were ordained could have any occasion for, and to the care of which they were not considered as being destined. Some found their account in being once named of the order. It was a kind of episcopal testimonial of their qualifications and abilities. And, indeed, if those ordinations had been universally understood as importing no more, and the persons so ordained had been regarded not as actual ministers, but as licentiates in the ministry properly tried and attested, the practice, to say the least, might have admitted some plausible excuses. But this was not the footing on which they stood: Worldly motives, exemptions from secular jurisdictions, and other privileges, often induced men to court this distinction. The bishops too, beginning to consider it as a sort of addition to their dignity to have a numerous clergy under them, even though some of these were rather nominally than really such, were often too easily persuaded to grant this favour to those who asked it. Sometimes, as I observed, even bishops were ordained at large without a diocese.

This abuse, when once it had gotten footing, increased daily, insomuch that it became necessary at last to give a check to it. Accordingly in the council of Chalcedon it was prohibited, and all such loose ordinations were declared, (Canon 6th), I say not irregular or uncanonical, but absolutely null. The words are, της απολυτως χειροτονημένες ὥρισεν ἡ ἅγια συνοδος ακυρον έχειν την τοιαύτην χειροθεσίαν, και μηδαμε δυνασθαι ενεργειν. -Nothing in language can be more express; auger xugodiciar, irritam ordinationem, a void ordination.

Further, they do not say, that when men, so ordained, officiate, their conduct is criminal, as was the style some centuries afterwards in regard to those who officiated in contempt of church censures, but they affirm that such can nowhere officiate, undaμs duvartai evepge, and consequently, that their ministrations are no ministrations at all. It deserves our notice, that, notwithstanding the corrupt practice which had prevailed, there still remained so much of the primitive notion of ordination to the episcopal office, (for they had long considered the presbyters as only the bishop's curates and assistants), as the solemn assignment of a person to a particular congregation, to discharge among them the functions of a pastor, that they could not conceive it to be an ordination

where no such charge was given, and when a man properly

got no office to exercise. It appeared a mere illusion, the name without the thing. Nothing can be plainer, than that as yet they had no conception of the mystic character impressed by the bishop's hand in ordaining, which no power on earth can cancel. The canon above-mentioned was confirmed by many posterior canons. Hence it came to be regarded as an established rule or maxim in the church, that none could be ordained without a title, which, though at first it was applied only to bishops, came, after the subdivision of his parish into separate charges, to be also sometimes applied to presbyters. By a title was then understood the actual charge of some congregation. I had occasion, in a former lecture, to observe, that the Latin word titulus was the name that was given to the inferior churches or chapels allotted to presbyters, when it was found necessary, on account of the vast accession of new converts, that the bishop's charge, anciently a parish, and having but one church, should be divided and apportioned to the several presbyters. A man was said then to have a title, when he had obtained a chapel or church wherein, and a people for whose behoof, he was to execute the ministry. But as the import of words gradually changes with the manners and the times, by the term title people came at length to understand only a living, whether there was any charge, any cura animarum, or not. Thus the canons originally intended to prevent any, under the denomination of clergy, from being idle, were construed in such a manner as though they had been intended to prevent any, under the denomination of clergy, from being indigent. And the reason they then gave for the rule was, lest such clergymen should be compelled, by necessity, to acquire a livelihood by manual labour, and thus derogate from the dignity of the priesthood. Idleness, in their apprehension, was no way derogatory; manual labour was. Paul's notions were surely very different; for he did not think that he brought any disgrace on the apostleship, when he worked with his hands at the humble trade of tent-making. But this by the way.

Some ages afterwards, Pope Alexander III. adopting the aforesaid interpretation, gave to the rule this turn, that none should be ordained without a title from which he could draw

a subsistence; and added this exception, unless he has enough of his own, or by paternal inheritance-an exception, doubtless, very reasonable, if the sole purpose of a title was to afford a man whereon to live. Hence sprang new abuses, and some of the vilest artifices for making that pass for a patrimony, which had been lent to a man merely for the purpose of assisting him fraudulently to obtain ordination: In consequence whereof, there were numbers of these nominal and fictitious clergy, shepherds that had no sheep, and overseers that had nothing to oversee, who lived in indigence as well as in idleness, to the no small scandal of the people, and dishonour of those functions of which they bore the name. At length, however, the import of the word title seems to have sunk so low, as to imply neither church, nor charge, nor living, but a bare name; insomuch, that a titular priest, or a titular bishop, came universally to denote a priest, or a bishop, who (in all the former acceptations of the term) has no title. Such were those Utopian clergy, whom Panormitan has not improperly, though derisively, styled nulla-tenentes, holding nothing, and who have been sometimes honoured with the addition of bishops in partibus infidelium; this serving as a convenient sort of general designation, to supply the name of a particular bishopric. Indeed, the custom still uniformly retained in the church of Rome, of annexing some such addition, is an irrefragable evidence of the ideas which were from the beginning entertained of the office, as incapable of subsisting without a charge.

In the later ages, the policy of the court of Rome came to be concerned in supporting this, with many other irregular practices. The power of dispensing with ecclesiastical canons was a prerogative which that ambitious see had for some time arrogated, and not without success. It found its account in it in more ways than one. When once the minds of men became familiarized to this usage, (however much the wiser part would condemn it on account of its consequences), it would be no longer viewed in the same light. People would still be sensible of the irregularity and faultiness, but would no longer perceive the absurdity and nullity of it. Not only the commonness of the practice, but the very epithets and titles given to these nominal pastors, together with the same

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ness in respect of privileges, and of the jurisdiction to which they were amenable, with those properly of the clerical body, would all serve to cover the defect. People would no longer be apt to think with Leo, who was bishop of Rome about the middle of the fifth century, and is, on account of his writings, considered as a doctor of the church, who affirms positively in one of his letters, (Epist. 92. ad Rustic. cap. 1.), “ Vana est habenda ordinatio, quæ nec loco fundata est, nec auctoritate munita." That ye may better understand the phrase loco fundata, it may be proper to observe, that among the Latins, at that time, when a man, in being ordained, was assigned to a particular parish or charge, it was called ordinatio localis, and the incumbents, by way of distinction from the nulla-tenentes, were called locales. However much the vague kind of ordination, opposed to localis, was, from ambitious motives, patronized by his successors, this Pope does not hesitate to style it, not illicita, but vana; not unlawful, (though this might also have been said with truth), but of no effect. To have said the former only, would have implied no more than that there was a fault in granting such orders; what he did say implies, that there was no real ordination in them. The doctrine of the character had not yet been discovered.

One will perhaps be surprised to hear, that our Scotch episcopal party, who have long affected to value themselves on the regular transmission of their orders, have none but what they derive from bishops merely nominal. I do not mention this with a view to derogate from their powers, but only as an argumentum ad hominem, to show how much their principles militate against themselves. It does not suit my notion of Christianity, to retaliate on any sect, or to forbid any to cast out devils in the name of Christ, because they follow not us. If the lust of power had not with churchmen more influence than the spirit of the gospel, greater attention would have been given to the decision of their Master in a like case. Even their own writers acknowledge, that immediately after the death of Dr Ross, bishop of Edinburgh, the last of those ordained before the Revolution, there were no local bishops in Scotland; not one appointed to any diocese, or having the inspection of any people, or spiritual jurisdic

tion over any district. But there were bishops who had been ordained at large, some by bishop Ross, others by some of the Scotch bishops, who, after the Revolution, had retired to England. The warmest partisans of that sect have not scrupled to own, that at that gentleman's decease all the dioceses in Scotland were become vacant, and even to denominate those who had been ordained in the manner abovementioned, Utopian bishops; a title not differing materially from that I have given them, merely nominal bishops. For, as far as I can learn, they were not titular, even in the lowest sense. No axiom in philosophy is more indisputable than that Quod nullibi est, non est. The ordination, therefore, of our present Scotch episcopal clergy is solely from presbyters; for it is allowed, that those men who came under the hands of bishop Ross had been regularly admitted ministers or presbyters, in particular congregations, before the Revolution. And to that first ordination, I maintain, that their farcical consecration by Dr Ross and others, when they were solemnly made the depositaries of no deposit, commanded to be diligent in doing no work, vigilant in the oversight of no flock, assiduous in teaching and governing no people, and presiding in no church, added nothing at all. Let no true son of our church be offended, that I acknowledge our nonjurors to have a sort of presbyterian ordination; for I would by no means be understood as equalizing theirs to that which obtains with us. Whoever is ordained amongst us, is ordained a bishop by a class of bishops. It is true, we neither assume the titles, nor enjoy the revenues, of the dignified clergy so denominated in other countries; but we are not the less bishops, in every thing essential, for being more conformable to the apostolical and primitive model, when every bishop had but one parish, one congregation, one church or place of common worship, one altar or communion-table, and was perhaps as poor as any of us: whereas the ordination of our nonjurors proceeds from presbyters, in their own (that is, in the worst) sense of the word; men to whom a part only of the ministerial powers was committed, and from whom particularly was withheld the right of transmitting orders to others. When we say that our orders are from presbyters, we do not use the term in their acceptation,