them from the remotest provinces and dioceses those venerable traditions, both of doctrine and practice, which had been handed down to them from the beginning.' Moreover, already there was apparent a tendency towards centralization in the government of the Church which became stronger and stronger amid the calamities and disorders by which the mighty power of Rome was so soon to be broken. to pieces. But though the language of St. Cyprian as to the Roman See is sometimes unguarded and even extravagant, he was far too familiar with the New Testament to mistake the primacy of St. Peter among the Apostles for a supremacy of jurisdiction. Thus, in the Epistle to Quintus, concerning the baptism of heretics,' he says: "Neither did Peter, whom first the Lord chose, and upon whom He built His Church, when Paul disputed with him afterwards about circumcision, claim anything to himself insolently, nor arrogantly assume anything: so as to say that he held the primacy, and that he ought specially to be obeyed by novices and those lately come." And even in his treatise On the Unity of the Church, in which especially he represents the primacy of St. Peter as the one beginning and peculiar type of that unity, he affirms in express terms that "assuredly the rest of the Apostles were also the same as was St. Peter endowed with a like partnership both of honor and power. Whether the Bishop of Rome is in any effective sense the successor of St. Peter, and whether that Apostle's special prerogatives were official or only personal, are separate and very wide questions. But nobody pretends to claim more for the See of Rome than could have been claimed by St. Peter himself, and that he possessed an infallibility which was not granted to St. James or St. Paul, or that he had power to depose St. John, is as remote from the teaching of St. Cyprian as it is contradictory of the 3 1 Irenæus, iii., 2. Compare Neander's Note: History of the Christian Church, i, 204. history of the Apostles in the New Testament. Moreover the controversy in which St. Cyprian was so long and so earnestly engaged, as to the baptism of heretics seeking admission to the Catholic Church, is absolutely conclusive not only of his own belief, but of the belief of the whole African Church-a belief upon which they persistently and unwaveringly acted—that the Bishop of Rome had no authority whatever over that portion of the Church Catholic over which the Bishop of Carthage presided. Into the details of this controversy I have neither space nor is it necessary to enter. It is enough to observe that the Bishop of Rome and the Bishop of Carthage took opposite sides. It never occurred to St. Cyprian to appeal to Stephen, who was the Roman Bishop at that time, for an authoritative statement of the matter in dispute. On the contrary, he writes to him in the following terms: "We have thought. it necessary for the arranging of certain matters, dearest brother, and for their investigation by the examination of a common council,' at which many priests were assembled at once" and he concludes his letter thus: "We have brought these things, dearest brother, to your knowledge, for the sake of our mutual honor and sincere affection; believing that, according to the truth of your religion and faith, those things which are no less religious than true will be approved by you. But we know that some will not lay aside what they have once imbibed, and do not easily change their purpose; but, keeping fast the bond of peace and concord among their colleagues, retain certain things peculiar to themselves, which have once been adopted among them. In which behalf we neither do violence to nor impose a law upon any one, since each prelate has in the administration of the Church the exercise of his will free, as he shall give an account of his conduct to the Lord." The language of St. Cyprian at the seventh council of 1 Epistle lxxi. Pope Stephen. To gather together and hold a council. Carthage over which he presided A. D. 256, is even more emphatic and conclusive. At that council eighty-seven bishops were assembled, who all agreed with St. Cyprian, not only in holding, but in maintaining St. Cyprian's opinion on the nullity of baptism administered by heretics. In that opinion we are justified by later authoritative decisions and by the now uniform practice of the Catholic Church in affirming that they were all mistaken. But perhaps this very fact brings out into greater prominence their perfect independence of the jurisdiction of the Roman See. They not only failed to ask for, but they emphatically repudiate, any decision or interference from the Bishop of Rome. After sundry letters had been read to his assembled colleagues, Cyprian said: "You have heard, my dearly beloved colleagues, what Jubaianus our co-bishop has written to me, taking counsel of my poor intelligence concerning the unlawful and profane baptism of heretics, as well as what I wrote in answer to him..... It remains that upon this same matter each of us should bring forward what we think, judging no man, nor rejecting any one from the right of communion, if he should think differently from us. For neither does any of us set himself up as a bishop of bishops, nor by tyrannical terror does any one compel his colleague to the necessity of obedience; since every bishop, according to the allowance of his liberty and power, has his own proper right of judgment, and can no more be judged by another than he himself can judge another. But let us all wait for the judgment of our Lord Jesus Christ, who is the only one that has the power both of preferring us in the government of His Church and of judging us in our conduct there." WILLIAM KIRKUS. [CONCLUDED IN THE NEXT NUMBER.] SERMON ON THE ELECTION OF A BISHOP.1 "Set in order the things that are wanting, and ordain elders in every city."-Titus i; 5. We are assembled here this day to perform one of the most solemn and important duties which can be required of a council of the Church-the election of one to be a Bishop. It is a weighty responsibility imposed upon us of chosing a fit successor to those men of God who have filled this See and now rest from their labors-the self-denying, prudent, patient Croes; the wide-planning, hardworking, "rightonward" Doane; the loving, priestly, pure-minded Odenheimer. New Jersey has been blessed in her Bishops; and under their administration, by the Divine help, the Church in this State has largely grown. It has been my privilege to have known all three, and to watch that growth. Baptised in infancy by the first Bishop of the Diocese, I To the Rev. E. B. Boggs, D. D. DEAR BROTHER:-Believing that the sermon on the Qualifications of a Bishop, preached by you before our late Special Convention, called to elect a Bishop for Northern New Jersey, ought to have a wider circulation, we request of you that you will print it in the CHURCH REVIEW, believing that it will add to the value of that publication. Your Brethren in the Church, JOSEPH H. SMITH, ROBERT N. MERRITT, T. A. STARKEY, W. T. WEBBE, And others. still retain a vague memory of a tall, venerable figure, dressed like a gentleman of olden time. Bishop Croes was respected by all, in and out of the Church. His work was to lay the foundations. It was not and could not be a showy work. With very inadequate means, barely removed from poverty, yet always "ready to give;" doing the work of a Rector in one of the chief towns, as well as that of a Bishop; and obliged to contend with all the popular prejudices engendered by the revolution (the Episcopal Church being then often, by way of reproach, called the English); confronted on every side by ignorance of the true claims and nature of the Church; his task was a hard one, and the wonder is not that he accomplished so little, but that he was able to do so much. He commanded for himself, his office, and his Church, the entire respect of the community; he laid the foundation of Churchmanship on which others have builded. He took charge of the Diocese in 1816. In the first Convention in which he presided as Bishop, the number of clergy belonging to the Diocese was eight, and twelve Parishes were represented, reporting 583 communicants; 115 persons were confirmed in the first year. In 1832, the year of his death, the number of clergymen was 21; and 16 parishes were represented; but there were 31 congregations; communicants, about 800. I have spoken at more length of our first Bishop because his work is less known to most of you, and, being more quiet, has not been fully appreciated. Of his successors I need not speak. Their work is so well known to the clergy and laity of New Jersey that I will not dwell upon it. Suffice it to say, that under the administration of Bishop Doane the number of clergy had increased, in 1858, to 92. There were 71 Parishes in union with the Convention, and the confirmations reported for that year (ending May, 1858) were 572. Of our late beloved Bishop, it is the less necessary that I should speak, because his memorial has been already so well made before you, by one better qualified. Taking up the |