to mere positive ordinances, in which, without such external warrant, none could have recognised the voice of God.  We ask of Mr. Newman and his friends to bring some warrant of Scripture for that which they declare to be God’s will.  They speak very positively and say, that “the security by our Lord no less expressly authorized for the continuance and due application of the Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper, is the apostolical commission of the bishops, and under them the presbyters of the Church.”  They say that our Lord has authorized this “no less expressly” than he has authorized the Holy Supper as the mean of partaking in his body and blood.  What our Lord has said concerning the communion is not truly represented:  he instituted it as one mean of grace among many; not as_the_ mean; neither the sole mean, nor the principal.  But allow, for an instant, that it was instituted as_the_ mean; and give this sense to those well-known and ever-memorable words in which our Lord commanded his disciples to eat the bread and drink of the cup, in remembrance of him.  His words commanding us to do this are express; “not less express,” we are told, is his “sanction of the apostolical commission of the bishops, as the security for the continuance and due application of the Sacrament.”  Surely these writers allow themselves to pervert language so habitually, that they do not consider when, and with regard to whom, they are doing it.  They say that our Lord has sanctioned the necessity of apostolical succession, in order to secure the continuance and efficacy of the sacrament, “no less expressly” than he instituted the sacrament itself.  If they had merely asserted that he had sanctioned the necessity of apostolical succession, we might have supposed that, by some interpretation of their own, they implied his sanction of it, from words which, to other men, bore no such meaning.  But in saying that he has “expressly sanctioned it,” they have, most unconsciously, I trust, ascribed their own words to our Lord; they make Mm to say what he has not said, unless they can produce[4] some other credible record of his words besides the books of the four evangelists and the apostolical epistles.

[Footnote 4:  “Scripture alone contains what remains to us of our Lord’s teaching.  If there be a portion of revelation sacred beyond other portions, distinct and remote in its nature from the rest, it must be the words and works of the eternal Son Incarnate.  He is the one Prophet of the Church, as he is our one Priest and King.  His history is as far above any other possible revelation, as heaven is above earth:  for in it we have literally the sight of Almighty God in his judgments, thoughts, attributes, and deeds, and his mode of dealing with us his creatures.  Now, this special revelation is in Scripture, and in Scripture only:  tradition has no part in it.”—­Newman’s Lectures on the Prophetical Office of the Church. 1837.  Pp. 347, 348.]