The Episcopalians also, looking at the matter on the other side, had something to say. They prized the past History of the Church, and esteemed it of great importance to stand in the relation of successors to the Christian teachers of antiquity. Their theory was that the Church of England had not been established in the reign of Elizabeth or Henry, but had then been only reformed; that it constituted part of the _Catholic_ Church, of which Rome had unjustly usurped the name, without possessing the attribute. Their formularies they traced back through mediæval times. For their doctrines they claimed the support of early Councils and Fathers. They pointed to the great antiquity of their orders, to the diocesan Bishops of the second century, and of every century since; and were prepared to argue, that the early prevalence of the distinction between Bishops and Presbyters is a presumptive proof of its having been sanctioned by apostolic authority. As to the evils flowing from Prelacy, the advocates of it would maintain that the abuse of a system is one thing, and the system itself another; that, although in the Middle Ages, in the Church of Rome, Prelacy had been made the instrument of immense mischief, this fact had nothing to do with the present controversy, the subject in dispute being not Popish Episcopalianism, but the Episcopalianism of the Reformed Church of England--the Episcopalianism of Ridley and Parker. Such Prelacy, the Bishops and their friends could irresistibly maintain to have been part and parcel of the law of England since the Reformation down to the Civil Wars; and, at the same time, they could point to the recognition of the rights of Spiritual Peers in the Constitution of this country from the early Saxon period--the legal or constitutional argument being the great bulwark of the Episcopalian cause, when treated as a social or political question. The ecclesiastical changes accomplished by the Long Parliament, were, in the eyes of Royalist and Anglican Churchmen, perfectly unconstitutional, illegal, and nugatory--for, in the accomplishment of them, one House had virtually done everything, the remnant of the Lords being mere ciphers; and the King, so far from having sanctioned the overthrow of the ancient Church, had protested against it, even unto death. With the Restoration, it was said again and again, came back the old Constitution of King, Lords, and Commons; and with that Constitution the Reformed Episcopacy and Prayer Book of England. The gravest and most forcible of all the allegations which the men now claiming their former position could bring against their opponents was, that they, in their turn, had been as exclusive as it was possible for any class to be. The Presbyterians, in the day of their power, had shown no consideration whatever for their Episcopalian neighbours. They had ruled with a high hand, and those who differed from them had experienced no mercy. They had proscribed the Prayer