venient Romani, for which I have given no cause, help not to bring them in. For the pope never had such a harvest in England since the reformation, as he hath now upon the sects and divisions, that are among us.

"This I shall be bold to speak, of the king our gracious sovereign. He hath been much traduced also for bringing in popery, but in my conscience (of which I shall give God a very present account) I know him to be as free from the charge, as any man living, and I hold him to be as sound a protestant (according to the religion by law established) as any man in this kingdom; and that he will venture his life as far and as freely for it. And I think I do, or should, know both his affection to religion, and his grounds for it, as fully as any man in Eng

land.

"I have been accused as an enemy of parliaments. No; I understand them, and the benefit that comes by them too well to be so; but I did mislike the misgovernments of some parliaments many ways, and I have good reason for it; for corruptio optimi est pessima. There is no corruption in the world so bad, as that which is of the best thing within itself; for the better the thing is in nature, the worse it is corrupted. And that being the highest court, over which no other hath jurisdiction, when it is misinformed, or misgoverned, the subject is left without all remedy.

"But I have done; I forgive all the world, all and every of those bitter enemies, which have persecuted me, and humbly desire to be forgiven of God first, and then of every man, whether I have offended him or not, if he do but conceive that I have. Lord, do thou forgive me; I beg forgiveness of him, and so I heartily desire you to join in prayers with me.

Those who read these extracts with interest may forgive me, for not resisting the temptation to finish the account of this mournful tragedy, as it is given in the first volume of the state trials.

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Having ended his prayers, and finding the scaffold crowded, he desired they would give him room to die, that he might have an end of miseries he had so long endured; and, coming near the block, he said, God's will be done. I am willing to go out of the world; none can be more willing to send me; and perceiving some people under the scaffold through the boards, he desired the chinks might be stopped, or the people removed, for he did not desire his blood should fall upon their heads.

Sir John Clotworthy demanded of him what was the most comfortable saying of a dying man, he answered. Cupio dissolvi et esse cum Christo [I desire to be dissolved and be with Christ.] Sir John still pressed him with several impertinent questions to which his grace answered with abundance of meekness; and, turning to the executioner, he gave him money, and said: Here, honest friend, God forgive thee, and I do, and do thy office upon me with mercy.

Having made another short prayer, he laid his head down upon the block, and prayed a little time to himself; after which he said aloud,

Lord, receive my soul; and, this being the signal, the executioner immediately severed his head from his body, at one blow.

He was buried after the manner of the Church of England, in the church of Allhallows, Barking, the very day the liturgy was abolished by ordinance of parliament, and the directory set up in the room of it. A brass plate was nailed on his coffin with this inscription.

In hac cistula conduntur exuviæ Gulielmi Laud, Archiepisc. Cant. qui securi percussus immortalitatem adüt. Die X. Jan. Etat. suæ LXXIII. Archiepiscopatus XII.*

P. P. P. S.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE GOSPEL ADVOCATE.

Mutato nomine de te fabula narratur.

To every candid inquirer after truth it is pleasant to find that the same general principles, which, when applied to particular subjects, have been called in question by his opponents, are admitted by them to the utmost extent, when applied to other subjects on which, between himself and them, there is no debate. It is an evidence to his mind, that, on the point in question, he is not deceived by prejudice; that common sense is on his side, and that the premises from which he draws his conclusions would not be denied, if his adversaries themselves did not perceive that the former were inseparable from the latter. These reflections have been suggested by a passage in a sermon delivered at Worcester, Oct. 15, 1823, at the ordination of the Rev. Loammi Ives Hoadly to the pastoral office over the Calvinistick church and society in that place, by Lyman Beecher, D. D. The object of the sermon is to show that what the author calls the evangelical system is the same with the faith which was once delivered to the saints, and for which we are exhorted by the apostle earnestly to contend.

It is not my purpose to consider the general merits of his discourse. I leave this for some abler pen than mine to accomplish. My present object is to call the attention of your readers to certain positions of Dr. Beecher, which appear to me to contain an important concession. They occur in his fourth argument in favour of the evangelical system, p. 25, in which he lays down the following premises. "A departure from the faith delivered to the saints, producing divisions in the church was denominated a heresy during the three first centuries. This does not prove those doctrines to be false which the churches condemned, because churches and councils are not infallible. But it does prove the opinions denominated heretical to be novelties, and in opposition to the received opinion of the church until the time of their existence. The declaration of the primitive church that a doctrine

* State Trials, vol. i. p. 949.

is a heresy, is a publick formál testimony, as to what had been, until then, the received opinion of the churches. The hereticks, themselves, admitted, sometimes, that their opinions were novel, but nevertheless true; or more commonly so explained them, as to claim that they were not a departure from the received faith. Uniting, of course, the testimony of hereticks, to that of the church, as to what had been the received opinion.

"From the nature, then, and the known æra of the several heresies in the primitive church, we may ascertain what was the antecedent faith of the church, on the points to which they relate. The doctrine of the incarnation of Christ was, then, the received opinion of the church, when denied by the Gnosticks, towards the close of the first century. The divinity of Christ, when denied by Arius, A. D. 315. Soon after which it was condemned as a heresy, in a council of 380 fathers. The doctrines of original sin, entire depravity, regeneration by special grace, and justification by faith, continued to be the received doctrines of the church until the time of Pelagius about A. D. 400.”

Dr. Beecher, then, admits that such opinions as produced divisions in the church were considered as heresies in the first three centuries; that this proves the opinions denominated heretical to have been novelties; that the declaration of the primitive church was a publick formal testimony of what had been the received opinion of the church; and therefore that from the nature and known æra of the several heresies in the primitive church we may ascertain what was the antecedent faith of the church, on the points to which they relate.

Now, if all this be true with regard to the doctrines, which he advocates, it is still more true with regard to Episcopacy. The first person on record who denied the doctrine of the church with regard to the superiority of bishops over presbyters, was Aërius, an individual so obscure as to be mentioned by only two writers-by Epiphanius who wrote A. D. 376, a catalogue of hereticks, and by St. Augustin who also compiled a catalogue of the same nature in 428, or rather brought down the catalogue of Epiphanius to the latter period, so as to include the Pelagians. Both speak of him in the slightest terms as an Arian, as a person who was disappointed because he was not made a bishop, and as one who had a very few followers in the remote province of Pontus, or lesser Armenia. Epiphanius adds, that he and his followers were excluded from churches, and cities, and villages; a pretty decisive evidence, one would think, that theirs was not the received opinion. It is to be noted that the name of Aërius has been preserved from oblivion only by being inserted in a list of hereticks, in company with the Gnosticks, and Arius and Pelagius enumerated by Dr. Beecher.

The only proceeding of a council relating to the question of Episco. pacy, which I have been able to discover, is contained in the 18th and 19th canons of the council of Sardis A. D. 347, the substance of which is as follows: "Bishop Gaudentius said, Thou knowest, brother, Aëtius, that, from the time when you were made bishop, peace prevailed; that no remains of discord may exist in the church, it seems pro

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per that they who have been made (bishops) by Museus and Eutychianus, since no fault of theirs can be found, be all acknowledged as such. Bishop Hosius (the president of the council) said that Eutychianus and Musæus were not bishops; those ordained by them might only therefore be admitted to lay communion. THIS ALL AGREED TO." this transaction, Balsamon the commentator gives the following explanatory note. "Musæus and Eutychianus not having been ordained themselves, ordained certain clerical persons bishops. Gaudentius wished for peace' sake that they should be acknowledged as such, since they were not to blame. Hosius replied that although we ought to be humane and moderate, yet we ought to receive those only as clergymen who were ordained by true bishops. With those ordained by Museus and Eutychianus we can only communicate as with laymen.' Here is all that Dr. Beecher requires in the case: "a publick formal testimony as to what had been until then the received opinion of the churches." From that time, until the year 1541, when Calvin revived at Geneva the forgotten heresy of Aërius, we hear nothing of any attempt to depart from Episcopacy. For the various hereticks of the intervening period themselves never thought of setting up a ministry in opposition to the Church, but depended for the success of their designs, upon gaining over a sufficient number of bishops to their side to perpetuate the canonical as well as valid succession. All, therefore, who called themselves Christians, were Episcopalians, till the time of Calvin; and now, the whole Christian world is so, excepting those who derive their ecclesiastical polity from that celebrated reformer. If, then, the positions advanced by Dr. Beecher are followed out into their legitimate consequences, they will inevitably. lead him and his brethren to admit the apostolick origin of Episcopacy. To render this still more evident, I proceed to place by the side of his induction from the foregoing premises a parallel induction on the subject of the Christian ministry expressed as nearly as possible