Some discussion in the Convention with reference to the recent decision of the Court of Arches in the Bennett case, brought out the interesting fact, that the Church of Ireland has had hitherto its own Supreme Court of Appeal in causes ecclesiastical, and was in no respect bound by the decisions of the English Courts. The Court of Delegates in Ireland corresponded in such cases to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council in England, and its decisions were final. The Privy Council in England might have decided in one way, and the Court of Delegates in Ireland in the opposite, on any given case; and the decision of each Court would be binding, but only on the respective Churches which they represented. There is little probability that the Court of Delegates would ever have concurred with Dr. Phillimore's recent decision; but there is even less that the new Court of the General Synod in Ireland will sanction the monstrous propositions which he has endeavoured to impose on English churchmen. We do not marvel that some English churchmen envy their brethren at the other side of the Channel for their independence in the past, and their liberty in the future.

In reading the proceedings of the Convention, we were glad to find many indications of a desire, on the part of the Irish Church, to be one in spirit with the Church of England; and we were happy to learn that such wishes were reciprocated. A letter from the Archbishop of Canterbury was read by the Archbishop of Armagh, and was received with great enthusiasm. It concluded with these words:-" As soon as I receive a report of the proceedings during the present Session, I will consider with the Archbishop of York how we in England may best help our brethren in Ireland to raise funds for the Church. Believe me to be, sincerely yours, A. C. CANTUAR." A letter of a similar purport from the Archbishop of York arrived after the Convention had broken up.

This expression of sympathy was followed by an announcement that the Earl of Egmont had subscribed £20,000 to the Irish Church Fund, being the largest contribution received as yet from any quarter; the nearest to it in amount being the princely gifts of Sir Arthur Guinness and his brother, who forwarded £18,000 each for the Church of their native land. This has been since followed by another noble gift of £3000 from the same brothers, towards the erection of a suitable Hall in which the future Synods and meetings of the Church may be held. A special fund has been opened for this purpose. Another has been set on foot for the endowment of the Bishoprics, and, one clergyman has signified his intention of endowing the Bishopric of Clogher, as soon as it is separated from the see of Armagh. All this exhibits life and energy. With such sons to stand by her in the hour of

peril, and such clergy to minister at her altars and to make sacrifices for her good, she need not fear her enemies. Above all, with truth undimmed and faith unshaken, she may go forth in the name of the Lord, and expecting His promised blessing. The Representative Body (to whom the financial affairs of the Church are entrusted) have put forth two valuable reports, one on the subject of a Sustentation fund, and another on the subject of Commutation; which latter, after being much canvassed in the Convention, has been agreed to in the main, or rather left to the further judgment of the Representative Body itself as to the way in which its provisions should be carried out. They estimate the entire value of commutation, if it be general, at five and three-quarter millions. The revenue of this invested at 4 per cent. would be £230,000, just one half the amount of the present clerical income. A million of money is asked for at once, both as a security to commuting clergymen, and as an additional sum, the interest of which (after its purpose as a guarantee fund had been served) would be available towards the support of the Church. This would still leave an annual sum of about £200,000 a year to be raised both by the present race of churchmen and their successors, in order to maintain the ministrations of the gospel throughout the length and breadth of the land. In this way there would be the twofold advantage of a fair endowment, and of a constant call to effort and self-denial.

The Church of Ireland is putting her shoulder to the wheel, and amidst her poverty and reverses is showing herself worthy of the occasion. About £300,000 have been already subscribed, and it is expected that by the close of this year she will have raised half a million. She has not begged, and will not beg, from any person; but she will gratefully receive the sympathy and help of her more favoured sister. The first day of the coming year-her first year of disestablishment, and let us hope to her a new year of redoubled energy and life-will fall appropriately enough on Sunday. We believe that it is to be observed throughout Ireland as a day of special prayer, and to be made the occasion of one earnest and united collection. Could there be a more suitable expression of English sympathy with Irish Churchmen, struggling as they are so nobly for the maintenance of truth, than to make that New Year's day, that Sabbath of the Lord, an occasion for such an appeal from English pulpits, and such a response throughout the length and breadth of the land, as would gladden their brave hearts, and make them feel that they were not forgotten or forsaken in their hour of need by their brethren in England. If but one half of our churches presented a liberal offering upon the first of January, it would go far to

wards completing that million of money which the Representative Body has so urgently demanded, and it would lighten the burden which is falling so heavily upon those that are illprepared to bear it. It would do good to the spirits of the donors, and suggest a new motive, and a fresh encouragement in upholding and maintaining in England those great principles of Evangelical and Protestant truth, which are evidently so dear to our brethren in the sister isle. Above all, it would bring glory to God and benefit to man, and strengthen those blessed bonds by which the whole body of Christ's Church is knit together in love.

APOSTOLICAL SUCCESSION IN THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND. Apostolical Succession in the Church of England. By Arthur W. Haddan, B.D., Rector of Barton-on-the-Heath; late Fellow of Trinity College, Oxford. Rivingtons, London, Oxford, and Cambridge. 1869.

MR. HADDAN describes his own work as consisting of a "series of papers," and repudiates all pretension to the production of "a complete or exhaustive treatise" on the subject of the Apostolical Succession. He informs us that the present volume was designed to incorporate the results of an examinanation made many years previously into the bare facts of the legitimate succession of the English Church, together with such additions as present circumstances might seem to require with respect to the doctrine generally.

It would of course be unreasonable to complain that Mr. Haddan does not gratify expectations which he forewarns his readers that they must not indulge; and we will therefore only observe, before entering upon our examination of his book, that we are equally impressed by the candour and by the justice of the disclaimer contained in the Preface.

It is so much more grateful a task to commend the excellencies than to expose the defects of those books which, as Christian Observers, come under our notice, that we would gladly, did our sense of duty permit, content ourselves with expressing our conviction of the evident sincerity and earnestness which pervade the volume before us, and with our entire concurrence in very many of the statements which it contains, both as to the Divine origin of the Christian ministry, and as to the sufficient warrant which the English Church possesses,

4

alike in Scripture and in primitive antiquity, for the retention of the Episcopal form of Church government.

Being unable, however, to endorse, as the result of our own consideration of this subject, the views of those who maintain not only the lawfulness and the expediency, but also the necessity, of an Episcopal Succession as an "integral" (by which word we must presume Mr. Haddan means an "essential") part of Christ's visible Church upon earth, we feel constrained to demur to many of the opinions expressed in the volume before us; and we purpose very briefly to point out, with regard to some of them, the grounds of our objections.

As regards the recognition of the supernatural character and claims of the Church as opposed to that individualism which virtually rejects the authority of all outward institutions, and becomes, to all practical purposes, a law unto itself, we have the satisfaction of believing, however much we may differ in this respect from the conclusions at which Mr. Haddan has arrived, that not only the majority of those within the English Church who reject, in the ordinary acceptation of the term, the Apostolical Succession, but also the majority of the recognised exponents of the creeds of Presbyterian and Independent Churches, are virtually agreed.

We will content ourselves with a single quotation on this point, from the first of the Essays contained in a remarkable volume which has been recently reviewed in our columns, proceeding from the pens of some of the best known representatives of Congregational Nonconformity. In his Essay entitled "Primitive Ecclesia," Dr. Stoughton, contrasting those points which he deems unessential with those which are determined by Divine legislation, writes thus: "The ordinance of preaching; the appointment of bishops and deacons; the preservation of morality and religion in Churches by careful discipline; the confinement of them within such local limits as allow the development of sympathy and the exercise of power; and a reliance for the temporal support of Christianity upon free-will offerings;-these, regarded in the light of our preceding remarks, are, beyond question, fundamental methods for securing the ecclesiastical purpose indicated in the New Testament." *

We think, then, we may fairly assume, that upon the following points at least, which are involved, according to Mr. Haddan, in a reception of the doctrine of the Apostolic Succession,-viz., (1) a belief in the existence and necessity of supernatural gifts; (2) a belief in a divinely instituted ministry; and (3), and, as we should say, arising necessarily out of the second, a belief in the necessity of some outward as well as inward call to the Ecclesia, p. 27. 5 X

Vol. 69.-No. 396.

ministerial office, there is a very general unanimity of belief amongst the various sections of the Christian Church.

What, then, it will behove us to enquire, is the real difference of belief between those who accept and those who reject that exclusive view of the so-called Apostolical Succession of which Mr. Haddan stands forth as the defender-in other words, the sacerdotal and sacramental system? And, in order to return a satisfactory answer to this enquiry, we must go back to the original constitution of the Christian Church, and endeavour to ascertain whether the view advocated by Mr. Haddan, or that which is opposed to it, is more in accordance with the model exhibited in the Acts and the Apostolical Epistles.

And here we take our stand upon the fundamental truth which seems to us, in and of itself, decisive as to the fallacy of the system which Mr. Haddan has adopted, viz., that there is no recognition, throughout the whole of the New Testament, of any distinctive sacerdotal order. It is remarkable, indeed, that, as regards the Jewish Church, the tribe of Levi were but the representatives of a nation which was in its original design and constitution "a kingdom of priests," and as such were set apart to their office by their brethren, in accordance with the express command delivered to Moses, "And thou shalt bring the Levites before the Lord; and the children of Israel shall put their hands upon the Levites." (Numb. viii. 10.)

"The Christian idea therefore was," as Professor Lightfoot has justly observed, "the restitution of this immediate and direct relation with God, which was partially suspended, but not abolished, by the appointment of a sacerdotal tribe. The Levitical priesthood, like the Mosaic law, had served its temporary purpose. The period of childhood had passed, and the Church of God was now arrived at mature age. The covenant people resumed their sacerdotal functions. But the privileges of the covenant were no longer confined to the limits of a single nation. Every member of the human family was potentially a member of the Church, and, as such, a priest of God."*

Believing then, as we do, that the New Testament recognises no other sacerdotal order but that "royal priesthood" which consists of all true believers, and that each member of this body of priests has direct access to God through Christ, independently of the intervention of any order or caste taken from amongst men, whilst entirely concurring in Mr. Haddan's statement that "the one absolutely and finally necessary thing," as the condition of salvation, is "the faith of the individual soul itself," we altogether dissent from the opinion which he has expressed, that it is this which "sacraments are given in order *On the Epistle to the Philippians, p. 181.