ART. I.-An Inquiry into the Constitution, Discipline, Unity, and Worship, of the Primitive Church, that flourished within the first three hundred years after Christ; faithfully collected out of the Fathers and extant writings of those ages. By Peter King, Lord High Chancellor of England. With an introduction, by the American Editor. New York. Published by G. Lane and P. P. Sandford, for the Methodist Episcopal Church, 200 Mulberry street.
THE republication of this rare and valuable work, which has given us much satisfaction, is but a natural consequence, of the revival of the conflict, between free ecclesiastical principles and the exclusive claims of prelacy. Though it was hardly to be expected that such a book should owe its republication and introduction to the American churches to the publishing office of the Methodist Episcopal Church. Here is surely a verification of Samson's riddle: "Out of the eater came forth meat, and out of the strong came forth sweetness." But the gift is no less acceptable for the seeming incongruity of the hand that conveys it. Indeed, this incongruity of the publication, is itself congruous with the authorship of the book. And we have in it not only a book against episcopacy, published by the Methodist Episcopal church, but also a book against episcopacy, written by a member of the English Episcopal church. We know,