new, third, untried effort to bless a divided world might be attempted and accomplished. The political episcopate and the ecclesiastical episcopate might be again united, as in the time of Constantine; and the great mass of Christians would rejoice at the dawn of that day, when the civilized world would be identified with the Christian world as the one holy Catholic Church, and the one family of Christ. All this would be Utopia, if it were not Prophecy. It would be utter folly to expect such a state of things, if Christ had not prayed that His followers "might be one." The lamentable experience of the past would convince us that the future, so long as the earth rolls on, will always be what that past has been, and it may be so for many centuries: but the prayer of Christ shall be answered; and either in this mode, or by some other mode, the Christian believers in every country shall be made more united. The revival of the Apostolic office of general superintendence of the Catholic Church by many, and not by one, under the sanction of the secular powers who profess the Christian faith, and bear the Christian name, has never yet been devised nor imagined. God's Providence governs the world: that Providence will bring about the accomplishment of the prophecies which His foreknowledge has decreed and revealed. He has declared that His Church shall be one. Whether the revival of the Apostolic office will effect this great design, time will tell; but this is certain, that the plan which I have here suggested is attended with the advantage of not only uniting the Church with the State in every separate nation, but of uniting the universal, civilized, political, with the universal ecclesiastical power throughout the whole world, and throughout the whole Catholic Church; and we can form no better notion of the greatest earthly happiness of mankind than such union of people, Churches, and provinces, upon the basis of Christian truth, Christian discipline, and united ecclesiastical and political authority; provided that the common toleration, which experience proves to be essential to the public peace, be not infringed upon, when we endeavour to give new sanctions to the authority of the Universal Church over the hearts and souls of believers.

SECTION XIX.

Summaries of the Dedications of the Third, Fourth, and Fifth Parts of this work. Earnest appeal in this Sixth Part to the prelates of the Universal Church in behalf of Christian Unity. Special obligations that lie upon them, in consequence of the marvellous preservation of the Universal Episcopate, amidst the convulsions and storms that have shattered temporal institutions.

In the Dedication of Part V. of this work to the Queen's Majesty, I have shown the manner in which the Sovereign of this country may commend some plan of union of Christians to the other Sovereigns of the civilized world.

In the Dedication of Part IV. to the Sovereigns of Europe, I have shown the manner in which the reunion of Christians may be promoted by their following the example, in several instances, of the first Christian emperor.

In the Dedication of Part III. to the late Bishop of Rome, I have shown that the assumption of the authority which was never given by the Council of Trent, but which was usurped by the Bishop of Rome of that day, of imposing by his own authority a long and most unscriptural Creed upon the Churches under the influence of Rome, or in communion with Rome, was and is the one chief obstacle to the union of Christians; and to that consequent happiness of the Catholic Church for which Christ prayed, for which the Apostles laboured, and which the Holy Scriptures have predicted.

I dedicate this Sixth Part to the Bishops of the Universal Church, as the divinely-commissioned teachers of Princes, as well as people.-To you, fathers and rulers of the Universal Church, God, in His Providence, has committed the high office of appealing, by His authority, to the rulers of the world, that they unite with you to restore peace both to the Church and to the world. To you, fathers and rulers of the Church, Christ has committed the power of granting to the Church the peace for which He prayed, as the consequence of welcoming His holy faith. To you, fathers and rulers of the Church, the Holy Spirit has committed the sacred duty of so welcoming His blessed influences, that you seek peace among yourselves; and then commend to others the union which you shall adopt among yourselves.-You, fathers and rulers of the Church of Christ, are commanded, by the holy, blessed, and glorious Trinity, to reconcile all the history of the past, to revise the decrees of past Councils, the decisions of Churches, the commands of Bishops, the bulls of Popes; and to meet the demands of this age of restlessness and revolutions, by attempting, on the foundations of the truth which the Creator has laid down in His written Revelation, to restore peace to the harassed and bewildered world.-Fathers and rulers of the Universal Church, successors of the Apostles, sharers of their office, followers of their ministry, instructors of the instructors, examples to the examples of the world! you, and you alone, possess the authority and the power to appeal with success to the secular Princes of the world, that they delegate to those of your number whom you yourselves, in conjunction with these Princes, may select for that office, the solemn duty which Christ imposed on His Apostles at the beginning, of general Council for the general good. The power to restore peace to the Church and to the world is with them, and with you. Will you still so harass mankind with your own dissensions, that you will never, never combine to restore peace? Is it utterly in vain for the world to hope that some among the ecclesiastical rulers of the Church shall make this effort, and originate some well-considered scheme by which union may be restored to the Universal Church? Is it not for this cause alone that your sacred Order has been continued? May it not be that, amidst the changes and chances of this mortal life, your sacred Order has been preserved, that the united authority of the universal ecclesiastical power may be blended with the universal political power, to accomplish the prophecies which predict the common familyship of man on the basis of the common Faith, which Christ, our common Brother, lived and died to give to us? Is it not possible that the universal Episcopate has survived, amidst all the overthrow of dynasties, the convulsions of revolutionary movements, and all

the agitations of the centuries that have elapsed since the Apostolic office was permitted to fall into abeyance, for this purpose only, that in these, the latter ages of the world, peace, truth, and union, should be established among the nations, by the revival of the Apostolic office, with the choice, consent, and approbation of the two great classes of rulers-the ecclesiastical and the political; to whom God the Creator, by His providence, has committed the earthly sceptre of His power?-May not mankind hope that, as the period seems to be approaching when the international questions of war, liberty, commerce, and the possibility of danger, are referred to the meetings of political ambassadors for the general good; so also the time is approaching when the interchurch questions of Creeds, Liturgies, communion of worship, and Christian brotherhood, shall be referred, not to the rulers of particular Churches, who shall be fettered by vows of obedience to their particular societies; but to the meetings of ecclesiastical ambassadors, exercising a general superintendence over the Churches, for the sake of the union of Christians, and the establishment of one common faith as one bond of peace?

Fathers and rulers of the Church of Christ, permit me, as the reverencer and venerator of your high Order, to adduce this argument for the effort which I would persuade some of your illustrious members to make, for the common good of Christendom.

The failure of every effort to give religious peace to the world seems to assure the Universal Church, that no remedy but the attempt to revive the Apostolic Office can effect this noble object.

The people cannot do it.

SECTION XX.

Three things essential to religious union:-Personal piety; identity of belief; and agreement in discipline: and of these, the two last cannot be enforced by any authority less binding than that of the Church Universal, which can only act with effect by restoring the Apostolic office.

THREE things are essential to religious union: personal piety; identity of belief; and agreement in discipline. Without personal piety, or without the outward appearance of moral virtue, founded upon the professed belief of Christianity, there can be no communion of worship. Without identity of belief, there can be no common profession. Without some mode or form of discipline, there can be no association of believers as one Church. Personal piety makes individuals religious; and the question whether that personal piety, which does not adopt our own religious opinions, can be acceptable to the Creator, must be left not to us but to Him, as the Judge of the Universe. No man can certainly tell the decision of the Almighty on the state of the soul which gives to God the affections, and the conduct, while bias, prejudice, education, or ignorance, may prevent the reason or the judgment from arriving

at right conclusions. While, therefore, we pass no censure upon the ignorant, the prejudiced, or the erroneous, who may be sincere or pious, we cannot admit that their personal piety alone shall form the basis of the union. Those who murder others in the name of God believe that they do God service; and personal piety has been attended in every age with bitter enmity and cruel persecution of Christians in the name of the God of all, and in the name of the Saviour, whose religion is love.

If, too, personal piety alone cannot form the sole foundation of union, if agreement in religious opinion, and a common mode of worship, are essential to the Creed, and to the discipline round which the Churches must rally;—it is evident that some authority must be found which shall commend both the conclusions of controverted opinions to the conscience, and the decisions in questions of discipline to the practice and observance of Christians. These opinions, and these modes of discipline, are so numerous, so varied, so discordant, in consequence of the present collisions of Churches, that no unauthorized assembly of any description can be influential to decide their disputes, or heal their divisions. The States of Europe cannot make international laws without the aid of their united rulers. The people of the Catholic Church cannot make the Creeds and Canons which shall unite them without the aid of their united spiritual rulers. No one State can make laws for all States. No one Church can make laws for all Churches. As States delegate their ambassadors, Churches must delegate their representatives; or, in other words, the revival of the Apostolic Office is the hope of the Catholic Church.

From this reasoning, too, it is no less evident that as the people of the Universal Church, without the guidance and direction of their rulers given to them in some authorized manner, cannot bring about the desired union of Christians, so neither can the Bishop of Rome, or any one Bishop of the Catholic Church, accomplish the same object.

The present crisis calls for the earnest efforts of all who desire to see the Church of Christ restored to its primitive unity, faith, and discipline. If the Son of God were to return to this world to legislate for the Universal Church, it is not probable that He would sanction the peculiar regulations of any existing Church, however pure that Church may be; but that He would retain the laws of His own kingdom unaltered, and enforce their punctual observance upon His disciples. That which he would certainly do, cannot be deferred without disloyalty to Him, whose parting injunction to His Apostles was, "Teaching them to OBSERVE ALL THINGS, WHATSOEVER I HAVE COMMANDED YOU."

SECTION XXI.

The Bishops of Rome have never been able to effect Unity in the Catholic Church, in consequence of their deficiency in the three sources of Unity,— personal piety; Scripturality of Creed; and unexceptionable Discipline. The astonishing influence possessed by the See of Rome in the height of its power. Means by which it lost that power. Its attitude of hostility to other Churches.

THE Bishop of Rome is declared by his supporters to be the centre of Unity. The eyes of Christians are said to turn as by nature to the Bishop of Rome. The history of the gradual steps by which the See of Rome obtained its slowlyacquired but sure ascendancy over the Universal Church, is too long to be detailed in this place. It must be sufficient to say that the results of the continued efforts of the Bishops of Rome to obtain and perpetuate their usurpation of the Apostolic Office, and the ecclesiastical government of the Catholic Church, has proved to be unavailing because of its deficiency at various times in the three sources of religious union personal piety, Scripturality of Creed, and cementing, because not severe nor cruel, discipline. The Church of Rome, when in the height of its power, possessed the influence of the most astonishing junction in one corporate form of every motive which can impress, or sway, the world. It wielded alike the sword of the Soldier, the sceptre of the Sovereign, and the crozier of the Bishop. Literature, poetry, and learning paid it homage. It rallied round it the deference of the quiet and humble, to the rubrical and more staid preacher; with the admiration and affection of the excitable and enthusiastic, to the more animated and impassioned preacher. The fanatical Franciscan, the severe Dominican, and the sober parish Priest, alike upheld its assumption. Its Bishop was honoured as a God; its laws were as Scripture; its decisions were infallibility. It was treason to question its temporal, it was blasphemy to doubt its spiritual, authority. The censures of its priests, whether deserved or not, were received as the sentence of the Most High God. They increased the pains of sickness, and doubled the terror of death. Princes and people knelt at the same footstool of the Church. The treasures of States were at its disposal. Kings and nobles vied with each other for the honour of dying in its defence, or of living in the seclusion of its cloisters. The indefinite authority of the Apostle, the more defined though limited powers of Bishop, Priest, and Deacon, with all their varied names, titles, and offices, from the door-keeper of the isolated church to the Metropolitan and Patriarch, were grasped by the Bishop of Rome. Slowly, gradually, ceaselessly usurping, it became supreme alike over the States, the Churches, and the individual minds, of men; and no human opposition, no human power, could have shaken its ascendancy, or reduced its dominion, if it had exercised its authority in the spirit of Christ, as well as in the name of Christ. Never, never would the Church of Rome have lost its authority and influence over the minds of men, if