Letters on the ministry, ritual and doctrines of the Protestant Episcopal church addressed to the Rev. Wm. E. Wyatt...

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Letter I

On the ministry of the episcopal church. Reasons for discussing the subject — Our Saviour gave no instruct tions respecting any particular mode of church government — > Said nothing of three orders of ministry — The first church at Jerusalem was governed by the apostles, elders, and brethren— Deacons — The ceremony of ordination was performed by any officers of regular standing in the church — Paul and Barnabas were ordained by "prophets and teachers" — Opinions of Kuinoel, Rosenmuller, Hammond, and Le Clerc — Episcopalians fond of quoting the Fathers — Authority of the Fathers — Opinions of Milton and Jeremy Taylor — Ignatius' epistles — Testimony of the Fathers against episcopacy — Opinions of Paley, Locke, the bishop of Lincoln — Ecclesiastical government essentially a government of the people. p. 5

LETTER II. On the ritual of the church

Baptism — Church form not scriptural— Sign of the cross — Confirmation — These forms nearly the same as in the Catholic church— Ordination service — Expediency and utility of forms of prayer — Their disadvantages — Origin of Saints' days — Bossuet, p. 53

Letter III

On the authority of the church in controversies of faith. Our Saviour gave no authority to any man, or body of men, to judge others for their religious opinions — Christians have no other rule of faith than the Bible — Chillingworth — Athanasian creed — Historical sketch of the first conventions of the American episcopal church after the revolution — Injurious tendency of creeds and articles, both on the clergy and the people —Many christians cannot conscientiously worship according to lhe liturgy of the church — Inconsistency of holding to the authority of tradition, and rejecting infallibility— How creeds keep schism out of the church— Milton's opinion. p. 79 iv

Letter IV

On the doctrinal character of the thirty-nine articles. The fundamental doctrines of Calvinism fully set forth in the articles and homilies — Ninth article — Homilies — Seventeenth article — Bishop Burnet's exposition — Opinions of the first reformers calvinistic — Nowel's catechism — Latimer's sermons — Bishop's Bible — Oxford theses — Ridley's letter on election and predestination — Lambeth articles — Heylin — University of Cambridge — Synod of Dort — English delegates were all calvinists — Strange doctrine of the eighteenth article — Arminian mode of interpreting the articles indefensible — Proposed summary of faith. p. 109

Letter V

Doctrine of the trinity as held by the episcopal church. Litany — The worship it inculcates — Doctrine of the trinity contained in the articles — Opinions of learned episcopalians — There is one true God — The Lord Jesus Christ is not this one true God, but a subordinate being — Doctrine of two natures— The Holy Spirit is not the true God — Jews had no conceptions of any threefold distinction in the Deity—- Nor had the disciples of Jesus — Nor did the apostles preach any such doctrine after the ascension of Christ — The christians of the first century were principally, if not entirely, unitarians — Origin of the doctrine of the trinity. p. 142