these, on account of the vast multiplicity which the change of circumstances had occasioned, it was impossible now, as formerly, that the bishop should be always consulted, or that the presbyters should always act by immediate direction. Every presbyter came to be considered as the pastor of the charge committed to him, and in every material respect as the same to his part of the parish, which the bishop had been to the whole. His charge itself came to be denominated waponia, a parish, a name which, as I remarked before, had been uniformly given to the whole bishoprick, whereof this was but a portion, and the latter began to be distinguished by the name ongs, diocess, though the distinction was not regularly observed till long afterwards. The names xvgiaxov and ecclesia came to be given universally to those meeting-houses as to proper parish-churches, and then the mother-church got the name cathedral, as there the throne of the bishop and the bench of the presbytery were erected.

tors.

By the account given above, one would imagine, that in some things the power of the bishop was now impaired, though the number of his spiritual subjects was greatly multiplied. The presbyters had more authority in their respective flocks, and were not under the necessity, as formerly, of recurring always to his warrant or permission. When the charge became so extensive, and consequently burdensome, the bishops were obliged to sacrifice some of their prerogatives to the love of ease. But this sacrifice had, in effect, more the appearance of abridging their power than the reality. The change, upon the whole, tended much, in the eye of the world, to aggrandize the order. From being the pastor of a particular flock, he was become the superintendant of many pasWhereas formerly he had the charge of one parish and one congregation, for these terms are correlates, he had now the charge of, perhaps, fifty parishes and fifty congregations, comprised within the same compass. He was not so closely connected with the people as before, but that was solely be-. cause he was raised higher above them, his immediate connexion being with their pastors. Besides, in respect of wealth, he drew great advantages from the increase of numbers, being entitled to the same proportion from the publick contri-, butions of the whole diocess. Not to mention that the superstition, or mistaken piety of some wealthy converts, also contributed to the increase of his opulence. And if, in regard to most official duties, the presbyters did more of themselves in their several charges, they were totally excluded by canons from confirming and ordaining, which sufficiently secured their dependance and inferiority,

Add to this, that the separation of the presbyters from one another, by their being obliged to reside in their several parishes, and their having opportunity only when called for a particular purpose to come together, assisted the bishop in engrossing the jurisdiction in spiritual matters, which formerly belonged to the presbytery, or body of the pastors. And as in things temporal (which I showed in a former discourse) the judicial power had, before now, come entirely into his hands, the immense accession of people to his jurisdiction added immensely to his importance. And if the aristocratical part of church government was greatly diminished, the democratical was totally subverted. The impossibility there was, that business should be managed by the people of a dio cess collectively, when they amounted, as in several bishopricks to some hundred thousands, put an end, in matters of disci pline, to their pretensions. The only vestige that remained of their former rights was, that in several places they continued to assemble tumultuously at the election of a bishop. But as this affair was generally conducted with riot and clamour, and sometimes ended in blood, the principles of sound policy required, that a practice so fruitful of bad consequences, and so barren of good, should be abolished. It was not now, as formerly, a single congregation choosing their own pastor, who was to have the immediate charge of their spiritual instruction and guidance, but it was a mob, often a most outrageous one, collected from a whole diocess or province, to nominate a great man, better known by his extensive jurisdiction and splendid titles, than by any pastoral duties he had to exercise.

The train in which things were now put, gave rise to a new application of the word εκκλησία. I observed that this term had before been always used to denote either a single congregation, or the whole christian community. When the bishop's charge was no more than a single congregation, it was very proper to denominate it by that name, and call it a church in the singular number. Now that the term had, for ages, been employed to express all that was under the inspection of one bishop, and that people were inured to such phrases as these, the church of Antioch, the church of Cesarea, the church of Constantinople, and the church of the bishop of Antioch, &c., the word continued to be so applied, notwithstanding the change of circumstances, in consequence of which many congregations came to be included. This paved the way for extending still farther the import of the term, and employing. it in the singular number, to denote all the churches of a pro

vince under the same metropolitan, or even of one or more kingdoms under the same patriarch.

It may not, however, be improper to remark, that for several ages there remained here and there the traces of the footing on which things had formerly stood. In small and distant towns and villages, wherein bishops had been planted, and whereof the circumjacent country was but thinly peopled, the charge, even after the conversion of all the inhabitants, remained undivided, and the bishop was still no more than what every bishop was primitively, the pastor of a single congregation, with his assistant, presbyters, and deacons. But these changes, in process of time, gave place to still greater. When the division of ancient parishes, which I shall henceforth call diocesses, became universal, the principal reason for confining them within moderate bounds entirely ceased, and motives of interest and ambition operated the contrary way without control. The immediate dependance of the people, and even of the clergy, upon the bishop, and the connexion of ninety-nine parts in a hundred of the diocess with the bishop's church, formerly the parish-church, now the cathedral, being totally dissolved, and the people more commodiously supplied in every part of the religious services, worship, sacraments, and teaching, by those tituli, now called parish-churches, newly erected, there needed no more to abolish the presbytery, whose princi pal use subsisted no longer. The diocess accordingly underwent a new division into deaneries, so named from their including at first ten parishes, or ten presbyters in each, though they did not long confine themselves to that number. The president, cailed decanus, the dean, is properly an arch-presby-, ter, such as anciently, in the bishop's absence, presided in the presbytery. The deanery of the cathedral, consisting of the clergy, whose duty it is to perform there the sacred service, and to preach, is denominated capitulum, the chapter, being as it were, the head of the clergy of the diocess. But the rural deaneries, as they answered little purpose, have, in most places,. gone into disuse. The presbyters, who under the dean officiated in the mother-church, came to be distinguished from the parochial clergy by the titles of prebendaries and canons. The former name they derived from the appointments called prebends, to which they were entitled, the latter from the regula-. tions to which they were subjected. The chapter served, instead of the presbytery, in matters of election, not only in electing the inferiour officers, but in supplying vacancies, in concurrence with the bishop, in the prebends or canonries and deanship; nay, that they anciently, on the decease or transla

tion of the bishop, elected his successour, the congé a'élire, still in use in England, though now no better than a form, is a standing evidence. They had the superintendency of the fabrick, with the goods and ornaments belonging to the cathedral, and were also guardians of what is now called the spiritualties of the bishoprick, when the see was vacant.

In regard to the espiscopal jurisdiction, which extended. over the whole diocess, the chapter, consisting only of the clergy of the cathedral, could not be considered as a proper council. In the bishop's court of judicature, denominated the consistory, his counsellors and assessors in judgment when he was present, and delegates in his absence, were those called archdeacons. The archdeacon was originally of the or der of deacons, as the name imports. There was but one of them in a diocess. He presided among those of his own or der, was a constant attendant upon the bishop, and was considered as his prime minister. But some time after, the parti tion of diocesses became very general, particularly after the country bishops were, through a jealously that they would lessen the dignity of the order, suppressed by canon, and their parishes annexed to those of the next city bishops, it was found convenient to elect those delegates, the archdeacons, from the order of the presbyters, and to have more or fewer in a diocess, according to its extent. Through the influence of custom, in opposition to propriety, the name archdeacon was retained. The diocess was accordingly divided into archdeaconries, and these subdivided into deaneries, not unlike the division of counties that obtains in England into hundreds and tithings. It was then judged expedient to invest archdeacons with a share of episcopal jurisdiction, both in temporals and in spirituals, within their archdeaconries, where they perform regular visitations, like the bishops, hold spiritual courts, either in person or by their deputies, called officiais, and are accounted dignitaries. The only acts peculiar to the bishop are confirming and ordaining.

I have been the more particular in this deduction, in order to give at once a faint sketch of the model which, in a great measure, still subsists in England and Ireland, and among the secular clergy of the church of Rome. The variations, indeed, are considerable, which the influence of time and local customs have produced in different places. A perfect uni formity in these things is not to be expected. We are now arrived at the second step of the hierarchy, when prela v or diocesan episcopacy succeeded the parochial, and began genes rally to prevail.

IN my last lecture, I traced the origin of prelacy, or diocesan episcopacy. I shall now, ere I proceed, for the further illustration of the subject, contrast the two methods that might naturally be supposed to have suggested themselves, upon the great revolution in circumstances which the establishment of christianity by the imperial laws, and the numerous conversions from paganism consequent thereon, occasioned in the church. There was then, indeed, an absolute necessity to make a considerable alteration in the arrangement which had subsisted formerly, in order that such multitudes of people might be supplied with pastors, and with the ordinances of religion. One way of answering this end was to attempt anew the division of christian countries into such parishes, as were no more than necessary for affording each a sufficient congregation, and to give each, as formerly, its own bishop, presby, ters, and deacons, independently of every other parish. In this way, indeed, there would have been vast alterations made on the territories and local extent of pastoral charges, which would have had the appearance of dispossessing, in a great nleasure, those then actually in office. But the form, as well as the spirit, of the model adopted in the second century, would have remained. And, indeed, this was the only possible method whereby it could have remained unimpaired.

The other way was to preserve the same division of territory that had been made so long before, and which the people, through custom, were brought to regard as sacred, to conti ne the same nominal parishes in the same hands, but in order also to accommodate the parishioners without overloading the pastors, to increase the number of presbyters, and as they could not now all convene in one place, to erect a sort of subordinate chapels or churches, (a thing in the two first centuries