sation, they all withdrew. It was no little pleasure to me to bow them out of the house and shut the hall-door upon them. I do not expect soon again to see their "Reverences" under my roof.

66

This visit was on Monday. The day before a neighbouring clergyman had officiated for me, and I was busy all the week in writing my sermon, or, as I may say, priming the monster mortar which I intended to open upon them next "Sabbath." The Puritan camp has not felt such a shock since the days of Prince Rupert.

Dr. Birch, a clergyman of the right stamp, came by appointment from his rectory, six miles off, on Saturday. He slept at the vicarage, and, I assure you, he entered into my views with all the zeal imaginable. He had engaged the help of three other clergymen, besides his curate, so that we marched six in a row to church on Sunday morning, the clerk going before. As it was a gaudy day at Cambridge, the Doctor, to honor me, put on his scarlet robes, fur tippet and cap, and looked wonderfully well, I assure you, for his face was as red as his robes, and his portly person resembled much the pictures of Cardinal Wolsey. When we came to the church door the churchwardens met us at the porch, hat in hand, for I had arranged all this before; and thus, whilst the bells were firing salutes, and the organ playing "See the conquering Hero comes,' we entered the church in grand style, which was

C

crammed from one end to the other, so that we could hardly reach the vicar's pew. They made a lane for us, however; and, as we walked through this great congregation, (upwards of two thousand persons,) it was evident we produced a wonderful effect. The people were all rising up in their pews to look at the procession.

Dr. Birch's chaplain read the service in cathedral style up to the Litany, for which he made way in favour of the Doctor, who went to a desk which I had ordered to be placed in the middle of the aisle, and there read "that excellent and pathetic specimen of the piety of our ancestors' with wonderful effect.

The Lessons would be wormwood to the schismatics, for the first was from the Apocrypha, which those vermin never read. It was the sixth chapter of Tobit, and I observed the Baptist Minister take a pinch of snuff and look very much vexed when the reader came to "broiling the fish's liver to drive away the devil." The second lesson was the Epistle of Jude, from which I had chosen my text. We gave them, also, the Athanasian Creed, introduced the churching of a woman, and chanted all the responses in the Communion Service.

Before sermon I gave standing, in the pulpit, the form of prayer appointed by the Canon, and then I fired off my monster mortar to this effect:

Text. Jude 8.-"These filthy dreamers defile

the flesh, despise dominions, and speak evil of dignities."-I began with showing the true nature of Christ's Church, that it consisted of Archbishops, Bishops, Canons, Prebends, Vicars choral, Deans, Subdeacons, Archdeacons, Rural Deans, Subdeans, Rectors, Vicars, Perpetual Curates, and Curates, all which were appointed by our Lord himself, when he sent forth the seventy Ministers of his Church. The Apostles continued this form of Church government, consecrated Timothy Lord Bishop of Ephesus, James Lord Bishop of Jerusalem, &c. &c. &c. The blessed St. Paul instituted the support of the clergy by tithes, when he said, "Do ye not know that they which minister about holy things live of the things of the temple;" and if it was pious in the Jews to pay tithes and present offerings to their Priests, much more must it be pious in Christians, under a more glorious Ministry, to pay their tithes to "the delegated servants of Christ."

Having proved this at large by ample quotations from the Epistle of the blessed Ignatius to the Trallians, I concluded this part of my discourse thus:"No mode, therefore, of Church government, except the Episcopal, and no mode of Ordination, except by a Bishop, have any claim whatever to the sanction of the Primitive Churches of Christ, or the Word of God, or any claim whatever upon the consciences or the obedience of Christians. As the Episcopal is the only form of

Government instituted by God, through the medium of his inspired Apostles, for the regulation of his Church, no other ought to be obeyed, or can be obeyed, without great wickedness."* (v. 175.)

I next showed how the Church of England existed, in a riddle, in the time of Moses; for as the great mark of the Church of England is the three orders, Bishop, Priest, and Deacon, so were the three orders then established. "If we turn," said I, "to the Church of Christ, as it existed in the Old Testament economy, before his incarnation, we there find Christ did himself appoint three ranks of those who ministered in his Holy Temple, the High Priests, the Priests of the Second Order, and the Levites; and as he is the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever, what was right in the Christian Church then, cannot be wrong in the same Church now." (138.)

Having thus proved that the Archbishop of Canterbury is the representative "and lawfully appointed successor" of Aaron, and that Aaron was type of the Archbishop of Canterbury, and himself Archbishop of the Diocese of Stony Arabia, I said, "I would hope that every Christian knows and believes that the Church of England, or, what is the same thing, the Church of Christ, has existed in every age of the world,

*N.B-All these quotations are from the Letters of L. S. E., and the figures refer to the pages of the work. Second Edition.

from the days of Adam to the present moment, and that it will exist to the very end of the world, in spite of all the efforts of schismatics to destroy it. The gates of Hell, that is, the different paths of heresy and schism, which the Devil has opened to lead to Hell, shall never prevail against the Church. Adam and Eve, with Abel, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, David, Moses, Samuel, and all the Holy Patriarchs, Prophets, and holy men, of whom we read in the Old Testament, and thousands of others, during the period of the Jewish economy, belonged to the true Christian Church; i. e., the Church of England-they all died in the faith." (142.)

I then showed the origin of Dissent. "The principles of Independency," I said, "are the principles of depraved human nature, instilled into man, and fostered in him by his great enemy the Devil-the first Dissenter. It was with the promise of their being Independents, that he deceived our first parents, and brought death into the world and all our woe. 'Ye shall be as Gods,' says he, meaning they shall be Independents. And they believed him, and all their degenerate offspring have been imbued with the same principles of pride, dissent, and licentiousness, and beguiled by the same promise of the Devil in some way or other.

'Ye shall be as Gods,' says he to our modern Dissenters; and puffed up with the idea, they immediately respond, We will be as