Now what were Bishops for, but to be the originators and energetic organs of all pious and good works?
and what were they in the House of Lords for, if not to set a higher tone of purity, justice, and truth?
and if they never did this, but weighed down those who attempted it, was not that a condemnation (not, perhaps, of all possible Episcopacy, but) of Episcopacy as it exists in England?
If such a thing as a moral argument _for_ Christianity was admitted as valid, surely the above was a moral argument _against_ English Prelacy.

It was, moreover, evident at a glance, that this system of ours neither was, nor could have been, apostolic: for as long as the civil power was hostile to the Church, _a Lord bishop nominated by the civil ruler_ was an impossibility: and this it is, which determines the moral and spiritual character of the English institution, not indeed exclusively, but preeminently.
I still feel amazement at the only defence which (as far as I know) the pretended followers of Antiquity make for the nomination of bishops by the Crown.

In the third and fourth centuries, it is well known that every new bishop was elected by the universal suffrage of the laity of the church; and it is to these centuries that the High Episcopalians love to appeal, because they can quote thence out of Cyprian[2] and others in favour of Episcopal authority.

When I alleged the dissimilarity in the mode of election, as fatal to this argument in the mouth of an English High Churchman, I was told that "the Crown now _represents_ the Laity!" Such a fiction may be satisfactory to a pettifogging lawyer, but as the basis of a spiritual system is indeed supremely contemptible.
With these considerations on my mind,--while quite aware that some of the bishops were good and valuable men,--I could not help feeling that it would be a perfect misery to me to have to address one of them taken at random as my "Right Reverend Father in God," which seemed like a foul hypocrisy; and when I remembered who had said, "Call no man Father on earth; for one is your Father, who is in heaven:"-- words, which not merely in the letter, but still more distinctly in the spirit, forbid the state of feeling which suggested this episcopal appellation,--it did appear to me, as if "Prelacy" had been rightly coupled by the Scotch Puritans with "Popery" as antichristian.
Connected inseparably with this, was the form of Ordination, which, the more I thought of it, seemed the more offensively and outrageously Popish, and quite opposed to the Article on the same subject.

In the Article I read, that we were to regard such to be legitimate ministers of the word, as had been duly appointed to this work _by those who have public authority for the same_.