when any man
or class of men rose to denounce them, the Episcopal Order failed to
throw itself into the breach to defend corruption by at least passive
resistance. Neither Howard, Wesley and Whitfield, nor yet Clarkson,
Wilberforce, or Romilly, could boast of the episcopal bench as an ally
against inhuman or immoral practices. Our oppressions in India, and
our sanction to the most cruel superstitions of the natives, led to no
outcry from the Bishops. Under their patronage the two old Societies
of the Church had gone to sleep until aroused by the Church Missionary
and Bible Societies, which were opposed by the Bishops. Their policy
seemed to be, to do nothing, until somebody else was likely to do
it; upon which they at last joined the movement in order to damp its
energy, and get some credit from it. 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 i