in point; or on the inequality of the churches planted immediately by the apostles, who left evidently much for their successors to do, still, we see, the prophecies respecting the visible enlargement of Christ's kingdom were in their day but beginning to take effect; and therefore it may be inferred, historically and scripturally, that the apostolic institutions had not definitively in contemplation, respecting church government, those times which kings, as well as priests, had desired to see whenkings should become nursing-fathers, and queens nursing-mothers of the church,' and when nations, who knew not Christ, should come unto him,' and gather themselves into churches. Nowhere opposed by divine truth, therefore, candour must own that, respecting her order and decency, the Church of England has thus providentially maintained, for two centuries and a half, an exalted and beneficial rank amongst churches. Let her clergy, nevertheless, (in the admonition of one who is attached to her) especially her young ministers, remember that

• Of that fallen edifice which Europe plann'd,
They like a solitary column stand!'

Modelled by the first great establishments, the constitution of our church is episcopal. Episco

pacy claims much veneration for its antiquity. Nor is antiquity the only claim, much less the principal one, on account of which the episcopal form of church government is entitled to the respect of the good and wise: for such ecclesiastical superintendants, scripturally selected and properly qualified, have proved excellently conducive to the discipline and well-being of the church. Our own age has set its seal to this truth. Whoever examines the published Correspondence betwixt the Clerical and Lay-Deputies. of the Protestant Episcopal Church in America, during 1785, and the Archbishops and Bishops of the Church of England, will find an affecting instance of the attachment of protestant episcopalians to the institutions of their pious ancestors. Distanced from their church, they were not alienated.—'While they kept in view that wise and liberal part of the system of the Church of England which excludes as well the claiming as the acknowledging of such spiritual subjection as may be inconsistent with the civil duties of her children, it was, nevertheless, their earnest desire and resolution (solemnly asseverate the American Deputies,) to retain the venerable form of Episcopal Government, handed down to them, as they conceived, from the time of the Apostles; and endeared to them by the remembrance of the

holy Bishops of the Primitive Church, of the blessed Martyrs who reformed the doctrine and worship of the Church of England, and of the many great and pious Prelates who have adorned that church in every succeeding age.'

Bishops have, consequently, their duties. Anciently the bishops corrected, and even punished, the turbulent or criminal within their dioceses, by virtue of that power with which they were entrusted. Although modern times may not require this ecclesiastical interposition, vestiges of which still exist in the choice of the clergy to officiate in the capacity of justices, yet there remains much for the modern prelate to do,-as a spiritual overseer; in personally ascertaining the state of his churches, ordinary visitations, and in watching over both the living and preaching of the various pastors, whether rectors, vicars, or

curates.

Discipline is one great end of episcopacy.. Connected with this important end was the establishment of an hierarchy in England, by which the bishops took their oath of allegiance to the archbishops; and also the division of the island into two provinces, then into dioceses, archdeaconries, deaneries, and parishes, which was found admirably promotive of sound subordination, Bishops have still great power; but their

1

responsibility is also great, both to God and the country..

Notwithstanding, then, that the writer of these pages was reproved for giving it as his opinion that our prelates had duties distinct from, but equally important with, those of the pulpit,' still he has not been able to convince himself, after further thinking, that such an opinion was either absurd' or unscriptural!' Language like this, however, might naturally seem warrantable to the Author of the pamphlet entitled Onesimus Examined,' who, although bred up as a Clergyman of the Church of England, describes the act of kneeling before a Right Reverend Father in God,' for ordination into that church, in the light of a farce;' whilst, one must own, it was but gratuitous on the part of the same reverend gentleman, when he designed to represent episcopal ordination as altogether a farce, first to scout the position that bishops had more important duties than preaching. They have their high duties, however, duties which are their own. They are set on her hill, as lights of the church. There should their light shine.

Like our political constitution, our ecclesiastical constitution is good. Providence has blessed it with soundness of heart; and this soundness is its beauty and stability. Built on the rock, and

not on the sands, our church is firm. Thus it has nobly withstood the tempests of times that are past, and those which have so recently laid other churches in the dust. If the Church of England has been found, like the Ark of Noah, worth saving, as Warburton owns, let us remember to what her salvation is owing, and look well to the means by which only there can be any permanent hope of her being still preserved to us. Her rock is her forms and her faith,-Liturgy and Ordinances and Articles,-and by these she must look to stand.

Having cursorily hinted at some topics not unconnected with the purposes of this work, whilst they seem not uncalled for by the circumstances of our own times, I now proceed to the more immediate objects of the present episcopal memoir.

The Right Reverend John Randolph, D. D. is from Corpus-Christi College, Oxford, of which he was formerly a Fellow; and in the University of which he filled the distinguished situations of Greek Professor, and Regius Professor of Divinity. After being for some time a Canon of Christ Church, Dr. Randolph was raised to the See of Oxford; and preached one of the Annual Sermons before the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts, in 1803. Amongst his lordship's published sermons, there is an Ordina