This is the only place in the volumes of Dr. Lewis where he has demonstrated the plain when he should have illuminated the obscure. What he says in regard to the Episcopate of St. James seems undeniable. That Bishops were appointed by the Apostles themselves in the great centres of religious and commercial activity can be satisfactorily established. In the Scripture we have clearly three orders in the Church. There was first the Apostolate. There was second in time but not in degree, the Diaconate. There was third the Presbyterate, or Episcopate. Afterwards inspired Apostles substituted for their own temporary office the Episcopate which came first in rank, while the Presbyterate was made second, and the Diaconate third. Now the real difficulty pressed by our adversaries is, that judging by Scripture alone, the Church is not now constituted precisely as it can be proven to have afterwards been by history. They demand not only apostolic. precedent, but express injunction. They urge that they must have the explicit warrant of the inspired Scriptures, and not the historic statements of uninspired fathers to prove that the Church in her three orders is of divine institution, and of universal obligation. They may concede all we claim as fact, and yet deny all we claim as inference. Just here they should be instructed by our learned Doctors and theological Faculties. We would welcome to the pages of the Review an able argument on the very point usually passed over in silence. It is here that Presbyterianism most strenuously defends its founders for departing from Apostolic example, and the usage of fifteen centuries, and passing by the traditions of the Church to the pages of the Scripture.

However, we intend no censure upon Dr. Lewis for omitting this part of his argument. His discourses are necessarily brief, and such discussions are scarcely suitable for a popular assembly. We will conclude by again expressing our opinion that, while his sermons make no pretension to extensive learning, profound argumentation, or glittering eloquence, yet for simple and practical instruction in whatever pertains to Christian faith and practice they have no superiors in the Church. For the Lay reader they will be especially suitable. They cannot be spared from any Parish library. In the closet they will prove a constant source of edification, strength and comfort. Their accommodation to the ecclesiastical calendar will, to the true Churchman, prove an additional attraction.

ANTE-NICENE CHRISTIAN LIBRARY.*

WE are more and more convinced that this invaluable library is destined to work a revolution in the Christian world. Many educated ministers have hitherto been dependent on the mere statements of professed Biblical scholars. They could not find time amid the pressure of daily parish duties to study in the original, countless tomes of erudite Greek and Latin fathers. Our age, with all its superior advantages, was rendering the achievement constantly more difficult by its rush and intensity. Now the treasures of past ages are exposed to the gaze of any clergyman having ordinary attainments and leisure. Indeed, a learned acquaintance in the originals with the works composing the anteNicene Library was mostly a sham and an egoism. It presumed the undivided study of years. It presumed the possession of rare and expensive books. It presumed usually a chair in a Theological Faculty.

If clergymen employ their advantages, we venture to assert they will be astonished to find how much they have been imposed upon by assertion, and amused by declamation. They will growingly regard the ancient fathers rather as historic witnesses than infallible guides, rather as companions than instructors, rather as sincere disciples than Christian philosophers. They will more and more esteem the words of God, and less and less esteem the words of man. They will be astonished to find how soon the pure fountains of the Scripture became polluted with turbid waters of human invention. The Ritualist can certainly extract comfort from Tertullian long before he became a Montanist. In his work on Monogamy, written about A. D. 212, we find an argument against second marriages based on a doctrine cherished by some persons of this present period.

"In short, I ask the woman herself, 'Tell me, sister, have you sent your husband before you to his rest in peace? What will she answer? Will she say, 'In discord?' In that case she is more bound to him with whom she has a cause to plead at the bar of God. She who is bound to another has not departed from him. But will she say, 'In peace?' In that case she must necessarily persevere in that peace with him whom she will no longer

Vol. XVII. The Clementine Homilies. The Apostolical Constitutions. Vol. XVIII. The writings of Tertullian. Vol. III. With the Extant Works of Victorinus and Commodianus. Edinburgh, T. & T. Clark, 38 George St. 1870. New York, Charles Scribner & Co.

have the power to divorce: not that she would, even if she had been able to divorce him, have been marriageable. Indeed she prays for his soul, and requests refreshment for him meanwhile, and fellowship with him in the first resurrection, and she offers her sacrifices in the anniversary of his falling to sleep. For unless she does these deeds, she has in the true sense divorced him, so far as in her lies."

In the Apostolical Constitutions we have plain proof that the priestly function had assumed a prominence unknown to the Gospels which record the institution of the Eucharist; and that sacrifice was the characteristic office of the ministry. In the form of consecration of a Bishop occur the words:

"Grant to him, O Lord Almighty, through Thy Christ, the fellowship of the Holy Spirit, that he may so have power to remit sins according to Thy command; to give forth lots according to Thy command; to loose every band according to the power which Thou givest the apostles; that he may please Thee in meekness and a pure heart, with a steadfast, unblameable, and unreproachable mind; to offer to Thee a pure and unbloo ly sacrifice, which by Thy Christ Thou hast appointed as the mystery of the new Covenant."

Nay, if we are to receive the Apostolical Constitutions as our guides instead of the Holy Scripture we are to offer more than the elements in the Holy Communion. We find it provided in the third ecclesiastical canon.

"If any Bishop or Presbyter, otherwise than as our Lord has ordained concerning the sacrifice, offer other things at the altar, as honey, milk, or strong beer instead of wine, any necessaries, or birds, or animals, or pulse otherwise than is ordained, let him be deprived; excepting grains of new corn, or ears of wheat, or bunches of grapes in their season."

The Apostolical Constitutions certainly enjoin a species of honor to the Episcopal office not now usually given, especially by those who most magnify its divine institution.

"If, therefore, Moses was called a god by the Lord, let the Bishop be honored among us as a god. The Deacon is enjoined that he must not do anything at all without the consent of the Bishop, nor give anything without his consent."

The Episcopate, however, is by no means above the Law. The seventy-fourth canon provides:

"If a Bishop be accused of any crime by credible and faithful persons, it is necessary that he be cited by the Bishop, and if he comes and makes his apology, and yet is convicted, let his punishment be determined. But if

when he is cited, he does not obey, let him be cited a second time by two Bishops sent to him. But if even then he despises them, and will not come, let the Synod pass what sentence they please against him, that he may not appear to gain advantage by avoiding their judgment."

To those who would apply in the strictness of their letter the Apostolical Constitutions to the American Church, we would commend the perusal of some canons to which they would scarcely subject themselves.

"Let a Clergyman who becomes a surety be deprived." "Of those who come into the Clergy unmarried, we permit only the readers, and singers, if they have a mind, to marry afterward."

"If any Bishop or Presbyter does not perform the three immersions of the one admission, but one immersion, which is given unto the death of Christ, let him be deprived."

"If any one of the Clergy be taken eating in a tavern, let him be suspended, except when he is forced to bait at an inn upon the road."

MEMOIRS OF THE RT. REV. ALONZO POTTER, D. D., LL. D.*

These memoirs are the simple and truthful records of a great and noble man. Many circumstances conspired to shape Bishop Alonzo Potter into a superior mould. He sprang precisely from that condition of life where physical, and mental robustness are most generally united. Early rural occupations and associations disposed him at once to reflectiveness and activity. His father was a man of sturdy sense, and his mother was a woman of strong character, while a Quaker ancestry transmitted to him a tendency towards spirituality and philanthropy. That peculiar period when our country was fresh with heroic memories of the revolution, and preparing to conquer her place among the nations, was favorable to the development of strong principles and of manly enterprise. The impress left on Bishop Potter by the venerable Dr. Nott, and by the pursuits, and associations of his collegiate life, were also visible during his entire career in a polish of scholarship and amplitude of view which are not the least charms in a Christian character beautifully symmetrical and elevated.

Formed under influences so singularly favorable, few men have

* Memoirs of the Life and Services of the Rt. Rev. Alonzo Potter, D. D., LL. D., Bishop of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the Diocese of Pennsylvania. By M. A. De Wolfe Howe, D. D., Rector of St. Luke's Church. Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott & Co., 1871.

better illustrated or adorned our American Episcopate, and we think he has found in Dr. Howe an appreciative and competent biographer. Possibly the work might have been more condensed, and some controversial questions might have been omitted. But the style is clear and pleasing. The incidents are judiciously selected. The delineations of character are just and striking. You see distinctly before you Alonzo Potter as a man, as a Professor, as a Clergyman, as a Philanthropist, as a Bishop.

And yet, although a record of such superior gifts, and such signal successes, there is a sadness in this biography. We have suggested the singular fact that two brothers, educated under the same circumstances, Clergymen in the same Communion, bound by the same standards, and both elevated to the Episcopate in the two greatest Dioceses of the country, should prove leaders in opposite sections of the American Church. How difficult any visible unity in Christ's Body on earth! Surely there must a fellowship above and beyond mere opinions.

The root-principle of Bishop Alonzo Potter's career is found in his views respecting the Rule of Faith. At this point indeed begin all our divergences in the Church. If controversy is to be hushed, and separation avoided, here must our inquiries be directed. Bishop Potter wrote A. D. 1847 :

"For myself I am frank to say that I cannot conceive myself authorized to expect any infallible living expositor appearing to me either necessary, or in accordance with analogy. I cannot regard it as necessary, since experience has shown that, with respect to certain great fundamental truths, there has been a substantial agreement among nearly all who have called themselves Christians, and to multiply greatly the fundamental articles of faith seems to me as unfavorable to unity as it is inconsistent with Scripture; nor can I regard such an infallible interpreter as being in conformity with the general system of God's providence, which makes liability to error as well as sin, an essential part of our probation, and the effort necessary in order to avoid it is a most salutary part of our moral discipline."

"It is said that it is only within the Church that we can learn which are canonical, or Divine Scriptures. I answer that to me the conclusion by no means seems to follow from the premises, and that the premise itself is untenable. We know which are the Scriptures, and are certified of their credibility and Divine origin, not by the voice of the Church proper-but by the consistent testimony of a great number of Christians who give each his testimony, not in his ecclesiastical, but in his individual capacity."

Now, a rigid application of these principles certainly must make