Page:Tracts for the Times Vol 3.djvu/219

Rh exception) have, therefore, an intention, or can justly be suspected thereupon to have any intention to introduce the Pope. The Eastern, Southern, and Northern Churches are all of them for such a personal succession, and yet all of them utter enemies to the Pope. Secondly, I cannot assent to his minor proposition, that either all or any considerable part of the Episcopal divines in England, do unchurch either all or most part of the Protestant Churches. No man is hurt but by himself. They unchurch none at all, but leave them to stand or fall to their own Master. They do not unchurch the Swedish, Danish, Bohemian Churches, and many other Churches in Polonia, Hungaria, and those parts of the world, who have an ordinary uninterrupted succession of Pastors, some by the names of Bishops, others under the name of Seniors, unto this day. (I meddle not with the Socinians:) they unchurch not the Lutheran Churches in Germany, who both assert Episcopacy in their confessions, and have actual superintendents in their practice, and would have Bishops, name and thing, if it were in their power. Let him not mistake himself: those Churches which he is so tender of, though they be better known to us by reason of their vicinity, are so far from being "all or most part of the Protestant Churches," that being all put together, they amount not to so great a proportion as the Britannick Churches alone. And if one secluded out of them all those who want an ordinary succession without their own faults, out of invincible ignorance or necessity, and all those who desire to have an ordinary succession either explicitly or implicitly, they will be reduced to a little flock indeed.

But let him set his heart at rest. I will remove this scruple out of his mind, that he may sleep securely upon both ears. Episcopal divines do not deny those Churches to be true Churches, wherein salvation may be had. We advise them, as it is our duty, to be circumspect for themselves, and not to put it to more question, whether they have ordination or not, or desert the general practice of the universal Church for nothing, when they may clear it if they please. Their case is not the same with those who labour under invincible necessity. What mine