by primitive antiquity) it would never happen that the _same_ line of Succession would be at all continued in any one Church, even during two succeeding Episcopates. And, even in that case, it would be mingled with the Succession of the two other Bishops, who had joined in the new consecration. Hence a Succession of Bishops in any one Church is _not_ a Succession of the same spiritual line of descent. Nay, if we had no more to allege than the line of the Bishops of a particular Church, even though we could enumerate them quite up to the Apostles, we should not have proved a valid Succession. But rather the reverse; because it must have been very possible that some one, or more, of the line might have died suddenly, before the ordaining of the Successor; in which case the Succession would be lost, unless some _other_ Church were applied to. It is plain that no particular Church, whether in Constantinople, Canterbury, or Rome, can pretend to possess an exclusive line of Apostolic grace. It is plain that no Church can be strictly said to “derive its orders” from another. And it only evinces a want of thinking, for any man to say, for example, “that such and such a Church derives its orders from the Church of Rome.” Every one must have observed the false position in which English Churchmen have allowed themselves to be put, by overlooking this simple point. They have thus admitted, practically, that the Church of Rome had a private line of Apostolical Succession, of which she could impart to others!—forgetting that the Bishop of Rome himself is necessarily indebted to the Bishops of three other Churches for _his own_ consecration. {60} The Succession is and must be CATHOLIC, coming through all the Bishops of the Holy Church throughout all the world. And in this lies our security. Just as our persuasion of the genuineness of the Scriptures arose, not from our seeing the originals, or the earliest copies, but from the united testimony and criticism of Christian men; so our conviction of the validity and necessity of the Succeeding Ministry results from a like Catholicity of testimony. Here too, as with the Scriptures, we have unquestioned phenomena, (the whole history of the Catholic world,) which can only be explained by admitting the _fact_. The Church of Rome has no more preserved our Orders, than she has our Bibles. And in this fact lies our chief security, that no particular Church, in Rome or elsewhere, has the Succession in its keeping, so as to be able either to keep it, or fatally corrupt it; for it is CATHOLIC.