20 SEPTEMBER 1873, Page 20

Defence of the English Ordinal. By the Rev. W. R.

Churton, MA. (Rivingtons.)—This is a learned defence, and one wholly free from acrimony, of the English forms of ordination. It deals chiefly with Protestant objections, which have found in these forms—in the words "Receive the Holy Ghost," for instance—a certain amount of pre- sumption, especially as compared with the precatory forms employed by the Eastern Church. The questions of the "power of the keys," and incidentally to this, of confession, are also discussed at scene length. The Romanist objection to the validity of ourEpiscopal orders, founded. on the omission of the word "Bishop" from the form used up to 1662, is also briefly noticed. The answer seems to be that " in the Roman rites the imposition of hands upon a Bishop is accompanied by the words "Receive the Holy Ghost" only ; so that if our consecrations are invalid, theirs are also. But surely Roman controversialists cannot employ an argument which lays them open to so fatal a tu guoque.