Now all this examination of evidence, satisfactory as it is in the result, is very far from being that easy and off-hand way of “proving the truth of the Scriptures” which untaught people vaguely imagine to be possible and even necessary. A similar series of remarks might be made on the verification of the Sacraments of the Church, as being the same as those originally instituted by our LORD, and ever practised by His people. But, passing now to our immediate subject, it will not be difficult to see that the Apostolicity of the Ministry, if fairly examined with equal patience, admits of the SAME kind of proof, as either the SACRAMENTS or the SCRIPTURES of the Church. Indeed there scarcely seems a possibility of any traditive truth being supported by stronger evidence than we have for the fact of the Succession; so that if this be not true, it appears impossible to say what proof we could ever have to substantiate any such fact. So far back indeed as any genuine general records of past events exist, we may boast that our Apostolical records exist. So that during these latter, which may be called the literary ages of the world, we may trace the existing record of the Succession in our principal dioceses for many centuries. But this is not the kind of evidence which we could speak of, as so abundantly satisfactory; nor could we esteem it so, even if it reached to the Apostles’ days, and were cleared of all those doubts of its genuineness, which we before alluded to. (page 47.) It would not be satisfactory, for this simple, though little thought of reason, namely, That a Succession of Bishops in one See, is not and cannot ordinarily be, a succession of one and the same Apostolical line. So that if, for example, we should produce a list of every Archbishop of Canterbury to the very first, who was consecrated by a French Bishop, and should then add the name of every one that had preceded that French Bishop in his see, up to the Apostles’ days, still we should not have proved the existence of any One line of Apostolical descent. No single line of Succession confined to a single Church is possible. Every newly ordained Bishop in every See comes of a new line; and that a threefold line, as we shall presently notice. In addition to which, it should be borne in mind, that the Succession was transmitted in many lines, even from the beginning. Endeavour to examine these points more in detail.