ministry, but hold its three-fold character unimportant, would not the Scriptural principle and precedents here referred to warrant and indispensably require the retention of the three orders in the united Church? Would not the Church thus be adapted to more minds, we further urge, without losing anything essential to its objects? These questions are worth the consideration of all Christians. They admit but one answer.

There is another question for pious non-Episcopalians. Since Protestant Episcopalians have never set up a new Church, but have always continued in the unity of the old historic body, modifying and adapting it to the wants of society, and since they are willing to be at one with all Christian people, if there be no effort to form a united Church, in which their conscientious peculiarities shall be considered and incorporated, who will be responsible for the sin of continuing the divisions of the body of Christ?

We conclude that all the existing Christian denomi nations of our country may be and ought to be united into one Comprehensive Church.

CHAPTER VIII.

Is there now in the United States a Comprehensive Church, combining into one harmonious system the "distinctive peculiarities" of all the denominations? Is it any Church of non-Episcopalians ?-Is it the Protestant Episcopal Church ?—A plan of unity proposed-the writer's apology for his proposition-the existing system of the Protestant Episcopal Church proposed as a basis of Christian and ecclesiastical unity-may appear strange—a candid judgment solicited.

GRANTING, now, for the purpose of our argument, that all the denominational churches in our country stand upon exactly the same level, as regards the vexed question of divine right, and touching simply the question of their expediency, or rather of their practicability for the particular object of uniting the divided Church, we ask: Is there any Church now existing among us, which shall supply to our hands the instrumentalities we need; any capable of receiving us all liberally, and without subjecting any of us to unnecessary humiliation, and capable of being itself reformed, or changed, or improved into just such a system as we all shall be willing to sustain? Which of all the denominational churches is best qualified for the purposes of unity? Which is the Comprehensive Church?

Is it any one of the various ecclesiastical systems of non-Episcopalians?

We think not; because, as appears to us, they are none of them founded upon the principles which have been laid down, in our sixth chapter, as necessary to such a Church; because they are in many respects organized so as to be essentially in distinct contrariety to each other; and especially, because they all, without any exception, have made no provision for such an arrangement of the ministry as Protestant Episcopalians think to be essential to the regular constitution of a Christian Church. We are stating our view frankly; yet we would not, on any account, be rash nor unkind. If our views are erroneous, we shall be glad to see them disproved.

Is it the Protestant Episcopal Church?

We think it is; because, in its system, those points which its own members hold essential, and which are not provided for in any other system, are distinctly recognized; and because those points which are held essential by the various other denominations are also distinctly recognized and amply provided for in its system. These remarks will be illustrated at length in our next chapter.

To speak plainly at once, the writer believes that, in the existing system of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States, there is comprehensiveness enough for the purposes of a universal Christian and ecclesiastical unity in our country.

So peculiar has been the influence of circumstances that few, if any, out of the Protestant Episcopal Church, have ever viewed it in this character as furnishing a basis or platform upon which Christians may unite. And it is feared that few even of Episcopalians have

clear views of the comprehensiveness of their own Church.

The writer, as appears from the title-page, is a communicant and a minister of the Protestant Episcopal Church, and in this fact he finds his warrant for engaging in his present task; for he thinks that a member of his Church has (for the reasons just hinted at, and which will presently be expanded) an advantage in proposing and discussing the plan of unity over the members of other denominations. He would not be understood to say that the members of his Church have generally more enlarged views of this subject than other Christians. It is too true that there are many of our own people who, in the midst of divisions, have nourished a sectarian spirit. Yet such, he does not hesitate to say, have not imbibed the spirit of their own system, which has no sympathy with anything that is narrowing or exclusive or despotic. We should be most unhappy if we thought ourselves in a Church from which any true disciple of our Lord Jesus Christ is excluded; if we did not know that in its very organization every other true disciple of our Master is welcome to all our privileges, however he may differ from us in opinion or talent or temperament or condition ; nay, more, if he were not. welcome to carry himself as he may please (always, of course, being a Christian), free in his diversity.

For the sake of furthering the great duty and the great blessing of Christian unity, our design in this little book is to exhibit the Protestant Episcopal Church as it is. We shall not open the volumes of the Fathers, we shall not search antiquity, we shall not argue for

the apostolical succession of bishops, nor for the primitive establishment of liturgies; we do not intend to rake open the ashes of buried controversies, nor to add another brand to any fire of contention which is now raging. We simply invite the Christians of our country who long for unity, and for a pure fraternal sympathy among brethren, to forget for a moment that they have ever been at variance, and to lay aside the unfavorable and prejudicial associations of past disagreements, and to examine with a candid spirit the system which we propose. We assert distinctly that in the system of the Protestant Episcopal Church, as it is, there are instrumentalities, diversified and expansive, for the union of all Christian people in "one body and one spirit;" that it is broad enough to maintain in one fellowship, both external and internal, all true disciples of the Lord Jesus Christ. We assert that in the Protestant Episcopal Church are the elements of the most exact uniformity, as also of the most extensive variety.

Our assertion may sound strangely, but those who will favor our book with a candid perusal shall find it sustained. All we ask is that our system shall be fairly and liberally examined. Our aim is unity. We propose a plan for its accomplishment, and desire to elicit the whole truth which concerns it. We are grieved and wearied with the consequences of division. On every side are brethren who might be one with us and with each other, but we are all separated by artificial walls-barriers never appointed of God, barriers of merely human construction, barriers always and even laboriously kept high and strong, but for whose exist