was clamorously echoed from Church to Church, so that it was rarely ventured on; much less would it be suffered in any important thing. Even evil men in their day were obliged to conform to the outward rules of the faithful; or they found an universal outcry against them. The State had then nothing to do with the matter; and the people (such was their temper and disposition) would have thought of owning a heathen for a Bishop, as soon as a man not duly ordained. Nay, there was even a holy emulation among the Churches; in consideration of which we might in a qualified sense, admit an additional kind of sacredness and certainty, so to speak, in the Succession of those Episcopates, which were noted for peculiar carefulness; as in the Ante-Nicene times that of Alexandria appears to have been. So was it from the first.—And in every subsequent generation of Christians, as we thus see, the intricacy of the Succession, and consequently the difficulty of breaking it, would be more and more intensely augmented; as if indeed utterly defying the unfaithfulness or fraud of man to set it aside. Whatever else has at any time been charged against the Catholic Church, it has never been said, that she failed in duly Ordaining her Bishops; and even if this could be shown, still a failure in one part would not touch the rest. {65a} To break up the Succession of the Apostolic Ministry nothing less, indeed, seems to be required than a self-destroying conspiracy of the Church Universal. We possess then all the Evidences of this illustrious fact, which human testimony can furnish, or human industry bring together. Universal witnesses to support it; and not one against it.—Scriptures,—Canons,—Councils,—Fathers,—and Churches,—the learned and the common people—all evidencing one thing; and even heretics and infidels not denying it as fact;—a fact too, which they are forced to see has gathered and still shall gather fresh mightiness, as centuries roll on! {65b} For on the heads of the present Bishops of the Church Universal, there rests the concentrated grace of all the Apostles. And this One Institute—the MINISTRY of CHRIST now stands, {66} as at first Divinely set up, an abiding monument of the truth, that HE who determined by the “weakness” and “foolishness” of preaching to save them that believe, has manifested that the “foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God stronger than men.”—The things which man in all his wisdom contrived, eighteen hundred years ago, are departed like shadows. What GOD ordained remains, and shall “till the consummation of the world.”