affected to think, that the Church in this country was destroyed, because it had lost its Bishop! It was no more destroyed than the Church in New York, or Maryland, would be destroyed, should she lose her Bishop, by death, degradation, or resignation. The remedy was the same in both: cases, to elect another, and have him consecrated by lawful authority. And this was done by the Presbyters of the American Church: they elected four of their number to the office of Bishop; and these four proceeded to England, where three of them were consecrated by the Archbishop of Canterbury, and one of them in Scotland by the Bishops of the Church in that country. The successors and spiritual descendants of these four, deriving their authority from the blessed Redeemer, through "the imposition of the hands" of his lawful Bishops, have multiplied to twenty-two, with a prospect of further increase; and their authority is acknowledged by more than twelve hundred clergy, who derive their ordination from them and their predecessors. Here, then, was an "other way" of obtaining a supply of ministers, than by a Presbyter undertaking to ordain another Presbyter a Bishop in his chamber! And, as Wesley makes his "providential call" depend on the fact of there not being 66 any other way," and this proof that there was another way, makes it plain to a demonstration, that Wesley had no "providential call" to ordain whatever! It was just seventy-three days after this ordination of Dr. Coke, that Dr. Seabury was consecrated in Scotland, to be the Bishop of the Church in Connecticut. Had Wesley, therefore, waited but seventy-three days, he would have seen that GOD was providing a lawful ministry for His Church, and that he did not need the aid of the superintendent of a Methodist society to do the work for Him. Strange-passing strange-it is, it never should have crossed Wesley's mind, that God could provide ministers for His Church, without his instrumentality? Strange, too, when there were, at least, one hundred " regularly ordained"; Presbyters of the Church remaining here, (after she had been separated, by the Revolution, from the Mother Church of England), that, if there were to be a providential call" to ordain ministers, it did not occur to Wesley the "call" would have been given to one of them instead of to him. Four of them were "called," as I have shown, by those possessing authority to call and ordain ministers for the Church of Christ, namely, by the lawful Bishops of the Churches of England and Scotland, thus showing, beyond the power of contradiction, that God had not forsaken His Church, and that Wesley's thinking (for he tells us he only thought so) that he had a "providential call, was only the imagining of a fallible man, trusting too much to his own narrow view of the circumstances in which he was placed. And thus, sir, is scattered to the winds, the other grand argument for the validity of Wesley's ordinations.

*

Hitherto, you will have observed, I have argued this question on the ground taken by the Methodists, that Wesley ordained Dr. Coke to be a Bishop-by a Bishop meaning the first and highest officer of the Church of

Wesley saw this when it was too late. Dr. Coke, in his letter to Bishop White, (Appendix A. ), says, "He (Mr. Wesley) being pressed by our friends on this side of the water, for ministers to administer the sacraments to them (there being very few Clergy of the Church of England then in the States), went further, I am sure, than he would have gone, if he had foreseen some events which followed."

God, and that Wesley himself was such a Bishop. But this we deny, be

cause,

1. Wesley, in the above (so-called) "letters of orders," simply styles himself a Presbyter of the Church of England.'

2. In that document, he does not say a word about having ordained Dr. Coke to be a Bishop, but merely that he "set him apart* as a superintendNow what did Wesley mean, by this phrase of setting him " apart as a Superintendent?"

ent."

In the letter above quoted, addressed (not to Bishop Coke, but) to " Dr. Coke, Mr. Asbury, and our Brethren in North America," is the following paragraph, which explains the whole transaction:

"I have "appointed" Dr. Coke and Mr. Francis Asbury to be joint Superintendents over our Brethren in North America.

Now I beg you to examine this language narrowly. 1. Wesley does not say he ordained Dr. Coke and Mr. Asbury, but simply that he "appointed" them. But, by using the word "appointed," did Wesley mean that he "ordained" them? Certainly not because the same word (appointed) is used respecting them both, and Wesley did not ordain Asbury, for Asbury was, at that time, in America, and had been for several years previously. Nevertheless, Wesley" appointed" him a Superintendent, as well as Coke; and as ordination was not necessary to constitute a Asbury Superintendent, neither was it necessary to constitute Dr. Coke one; and it is evident that as Asbury was not ordained, Coke could not have been (as the same word "appointed" is used respecting them both), and that Wesley did not mean to say that he had ordained them, when he said that he " appointed" them. Indeed the idea of ordaining a Superintendent of a merely humam society is a thing utterly unknown to the Scriptures and the Church of God. It is precisely the same thing, as if a Presbyter now, was to ordain a Superintendent for the Sunday School Union, or a Bible Society. Wesley was too sound a divine to adopt any such absurd notion. He was himself the Superintendent of the Methodist Society in England, but had never been ordained to that office; and if Wesley could be a Superintendent without ordination, the same could be done by Coke or Asbury without ordination. No, sir, there is not a particle of evidence to prove that Wesley ever "ordained" Dr. Coke. Coke was placed precisely on the same footing with Asbury (who was a layman)-Wesley "appointed" them both Superintendents of the Methodist Society in North America; and the only difference between them is this: that in "appointing" Dr. Coke, Wesley did it in rather a more formal manner, by placing his hands on his head, and praying over him!

*

"Ordination is not to be confounded with the designating or setting apart of a person to the work of the ministry; for, in strictness, any one may do this for himself, or it may be done for him by his parents, guardians, &c., and involves nothing but what any layman may perform; whereas ordination is the actual communication of authority from a legitimate source, to execute those functions which appertain to the several orders of the ministry."-Staunton.

At that time, there was no such thing in existence as a "Methodist Church." Wesley, and the Methodists themselves, only spoke of themselves as the Methodist society, or societies, or sometimes as the Methodist Connection, and that Wesley was their founder and father. Of course, it was only a human society, and nothing more: indeed, at that time, it did not claim to be any thing more; and the idea of ordaining a Superintendent, or any other minister, for a human society, is absurd.-Lee says, (page 47,)"We were only a religious society, and not a Church." At page 94, he says: At this Conference we formed ourselves into a regular Church." How a religious society could be turned into a Church, he does not inform us. This was after Coke came to America.

66

But (2d.) did Wesley by "appointing" Coke and Asbury to be "Superintendents" intend to make them "Bishops?" Lee, in his "Short History, gives the following account of these men first calling themselves Bishops, in the minutes of their Conference: (pages 127-8.)

"In the course of this year (1787) Mr. Asbury reprinted the general minutes; but in a different form from what they were before. The title of this pamphlet was as follows:

66

"A form of discipline for the ministers, preachers, and members of the Methodist Episcopal Church in America; considered and approved at a Conference held at Baltimore, in the State of Maryland, on Monday, the 12th day of December, 1784.....

"In this discipline there were thirty-one sections, and sixty-three questions, with answers to them all.

66

The third question in the second section, and the answer, read thus: "Q. Is there any other business to be done in Conference?

"A. The electing and ordaining of Bishops, Elders, and Deacons. "This was the first time that our Superintendents ever gave themselves the title of Bishop in the minutes. They changed the title themselves without the consent of the Conference!"

Thus it appears that a fraud was practised by one of these Superintendents to get himself recognized as a Bishop-no less a fraud than altering the minutes of the Conference! and this, too, by endeavouring to make it appear to the world, that they had been recognized as Bishops by the Conference since the first foundation of "the Methodist Church," in 1784!—whereas the Conference had only recognized them as Superintendents-the office to which Wesley had appointed them-and this alteration of their title, for this purpose, by themselves, took place in 1787!

Lee, in his "History," goes on to remark:

"At the next Conference they asked the preachers if the word Bishop might stand in the minutes; seeing that it was a Scripture name, and the meaning of the word Bishop was the same with that of Superintendent... Observe here the reason assigned for assuming the title of Bishop. was not that Wesley had ordained them to that office. Coke knew better than that! But, because the word "Bishop" meant "Superintendent." So it also means an 66 overseer," but is every overseer therefore a Bishop? So the word "Presbyter" means an old man ;" but is every old man therefore a Presbyter ? So the word "Deacon" means "a servant;" but is every servant therefore a Deacon? It is evident from this transaction, that Coke and Asbury did not dare to assign Wesley's "appointment" as the ground for their assuming the title of the chief officer in the Church of God; otherwise they would not have assigned such a school-boy reason for their unjustifiable act.

Lee, in his "History," then goes on further to remark :

"Some of the preachers opposed the alteration, and wished to retain the former title, [that of superintendent :] but a majority of the preachers agreed to let the word Bishop remain; and, in the annual minutes for the next year, the first question is: who are the Bishops of our Church for the United States ?" "

Thus was consummated one of the most startling frauds of modern times; and the whole "Methodist Church" has, ever since, been led to believe, that Wesley ordained Dr. Coke a Bishop, and then "commissioned" him to

ordaín Asbury a Bishop, and that these two were actually recognized and called Bishops by the Methodist Conference since the first foundation of their "Church," in 1784. And, what is more, this fraud is actually perpetrated to the present day, for in the "Book of Discipline," (chap. 1, sec. 1,) it is said expressly: "Francis Asbury was solemnly set apart for the said Episcopal office by prayer, and the imposition of hands of the said Thomas Coke, other regularly ordained ministers assisting in the sacred ceremony. At which time, the General Conference, held in Baltimore, did unanimously receive the said Thomas Coke and Francis Asbury as their BISHOPS, being fully satisfied of the validity of their Episcopal ordination!"

Now when did this "imposition of hands" on Mr. Asbury by Dr. Coke take place? Mr. Lee informs us, in his "History," (p. 94,) that it took place at the Conference, which began in Baltimore on December 27, 1784; whereas it was not until 1787, that the minutes were altered; and it was not until the "next Conference" afterwards, that the Superintendents were "received" as Bishops! and when the Conference did consent to "receive them as Bishops," it was not done " unanimously," but was the act of only a majority" of the preachers. And thus are the Methodists imposed on until this very hour!

[TO BE CONTINUED.]

225

THE TAJE MAHL, or "PALACE TOMB."*

There is a costly "palace tomb,”
Far from our native land,

It seems, amidst the desert's gloom,
The work of magic hand;
Entranced and mute, the gazers fear
That vision soon may disappear!

Is it some mighty valiant chief
Whose bosom knew not fear;
And thus, to mark a nation's grief,
Did they this fabric rear?

Is it some far-famed hoary sage,
Whose memory lives from age to age?

No torn from life in brightest bloom,
A wife beloved rests there;

Her husband raised that "Palace Tomb"
Her honoured name to bear,
Memorial of that beauteous face,
Her virtue, and unequalled grace.

Say not that love must ever fade,
And from the heart be swept.
The promise on her deathbed made
His faithful bosom kept;

The "Palace Tomb" arose to shew,

What worth and beauty slept below.

*The edifice alluded to in the above poem, is remarkable for its magnificence as well as interesting from the circumstance which occasioned its erection. It is stated that when Noor Jehan, the favourite wife of Shah Jehan, the Mogul Emperor, was dying, her husband promised to erect over her remains such a monument as the world had never seen. His promise was fulfilled. No one has attempted to rival this mausoleum, or probably will ever desire to do so. It is built of white marble, inlaid with precious stones, and forms a quadrangle of 190 yards, with a lofty dome 70 feet in diameter, rising from the centre. It stands on an elevated terrace near Agra, surrounded by a highly cultivated garden. The construction is said to have cost £750,000, and the Taje Mahl is generally considered the finest edifice in India. Shah Jehan was the builder of the other most splendid specimens of Indian architecture. At New Delhi, which he made his residence, and called from himself Shah Jehanpoor, he erected a palace of red granite, considered by Bishop Heber as one of the noblest he ever saw, and far superior to the Kremlin at Moscow; the gateway, in particular, being richly ornamented. In the same city he built the mosque Summa Musjeed, not excelled by any in India. But the mausoleum surpasses them all.

Shah Jehan became head of the Mogul empire, A.D. 1627, and after twenty years was deposed by his son Aurungzebe the Great, under whom the Mogul empire attained its greatest extent, and highest glory, the population and wealth of which probably surpassed those of the Roman empire in its most flourishing periods. Its revenues exceeded 32 millions sterling. But the subsequent state of the population (now under British rule for the most part) does not seem to show that the riches and profusion of the Sovereign were compatible with the wealth, prosperity, or comfort of his subjects. May they advance under British dominion, and the influence of the Gospel!

An ivory model of the Taje Mahl, on a large scale, has recently been presented to the University of Cambridge, and is now deposited in the large entrance hall of the Pitt Press; until it finds its intended position in the New Fitzwilliam Museum, whcih is far advanced towards completion.

GG