as his own argument necessarily requires) he means the same by bishops with those who, in the Acts, are called pulpos, whom the apostles Paul and Barnabas ordained in every church, and whom Clement, in other parts of this epistle, also calls poßolepor, namely, the ordinary teachers, it would seem strange, that the bishop, properly so called, the principal officer of all, should be the only one in his account, of whom the Holy Spirit, in sacred writ, had given no previous intimation. Nay, do not the words of this father manifestly imply, that any other office in the church than the two he had mentioned, might be justly styled a new device or invention? Dr. Pearson, in his Vindicia Ignatianæ, insists much, that whenever any of the fathers purposely enumerate the different orders in the church, they mention always three. If the above account given by Clement is not to be considered as an enumeration, I know not what to call it. If two were actually all the orders then in the church, could he have introduced the mention of them, by telling us he was about to give a list, or catalogue, or even to make an enumeration of the ecclesiastical degrees? Is this a way of prefacing the mention of so small a number as two? It is this writer's express design to acquaint us what the apostles did for accommodating the several churches they planted, in pastors and assistants. And can we suppose he would have omitted the chief point of all, namely, that they supplied every church with a prelate, ruler, or head, if any one had really been entitled to this distinction?

If it should be urged, that under the term IXOTO both functions of bishop and presbyter are comprehended, it is manifest, that, as it was the writer's scope to mark the different offices established, as being predicted by the prophets in the Old Testament, there cannot be a stronger indication, that there was then no material, if any difference, between them, and that they were properly denominated and considered as one office. The appellatives also by which they are denoted, are invariably employed by him in the plural number, as being equally applicable to all. It is said in chap. i, 2015 MYSμLEVOIS MAY rolaccus, submitting to your governours or guides. It is remarkable also, that the word yes, here used in the plural of all their pastors, is one of those terms which came afterwards to be appropriated to the bishop. Nay, since it must be admitted, that in the New Testament, as well as in the ancient christian monument just now quoted, the words ecoños and ape Bulepos, are not occasionally, but uniformly, used synony mously, the very discovery, that there was not any distinctive appellation for such an office as is now called bishop, is not of inconsiderable weight to prove, that it did not exist. We

know that every other office, ordinary and extraordinary, is sufficiently distinguished by an appropriated name.

But I cannot help observing further concerning this epistle of Clement, that though it was written with the special view of conciliating the minds of the Corinthians to their pastors, commonly, in this letter, called presbyters, some of whom the people had turned out of their offices, or expelled, aÃO TÃS EXITRos, from their bishoprick, as his words literally imply, there is not the most distant hint of any superiour to these peoßulepos, whose proper province it was, if there had been such a superiour, to inspect their conduct, and to judge of it; and whose authority the people had treated most contemptuously in presuming, without so much as consulting him, to degrade their presbyters. It was natural, it was even unavoidable, to take notice, in such a case, of the usurpation whereof they had been guilty upon their bishop, the chief shepherd, who had the oversight of all the under shepherds the presbyters, as well as of the people, and to whom alone, if there had been such a person, those presbyters were accountable for their conduct. Yet there is not so much as a syllable in all this long letter that points this way. On the contrary, he argues from the power with which those presbyters themselves were vested, and of which they could not be justly stripped, whilst they discharged faithfully the duties of their office. I will appeal to any candid person who is tolerably conversant in christian antiquities, whether he thinks it possible, that in the third century, such a letter, on such an emergence, could have been written to any christian congregation, by any man in his senses, wherein there was no more notice taken of the bishop, who was then, in a manner, every thing in his own church, than if he were nothing at all. And that there was so great a difference, in less than two centuries, in people's style and sentiments on this article, is an uncontrovertible proof, that in that period things came to stand on a very different foot. This epistle of Clement, who was a disciple of Paul, appears, indeed, from one passage, to have been written so early as before the destruction of the temple at Jerusalem, and, consequently, before the seventy-second year of Christ, according to the vulgar computation. And if so, it was written before the Apocalypse, and, perhaps, some other parts of the sacred canon. Nothing, therefore, that is not Scripture, can be of greater authority in determining a point of fact, as is the question about the constitution of the apostolical church.

The other testimony I shall produce is that of Polycarp, who had been a disciple of the apostle John, and must certainly have written his epistle to the Philippians a considerable

time before the middle of the second century. He also takes notice only of two orders of ministers in the church, enjoining the people, chap. v, to be subject to their presbyters and deacons, as to God and Christ. He could go no higher for a similitude; nor could he decently have gone so high, had he known of a higher order in the church. Not a syllable of the bishop, who, in less than a hundred and fifty years after, would have been the principal, if not the only person, to whom their subjection would have been enjoined by any christian writer. Let it be observed further, that, though, in chap. v, he lays down the duties and qualifications of deacons, and, in chap. vi, those of presbyters, wherein every thing befitting judges and governours is included, and, through the whole epistle, those of the people, there is no mention of what is proper in the character and conduct of a bishop.

I shall remark here, by the way, that there is one very ancient author, Ignatius, who also comes within the denomination of the apostolick fathers, whose writings are supposed to have intervened, between those of Clement and those of Polycarp, and whose authority is strongly urged on the opposite side. Of him I shall have occasion to take notice afterwards. I shall here only add, in regard to Polycarp, that what has been now observed, of his epistle to the Philippians, is a full confutation of that hasty assertion of Dodwell*, that the christian writers, posterior to Ignatius, most accurately observe even the distinction of the names; to wit, of bishop and presbyter, of which he had been speaking. His words are, "Juniores au"tem Ignatio scriptores christiani et nominum distinctionem "observant accuratissimam." It is evident from the above quotation, that Polycarp knew of no christian minister superiour to the presbyters. If the bishop was of a different order, and yet included in the term, he has been as little observant of accuracy in the distinction of the names, as of propriety and. decency in his injunctions on this head.

3

But there are other topicks from which the episcopate has, by its warmest patrons, been supported, and which it will be proper to examine particularly in the following lectures. I shall in these also endeavour to trace (as far as at this distance of time it is practicable) the outline of the apostolick church, and inquire into the origin and progress of subordination in the pastors. It will be observed by the judicious and the candid, that what has been advanced does not affect the lawfulness, or even, in certain circumstances, the expediency of the episcopal model; it only exposes the arrogance of pretending to a jus di

→ Paræn, 27.

vinum. I am satisfied that no form of polity can plead such an exclusive charter as that phrase, in its present acceptation, is understood to imply. The claim is clearly the offspring of sectarian bigotry and ignorance, In regard to those polities which obtain at present in the different christian sects, I own ingenuously that I have not found one of all that I have examined which can be said perfectly to coincide with the model of the apostolick church. Some, indeed, are nearer, and some are more remote; but this we may say with freedom, that if a particular form of polity had been essential to the church, it had been laid down in another manner in the sacred books. The very hypothesis is, in my opinion, repugnant to the spiritual nature of the evangelical economy. It savours grossly of the conceit with which the Jews were intoxicated of the Messiah's secular kingdom, a conceit with which many like-minded christians are intoxicated still.

LECTURE V.

AFTER some considerations on the nature and consequence of the question about the polity originally established in the church, I discussed in the former lecture the principal topicks relating to the equality of the pastors, at least in point of func tion and official duties. I observed also, in the conclusion of that discourse, that there were other topicks from which those who maintain a subordination among them, have endeavoured to defend their sentiments. Many, indeed, convinced by such arguments as were then adduced, that it is in vain to search for the office of bishop, as the word is understood by moderns, in those ministers ordained by the apostles in the churches which they founded, have referred us for its origin to the apos tolate itself. I have passingly observed already, that this was one of those extraordinary offices, which were in their nature temporary, and did not admit succession. But this point, as so much stress is laid upon it, will deserve to be examined more particularly.

The apostles may be considered in a twofold view, either in their general character as the first pastors of the church and teachers of the christian faith, or in what is implied in their special character, of apostles of Jesus Christ. In the first ge neral view they are, doubtless, the predecessors of all those who, to the end of the world, shall preach the same gospel, and administer the same sacraments, by whatever name we distinguish them, bishops, priests, or deacons, overseers, elders, or ministers. But the question still recurs, Whether agreeably to the primitive institution, their successors, in respect of the more common character of teachers and directors of the churches, should be divided into three orders, or only into two? To presume without evidence, that the first, and not the second, was the fact, is merely what logicians call a petitio prine cipii, taking that for granted, which is the very point in debate.