the conditions thus laid down. In the conference of the English Bishops, preliminary to the act of Consecration, the question of the validity of the prior Presbyterian ordination of the candidates, was actually raised by Bishop Andrews, as a necessary consideration before Episcopal Consecration could be conferred, and the opinion was then formally and unanimously rendered that such ordination was valid, and it was in accordance with this OFFICIAL Decision of the Church of Enlgand (which she had already pledged in the Nine Resolutions of Agreement) that THE EPISCOPATE WAS CONFERRED. Says Spottiswoode himself (one of the very candidates in question whose testimony for that reason cannot be gainsaid), “a question in the meantime was moved by Dr. Andrews Bishop of Ely, touching the consecration of the Scottish Bishops, who, as he said, 'must first be ordained Presbyters, as having received no ordination from a Bishop.' The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. Bancroft, who was by, maintained 'that thereof there was no necessity, seeing where Bishops could not be had, the ordination given by the Presbyters must be esteemed lawful; otherwise that it might be doubted if there were any lawful vocation in most of the reformed Churches.' This applauded to by the other Bishops, Ely acquiesced, and at the day, and in the place appointed the three Scottish Bishops were consecrated." (Hist. Ch. Scotland, vol. iii., p. 209.) The above incident is too often quoted, and too generally

admitted as a fact, to need to be substantiated by any additional quotations, but it is interesting to note that High Churchmen like Russell, the biographer of Spottiswoode, and John Henry Blunt, while freely admitting that this was the position assumed by the Bishops of the English Church, acting officially, in the name of the Church, condemn the act as illegal, if not invalid. Their very criticism, therefore, is at once a candid admission of all that we are here contending for (viz.: that the Church of England did then and there officially recognize the validity of Presbyterian ordination in one of the most important events of her ecclesiastical history), and that their own confessed attitude toward the measure (which is simultaneously the attitude of "Catholics" to-day) is self-evident proof that the position of both, so far from representing the authoritative view of the Church of Enlgand, as they would fain contend, is in irreconcilable conflict therewith. Not only, then, was official recognition of the validity of Presbyterian ordination openly and unqualifiedly given in the year 1610, and the essential principle of the Presbyterian discipline left undisturbed, but it is further to be noted that even in 1662 when, after the downfall of the Episcopal Church during the Interregnum, Episcopacy was again restored, the terms of its reestablishment in Scotland were precisely the same. Once more,

even as in 1610, there was great opposition made to it, as the Scottish people generally, were never really in favour of it, but again, as in the former period, they were won over by the assurance that no essential change in their discipline was contemplated, as the Church of England had given official assurance that a moderate Episcopacy only would be established, one that did not deny the inherent power of Presbyters to ordain, or invalidate in any sense the former Ministry or Discipline of the Kirk. Thus, we find Archbishop Leighton himself, justifying and explaining the measure at that very time, to the people of Scotland, in a work entitled-A Modest Defence of "Moderate" Episcopacy, As established in Scotland at the Restoration of King Charles II. He says, "Episcopal Government, managed in conjunction with Presbyters, Presbyteries, and Synods, is not contrary to the rule of Scripture," etc. . . is not contrary to that new Covenant, which is pretended by so many as the main, if not the only reason of their scrupling. . . . And, as both these assertions, I believe, upon the exactest (if impartial and dispassionate) inquiry, will be found to be in themselves true, so they are owned by the generality of the Presbyteries in England, as themselves have pub