St. Paul says that, certain came from James, &c. Surely, these are strong indications of superiority, and when you add the positive testimonies of the primitive church (the only testimonies upon which we can rely for the change of the Sabbath) we have all the proof which a reasonable man can require. If Sir, you reject this proof in the case of episcopacy, I insist upon it, that you do so in the case of the Sabbath, or that you give good reasons for refusing to do it. I have to proceed but one step farther, to show the source of this ecclesiastical power.

In the fulness of time, Jesus Christ the Son of God, was sent by his Father, to make known to the world his will concerning its salvation. To this office, he was visibly consecrated by the Holy Ghost at his baptism; and declared by God himself to be his beloved son; the people at the same time being enjoined to hear him. Having fulfilled his ministry, and offered himself a sacrifice for sin, before he returned to his Father, he commissioned the apostles to preach remission of sins, through faith in his blood, to administer the sacrament of baptism and the eucharist, which he had instituted,.. and to govern the church, which he promised should be collected out of all nations. One part of this commission we find in John, xx. 21, 22, 25, and the other in Matth. xxviii. 19, 20, and in Mark xvi. 15. This sacerdotal commission was to be conveyed by the apostles to others, and so on to the end of the world. Lo! I am with you, (not with their persons, but with the authority just given them,) unto the end of the world. This is what we mean by succession, and what you Sir, find so very hard to understand, and at which you very unbecomingly sneer; as if Christ was not able to fulfil his own promise; or as if the commission was of such a nature as rendered the succession impracticable. This commission to preach the gospel, to administer the sacraments, and to govern the church is as necessary now, and will be so to the end of the world, as in the days of the apostles; and they who have not received it from this source, by uninterrupted succession, are as destitute of it as the apostles were before they received it. This is a serious matter, and ought to be well weighed by all who minister in holy things. Perhaps you will tell me, if this is all that you mean by uninterrupted succession, we maintain it as strenuously as you do. And what else do you suppose we mean by it? Do you suppose that we are such idiots, as to maintain that our bishops succeed to the miraculous powers of the apostles? When you are hard pressed upon the authority exercised by the apostles, and by Timothy, and Titus, and others, you tell us, that these men exercised extraordinary powers, and therefore afford no examples for the ordinary state of the church. This is your subterfuge everlastingly. But I ask you, and insist upon your answering the question; what extraordinary powers did Timothy and Titus exercise? Were the powers of ordaining elders and governing them, and regulating the affairs of the church extraordinary? Do not you and your brethren exercise them constantly? With you it seems, they are ordinary, but with Timothy and Titus, they are extraordinary. You have no objection to them when presbyters are allowed to exercise them; but when they are reserved to bishops, then they are not to be continued in

the church. We prove to you from scripture and the writings of the ancients, that the apostles never invested presbyters with the right of ordaining, and with a supremacy in the government of the church; and that the apostles as they found it expedient or necessary, conveyed these prerogatives to others, to James, and Barnabas, to Timothy, and Titus, and Epaphroditus, and the other apostles of the church, by which investiture, they became superior to presbyters; and then you tell us after we have produced all these facts, that the apostolic office was to cease with the lives of the apostles. We prove to you from scripture that it did not cease, but was actually conveyed in the above instances, and yet you tell us it did cease. And what proof have you for this bold assertion? "Why, the apostles wrought miracles." And so did presbyters, and deacons, and laymen, and that long after the apostolic age.* "They spoke with tongues." So did many others, as appears from the epistles to the Corinthians. "They delivered to men the mind of Christ, and were, in so doing, infallible." So did St. Luke, who was nothing but a layman; and so did St. Mark, who was the first bishop of Ålexandria, but not one of the twelve. "The apostles saw Christ in the flesh." So did others; above five hundred brethren at once. What has that to do with the apostolic commission? Aaron saw Moses who consecrated him, but did all the succeeding high-priests see him? And were they not on that account high-priests? This is perfectly ridiculous. And not only ridiculous, but false. All the apostles did not see Christ in the flesh. Did St. Paul, did Barnabas, who is constantly called an apostle, see him in the flesh? Not that we know. Or, Epaphroditus and the other apostles of the church? We know nothing about the matter. Such are the strong reasons given by our opponents for the cessation of the apostolic office, and that too, in direct opposition to our Saviour's promise, that it should not cease till the end of the world, and to the several instances recorded in scripture, of its having been actually communicated to others.

Two things that are as distinct as they can possibly be, are thus for ever confounded, to perplex as plain a case as any that ever was proposed to common sense. The power of working miracles given to the apostles was decisive evidence to the world, that they were immediately sent by God, and contributed greatly to the success of their ministry; but the commission, by which they propagated christianity, perpetuated the priesthood, and governed the church, was a totally different thing. Is not this as clear as the mid-day sun in an unclouded sky?

I do not know, Sir, whether you suspect it or not, but I can asaure you that this notion of extinction of the apostolic office originated in Rome. In the council of Trent, the devotees of the Pope endeavored with all their might, to obtain a decision of the council that no bishop but the Pope, succeeded to the apostolic commission. The object of this was evident enough. The same arguments for the cessation of the apostolic office, except in the successor of * See this point fully proved in Brook's examination, and Church's defence in answer to Dr. Middleton, who confined miracles to the apostolic age.

Yet ridiculous as it is, Dr. Campbell gives it as one reason for the cessa. tion of the apostolic office.

St. Peter, were then used by the advocates of the papal supremacy, which have been used for two hundred years by the presbyterians. Bellarmine, the great champion of Rome, asserts, that, "bishops are not properly the successors of the apostles, because the apostles were not ordinary, but extraordinary pastors, such as from the nature of their delegation, could have no successors.' ""* "We cannot easily refrain" (says bishop Skinner.) " from expressing our surprize at such a striking coincidence in opinion, between the popish cardinal, and the presbyterian professor, [Dr. Campbell,] and from this and other instances of a similar nature, we might be inclined to suspect, that between popery and presbytery, the difference in many things, is not so great as is generally imagined."

The question now, Sir, between us, cannot be misunderstood by the most superficial reader; it is simply this, whether the apostles communicated the whole of the sacerdotal powers and ministerial authority, which they derived from their commission, to that order in the church called presbyters or priests; or whether they reserved to themselves the exclusive right of ordaining, and the chief power in governing, communicating these powers as the exigencies of the church required, to that order of men, for ages styled bishops. We say, the latter, and have exhibited an immense accumulation of evidence in proof of it. I will now sum up that evidence, nearly in the words of that excellent writer, the author of an original draught of the primitive church.†

"The scriptures teach us, that when the apostles had founded churches, they ordained elders for them; entrusted those elders to administer the word and sacrament, amongst them, or, (to use St. Paul's words to the elders at Miletus) to take care to themselves and all the flock over which the Holy Ghost had made them overseers, by commission from the apostle's hand, undoubtedly. The title suited with the charge and ministry entrusted to them; and as they were ecclesiastical officers, and commonly not novices in years, they were as properly called (in the ancient language of the synagogue) presbyters too. And accordingly we find that title as well as bishop, or overseer applied to them at that time. Yet all this while nothing is plainer in scripture, than that the apostles reserved to themselves the prerogative of a ruling power over them; kept a rod of discipline in their own hands; censured such as deserved it ; delivered unto Satan the disorderly amongst them ;§ expected whole churches to be obedient to them in all things: in short, had the sovereign care of all the churches in their own hands. Moreover, all the elders we read of, who were ordained in any church (before Timothy and Titus' special commission) had the apostles' hands laid upon them. This great prerogative then, the apostles retained still; and no spe

* See Cardinal Bellarmine-De Rom. Pont. lib. 4. c. 24. To this authority, (says the bishop) Mr. Anderson of Dunbarton, seems to have referred, when combatting the argument in favor of episcopacy, drawn from a succession in the apostolate, he observed; "the church of Rome, a society of a very large extent, of a long standing, and such as has produced not a few wise and great men, expressly contradict it, denying that any of the apostles had successors, save Peter in the papal chair.”—General Defence, p. 198.

†P. 207, 208, 209, 210. 1. Cor. iv. 21. 1. Tim. i. 20. § 2, Cor. ii. 9.

2 Cor. xi. 28.

cious titles of presidents, governors, bishops, pastors, or the like, attributed to the elders under them in the New-Testament, lessened it in the least, or brought it into question; their superior character amongst them was owned by all. So that during their lives, or personal government over them, those titles might safely and properly enough be promiscuously used for any of their subordinate ministers, of whom they ordained many in particular churches."

But before the apostles died, or when Providence removed them from a personal visitation* of their several churches in this and the other province, we read in the earliest records of the church, that they ordained many single persons, (taken notice of without any fellow presbyters beside) over large cities and churches, committing to them (as Ireneus speaks†) their locus magisterii, or place of government; and the scripture tells us plainly enough, that Timothy was ordained such a singular, ecclesiastical governor for Ephesus, where there were many presbyters, and Titus for Crete; for it is plain, they had a special commission to ordain elders; to rebuke and censure them as well as others, and that with all authority, to judge of doctrine and reject heretics; in a word, to set in order the things that were wanting; the very claim of apostolical power in St. Paul's own words for it; (1. Cor. xi. 34.) and all this so personal a charge, that the apostle conjured Timothy (and no other with him) before God and the Lord Jesus Christ and the elect angels, that he observed these things without partiality; and as a special reason for investing him with all this fulness of power now, and for enjoining him so strictly to watch and make full proof of this his ministry; he concludes thus; For I am ready to be offered, and the time of my departure is at hand: as if he had further said, " and now this former care of mine must be yours."

"It is manifest, I think from hence, that these singular presidents of the several churches, had sundry parts of the apostles' reserved sovereign power conferred upon them; never imparted to presbyters of any denomination before, as far as scripture and primitive antiquity can inform us. These consecrated presidents then take possession of the churches assigned to them, either by the apostles personal induction of them (as the case of many of them was) or with their full credentials to be sure. In all or most of those great churches, which this apostolical institution had allotted for them, they must find presbyters ministering at that time in such capacity as they all along had done, with entire subordination to the apostles' supremacy over them. These ministering presbyters then, together with the whole church, receiving such new commissioned presidents among them, must manifestly see by those reserved apostolical powers of ruling, ordination, censure, and the like, (expressed in Timothy and Titus' commission to the full, and no doubt of it, signified sufficiently to every church by the apostles themselves, who thus placed them there) that they had an authentic and unquestionable right of succeeding, in the ordinary jurisdiction and prerogatives of their departing apostle over them."

This is a plain and natural reason, why the first order of ecclesiastics, in the primitive church, were so familiarly called the afics* Rom, xv. 23. † Lib. 3. c. 3. Ep. Tim. and Titus.

tles' successors. No wonder then, if such apparent successors in that eminency of ecclesiastical power as they were, should be thought worthy of a distinct and singular title from all others, as the apostles had before them; and that the catholic church did accor dingly agree it should be so, The title of apostle indeed, was not thought unsuitable to them by many of the primitive writers. But in a holy reverence to the blessed twelve, those very présidents declined the venerable title of apostle; but amongst the several appellations common to many ecclesiastical offices before, they so appropriated that of bishop to themselves, that Ignatius declares, at the very close of the apostolic age, "every christian church, to the very utmost bounds of all," had a supreme governor of that singular and peculiar name, by which he was then known."

I have now, Sir, finished my series of facts and testimonies in proof of episcopacy, from the middle of the second century up to the source of all sacerdotal power, the commission given by Christ to his apostles. I could have produced numerous testimonies from the fathers and councils subsequent to that period; but that was unnecessary, as the most learned advocates for parity have conceded the point after that time. If all these proofs are not sufficient to convince our opponents, that episcopacy is an apostolic institution, I really am at a loss to determine what they would deem sufficient proof for any matter of fact. There is not so far as I can judge, any universally acknowledged fact, that is capable of more strict proof; nor does it afford any reasonable objection to it, that for the last three hundred years, a 'few, comparatively speaking, have op posed it. What is there that has not been opposed? Some of the most notorious facts have been denied. I believe there is no fact that has been more universally acknowledged, in all subsequent ages, than the siege of Troy; yet, I learn, (I have not seen the book) that this fact has been most ingeniously controverted by Mr. Bryant, whom the author of the "Pursuits of Literature" pronounces the most learned man in Europe. Mr. Bryant even denies that any such place as Troy ever existed. Did not father Hardouin endeav or to prove from medals, that the greater part of those authors which have passed upon the moderns for ancient, were forged by some monks of the 13th century, who gave to them the several names of Homer, Plato, Aristotle, Plutarch, &c.? Nay, Sir, have not the facts recorded in the sacred writings, been all rejected by the lump? And when this has been done in matters of the utmost notoriety, against which, men have not been prejudiced by education, and in which they had no kind of interest, how much easier is it for men to be misled, whose minds have been biassed from their infancy, and whose situation and relations in life have kept them steady to their early prepossessions? It certainly behoves all men to store their minds with truth, and in the pursuit of it to lay aside every temporary consideration whatever. Truths indeed have their de grees of importance, and, according to the degree, so ought our la bor to be in the investigation. There is no truth of greater im portance to accountable creatures, than that Christ has a Church up on earth. It is in that Church, and that alone, we have the promise of eternal life. We ought therefore to be most firmly persuaded,