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2.

Memorial Volume of the First Fifty Years of the American Board
of Commissioners for Foreign Missions. Boston. 1861. 8vo. pp. 462.

ART. III.-The Provincial Synod of the Province of

Canada,

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ARTICLE I. THE SEE BISHOPRICK. (No. 2.)

HOW SHALL WE GET IT?

In this Review, in the month of October, 1857, there appeared an Article on the See Bishoprick, entitled "The Apostolic Church in the Apostolic position."* It showed, that, the Episcopate or Order of Bishops being Apostolical, the Bishop of each Diocese had also a proper position in which, by the same Apostolic prescription, he ought to be. That the 'city,' from the earliest time and by the earliest law and usage of the Church, was the seat (See or ka@edpa) of the Bishop. That every city, finally, should have a Bishop, and every Bishop, from the earliest times, had a 'city' as his 'See.'

This was shown to be the universal law of Christianity in all time, from St. John at Ephesus, St. James at Jerusalem,

* When our first Article was published, the ideas in it struck the minds of many in the Church with great force, and among others a distinguished Clergyman of the South, now deceased. He wrote upon the same subject for the Review, and by some mistake the same title was given to his Article as to ours. It was taken therefore to be a second paper by the same writer. The writer of the first deems it but just to himself to say, that he intended to complete the subject himself, as he himself had started it, and this Article is the second of that series. And while the writer of the Article in January, 1858, manifestly never intended that any mistake should occur, still, as from the similarity of title the mistake has occurred in many cases, to the Author's personal knowledge, he thinks it but just to himself to advertise the readers of the Review of the fact.

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St. Polycarp at Smyrna, St. Clement at Rome, down to the present Bishops of London, of Edinburgh, of Paris, of Moscow, of Athens, of Quebec. It was proved to be the universal usage of the Christian Church over all the space and extent of the Christian world, so far as the Catholic and Apostolic Churches, pure or corrupt, have spread, East and West, North and South, Greek and Latin, Chaldean, Syrian, Armenian, Egyptian and Abyssinian, everywhere, save with us who are and ought to be the American Catholic Church, the Church, whose doctrine, descent and discipline, fit us, alone of all competitors that are in this great Missionary field, to be the universal, all-embracing, all-containing Church of this great nation.

And with us, that we should have taken the territorial title, that from States, instead of that from Cities, against this universal prescription of time for eighteen centuries, and of place over the whole world, happened, we suppose, partly through the thoughtlessness of the persons who received and settled the Episcopate, having no clear perceptions of the relations which the City, as such, bears to Society in general, and also to the organic powers of the Church, as concerns progress, unity and discipline. Partly it happened, we suppose, through a timorousness, connecting itself, however unreasonably, with the new Constitution of the country. The English cities, as it is well known, gave to the Bishops of the establishment of England, I who are at the same time members of the House of Peers and Bishops of Apostolic descent, the title of Baron. Thus the Bishop of London is "My Lord of London." From these reasons, we suppose, our Bishopricks, instead of being entitled in the true way, obtained their titles from States, at least by in

*The Bishops in the Eleventh of Henry II., in a dispute concerning Becket, stated, that they did not sit merely as Bishops, but as Barons; and told the House of Peers, "Nos Barones, vos Barones, Pares hic sumus." In the very year before, in the Tenth of Henry II., it was declared by the Constitutions of Clarendon, that Bishops and all other persons who hold of the King in capite have their possessions of him "sicut baroniam" and "sicut ceteri barones debeant interesse judiciis curiæ Regis."-Hook's Church Dictionary, 7th Ed.. pp. 116.

In fact, any one who knows anything of the Feudal system can see, that it must have been so, both from the historic fact and the nature of the tenure of power and property under that system.

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