LECTURE VII.

In some preceding discourses I have considered the nature and different orders of the ministry in the church constituted by the apostles: Particularly, in my last lecture on this subject, I entered on the examination of that which immediately succeeded it, and took place in the second and third centuries. I observed, that, before the middle of the second century, a subordination in the ecclesiastic polity, which I call primitive episcopacy, began to obtain very generally throughout the Christian world; every single church or congregation having a plurality of presbyters, who, as well as the deacons, were all under the superintendency of one pastor or bishop. I observed, that all antiquity are unanimous in assigning to one bishop no more than one xxλ or congregation, and one wagonia or parish. For this reason, though it was a proper episcopacy, in respect of the disparity of the ministers, it was a parochial episcopacy, in respect of the extent of the charge. I endeavoured to set this matter in a stronger light from the consideration of the import of these words εκκλησια and παροικια, according to the ancient usage.

But that I may not be thought to depend too much on the signification of names and words, I shall evince, beyond all possible doubt, that the bishop's cure was originally confined to a single church or congregation. This I intend to show from the particulars recorded in ancient authors, in relation both to him and to it. For brevity's sake, I shall not produce the passages at length from the fathers of the second and third centuries referred to, but shall barely mention the principal topics which serve to vouch the fact, and which can be verified from the clearest and most explicit declarations of those primitive writers, particularly of Ignatius, (for though the work ascribed to him is with reason suspected to have been interpolated with a view to aggrandize the episcopal order, it was never suspected of any interpolation with a view to lessen it), of Justin Martyr, of Ireneus, of Tertullian, of

Cyprian, and several others. Indeed, the facts I found upon are incontrovertible.

Now, from the writings of those fathers it is evident, that the whole flock assembled in the same place, επι το αυτο, with their bishop and presbyters, as on other occasions, so in particular every Lord's day, or every Sunday, as it was commonly called, for the purposes of public worship, hearing the scriptures read, and receiving spiritual exhortations. The perseverance in this practice is warmly recommended by the ancients, and urged on all the Christian brethren, from the consideration of the propriety there is, that those of the same church and parish, and under the same bishop, should all join in one prayer and one supplication, as people who have one mind and one hope. For it is argued, "If the prayer of one or two have great efficacy, how much more efficacious must that be, which is made by the bishop and the whole church. He, therefore, who doth not assemble with him, is denominated proud and self-condemned." Again, as there was but one place of meeting, so there was but one communion table or altar, as they sometimes metaphorically called it: "There is but one altar," said Ignatius," as there is but one bishop." Εν θυσιατήριον ὡς εἰς επισκοπος.

Nothing can be more contemptible than the quibbles which some keen controvertists have employed, to elude the force of this expression. They will have it to import one sort of unity in the first clause, and quite a different sort in the second, though the second is introduced merely in explanation of the first. In the first, say they, it denotes not a numerical, but a mystical unity, not one thing, but one kind of thing; in the second, one identical thing. One would think it impossible for a writer more accurately, by any words, to fix his meaning. The illustration of one bishop puts it beyond question what sort of unity he ascribes to the altar-one altar as one bishop; insomuch that if, in a consistency with his assertion, there can be, in one diocese, but one individual bishop, there can be, in one diocese, but one individual altar; and contrariwise, if, in a consistency with his assertion, there may be, in one diocese, many individual altars of the same kind, there may be also many individual bishops

of the same kind. Indeed, by their mode of interpreting, the simile adduced, so far from tending, agreeably to the author's design, to explain and illustrate, serves only to confound and mislead. What he ought to have said, is the reverse of what he did say. He ought, on that hypothesis, to have said, There is one altar, but not as there is one bishop; for in regard to the last, the bishop, we affirm, that there is literally and properly but one in a diocese; in regard to the first, the altar, we affirm the unity only figuratively and improperly, since, in the literal sense, there may be many. The like chicane has been employed for eluding the argument founded on the expressions one prayer and one supplication.

But to return :-When the eucharist (which we more commonly denominate the Lord's Supper) was celebrated, the whole people of the parish, or bishopric, if ye please to call it so, communicated in the same congregation, and all received the sacrament, if not from the hands of the bishop, at least under his eye. Hence it was that the setting up another altar within the limits of his parish, beside the one altar of the bishop, was considered as the great criterion of schism. And as the whole of the bishop's parish generally received the symbols of Christ's body and blood, mediately or immediately, from his hand, so they were, for the most part, baptized, either by him, or in his presence. He had also the particular superintendence of all the Christian poor, the widows, the orphans, the strangers, the prisoners, within the bounds of his charge, and the chief direction in the disposal of the public charities. The testimonials, or literæ formatæ, as they were called, which private Christians were obliged to have, when removing from one district to another, that they might be received as brethren in other Christian congregations, were all signed by the bishop, in like manner as with us they are signed by the minister of the parish. Now all the particulars above-mentioned were considered as belonging to his office. No doubt when, through sickness or necessary absence, he could not discharge any part himself, his place was supplied by one or more of his presbyters or vicars. Nay, it was even thought befitting, that the bishop should know, by name, every individual of his flock, and that there

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should not be a marriage among them without his approbation.

When all these things, which are supported by unexceptionable testimonies, are duly weighed, is it possible to conceive otherwise of the bishop, during the period I am here speaking of, than as of the pastor of a single parish? He answers precisely to what, in latter times, has been called the parson; a title of respect when it first came into use, though I know not how, through the caprice of custom, it at present conveys an idea of disrespectful familiarity. The presbyters were his counsellors and assistants, or, as people would now denominate them, his curates. I do not pretend that this resemblance holds in every particular, though it plainly does in most. Perhaps, in some things, the case may bear a greater analogy to some Highland parishes in this northern part of the island, wherein, by reason of their territorial extent, the pastor is under the necessity of having ordained itinerant assistants, whom he can send, as occasion requires, to supply his place in the remote parts of his charge.

This, by the way, suggests the principal difference between those ancient and the greater part of modern parishes. In general (not indeed universally) they were larger in respect of territory, though even, in this respect, far short of a modern diocese. But it is not so much by the measure of the ground as by the number of the people, that the extent of a pastoral charge is to be reckoned. Now that, in this last respect, they did not, at first, exceed modern parishes, is manifest from the several particulars which have been observed above. Nay, if every circumstance be considered, there is reason to believe that they were less. There were yet no magnificent edifices built for the reception of Christian assemblies, such as were afterwards reared at a great expense, and called churches. Their best accommodation, for more than a century, was the private houses of the wealthiest disciples, which were but ill adapted to receive very numerous conventions. However, as it was but a small part of the people of a city or village, with its environs, which composed the church, the extent of territory that would be necessary to supply the pastor with one sufficient congregation must be

so much the greater, in proportion as the number of unconverted Jews and heathens would exceed the number of converts. Suppose at the time the churches were first planted by the apostles, the Christians at a medium were one-thirtieth part of the people. This, I believe, is rather counting high ; for in very populous cities, like Rome and Alexandria, we have no reason to think that they amounted to one-hundredth part. However, as in a supposition of this kind, intended merely for illustration, there is no occasion for historical exactness; let the number of Christians be reckoned onethirtieth of the inhabitants over all Asia Minor. Suppose farther, that country to have been equal then, in point of populousness, to what Great Britain is at present,—one of their bishoprics, in order to afford a congregation equal to that of a middling parish, ought to have been equal in extent to thirty parishes in this island. Yet take them at an average, and they will be found to have been scarcely equal to onethird of that number. By the account which Bingham gives us, in his Christian Antiquities, (b. ix. chap. ii. sect. 8.), an author by no means inclined to diminish the episcopal dignity, the whole forty-eight bishoprics, in the fourth century, comprehended in the patriarchate of Jerusalem, were no more than equal to two middling German dioceses. And as that patriarchate included three provinces under their respective metropolitans, the district of a primate or metropolitan in Palestine, under whom there were many bishops, wanted onethird to be of equal extent with the precincts of an ordinary bishopric in Germany. We may, however, form some notion of the origin of those extensive parishes, (for, considered as parishes, they must be called extensive), from what happens in the manner of proceeding adopted by any new religious sect which springs up amongst ourselves. Where their proselytes are not numerous, the parishes or districts assigned to their ministers must be so much the more extended. In fact, they are not less sometimes, if we reckon by the distance of one conventicle from another, than twenty, thirty, or even fifty miles in length.

Bingham has observed, on the province of Pontus Polemoniacus, that it comprehended only five dioceses, and that