layman to exercise the functions of a priest. But this by the

way.

The opinion of Dr. Hammond, (Annotations, Acts xi, 30,) that the apostles instituted only the office of bishop and deacon, and that the intermediate office of presbyter was soon afterwards introduced, is not materially different from the doctrine which I endeavoured, in a preceding lecture, to prove from the New Testament. Provided it be allowed, that the ministry, according to the apostolical arrangement, consisted of two orders, and not of three, the one properly the ministry of the word, the other the ministry of tables, it would be no better than logomachy, or altercation about words, to dispute whether the minister of the former kind should be called bishop, or presbyter, since it is evident, that these names were used synonymously by the inspired writers. Were we to be confined to one term, I should readily admit, that the first is the more proper of the two. The name on, bishop, inspector, strictly expresses the charge of a flock; the term PESBulep, presbyter, elder, senator, is a title of respect which has been variously applied. And in the ecclesiastick use it has been rendered ambiguous, by having been so long misapplied to a kind of subordinate ministry, which the true presbyterian maintains, with Jerom, was not from the beginning in the church. The only material difference between the doctor's sentiments and mine, on this article, is the following. That very learned and pious author, misled, as I imagine, more by the dialect of ecclesiastick writers, when the distinction had actually obtained, than by the practice of the primitive church, rightly understood, maintains that there was no more than one bishop or pastor allotted to every church, whereas, in my judgment, there were allotted several. Nothing can be more incompatible than his opinion, in this particular, with the style of the sacred penmen, to which, in support of that opinion, he is perpetually doing violence in his commentary. Admitting that the phrases xalexxanoiav, and nala o may be rendered, as he affirms, church by church, and city by city, and that consequently what is called, in the common translation," ordaining elders or bishops in every city, “or in every church," may be understood to imply one in each, what shall be said of the many passages not in the least ambiguous, wherein mention is made of the pastors in the plural number of but one church? Sometimes they are de nominated bishops, sometimes presbyters, sometimes those that are over them, their guides or directors in the Lord. Indeed, what we are told, (Acts xx, 17,) that Paul sent from Mile

tus to Ephesus, and called the elders of the church, might (if there were not another passage to this purpose) serve as a sufficient confutation of that hypothesis. "Ay but," replies our annotator, "by the church is here meant not the single church of "the city of Ephesus, but the metropolitical church of Asia." Is it possible, that a man of Dr. Hammond's erudition and discernment, should have been so little acquainted with, or attentive to the idiom not only of all the inspired, but of all the ecclesiastical, writers of the two first centuries, as, in support of his interpretation, to recur to such an unexampled phraseology? Where will he find all the churches of a province or country called the church of a particular city? But if there were nothing incongruous in the phrase, there is an absurdity in the supposition. How could the apostle expect to find at Ephesus all the bishops of Asia? Or was he, though in so great haste to get to Jerusalem before Pentecost, that he could not conveniently go to Ephesus himself, was he, I say, to wait till expresses were sent thence by the metropolitan throughout that extensive region, and till, in consequence of this summons, all the Asiatick bishops were convened at Miletus? By this strange way of wresting the plainest words, the saints at Philippi (p. 1, 1,) are in another place made to mean all the christians in Macedonia; and, by parity of reason, I acknowledge, the bishops and deacons of Philippi are all those in the holy ministry throughout the Macedonian kingdom. But as amplification does not always answer, the opposite method is sometimes found convenient. When James (Jam. v, 14,) enjoins the sick person to send for the elders of the church, he means, according to our learned doctor, the elder, bishop, or pastor, of that particular flock. What sentiments might not the words of Scripture be made to favour, by this loose and arbitrary mode of interpreting? It is strange that one, whose discernment and impartiality, notwithstanding his prejudices, led him to discover that, in the sacred writings, there was no distinction between bishop and presbyter, was not able to discover (what was fully as evident) that they contained not a single vestige of metropolitical primacy. The language of the fathers of the fourth and succeeding centuries, (for then all these degrees were firmly rooted) concerning the offices of Timothy and Titus, and the current maxim, "one church, one bishop," which naturally sprang from the distinction of bishop and presbyter, had entirely warped this interpreter's judgment in every case wherein the subject of the ministry was concerned.

I must beg leave to add, that if what this gentleman and I are both agreed in, that there was originally no intervening

order between bishop and deacon, be admitted to be just, the account given above, of the rise of such an order, has, abstracting from its external evidence, the advantage of his in. respect of internal probability. That a middle order (as that of presbyter is in the church of England, and the church of Rome) was, notwithstanding the silence of history, erected at once immediately after the times of the apostles, is, to say the least, much more unlikely, than that it arose gradually out of an inconsiderable distinction, which had obtained from the beginning, Dodwell's hypothesis, that all those ordained by the apostles were no more than presbyters, in his acceptation of the term, labours under the like defect with Hammond's. It is very remarkable, that these two strenuous defenders of episcopacy do, in effect, both renounce its apostolical origin, admitting no subordination among the ministers of the word in the churches planted by the apostles; and that they do not differ more widely from their allies in this cause, than they do from one another. It is a shrewd presumption, that a system is ill-founded, when its most intelligent friends are so much divided about it; and in order to account for it, recur to hypotheses so contradictory. A presumption too, let me add, that their judgment would lead them soon to adopt the premises of their adversaries, to which they sometimes approach very near, if their passions would allow them to admit the conclusion.

Thus we have advanced from the perfect equality, in respect of ministerial powers, in the stated pastors of the churches, planted by the apostles, to that parochial episcopacy which immediately succeeded it; and which, though it arose gradually from an inconsiderable cause, seems to have assumed the model of a proper episcopate, as the word is now understood, before the middle of the second century. And this I consider as the first step of the hierarchy. I shall continue to trace its progress in the succeeding lectures on this subject.

LECTURE VIII.

I SHOULD not have thought it necessary to be so particular as I have been, in ascertaining the nature of that polity which obtained in the primitive church, both in the simple form wherein it was first settled by the apostles, and in that which it soon after assumed, and almost universally retained, till the expiration of the third century, were not this a matter, that is made a principal foundation of dissent by a pretty numerous sect in this country. I do not here allude to those amongst us, who barely prefer the episcopal form of government, whom, in general, as far as I have had occasion to know them, I have found moderate and reasonable in their sentiments on this subject. Such do not pretend that the external model of the church (whatever they may think of the antiquity of theirs) is of the essence of religion. They are sensible, that an ecclesiastical polity, however necessary, is but a subsidiary establishment, totally distinct from the spiritual and vital principle, or the religion properly so called, for whose preservation and advancement it is calculated; that the merits of any form can be judged of only from its fitness for answering the end; that in this as in all other matters of experience, different times and different places may require some differences.

The notion that it was the intention of the apostles, that the particular mould which they gave the church should be held inviolable, or that it was their doctrine, that the continuance I of the same mould is essential to the being of the church, appears to me not indeed problematical, but utterly incredible. One might have justly expected in that case (the matter being of such infinite consequence) a fuller and clearer account not only of what they did in this way, but also of their doctrine in relation to its importance. I shall add a few observations for the further support of the general point regarding the merits of the question.

As to the origin of one of the offices, that of deacon, it is related in such a manner as bears all the marks of a prudential expedient, suggested by a present inconvenience. The office

too, on its first erection, was a trust in things merely temporal; or what Jerom, not unjustly, though perhaps too contemptuously, called, the service of tables and widows. They were no other than what, in modern language, we should call the church's almoners. Nor is it any objection to this representation, that we find both Stephen and Philip, who were among the seven deacons, that were first presented by the people to the apostles, exercising spiritual functions, such as preaching and baptizing. This power they certainly did not derive from the superintendency of the people's charities, to which alone they were chosen, with which they were intrusted, and which the apostles, in the very institution of the office, expressly distinguish from the ministry of the word. "It is not reason," said they, when harassed by the murmurs of the Hellenists against the Hebrews, on account of the supposed neglect of their widows, "that we should leave the "word of God, and serve tables. Wherefore, brethren, look st ye out among you seven men of honest report, full of the "Holy Ghost and wisdom, whom we may appoint over this

business. But we will give ourselves continually to prayer, "and to the ministry of the word." Here the dinovia TpaTTESa and the dinovia hos, are manifestly contrasted to each other. Stephen and Philip, on the contrary, derived their spiritual functions, either from that title with which, according to Tertullian and the deacon Hilarius, every qualified person, in that state of the church, was invested for promoting the common cause, or from the supernatural gifts they had received for the advancement of the faith, before their election to the deaconry, or (as some have thought most probable) from their being called of God to the office of evangelists. Philip is, in another place, but at a later period, expressly called an evangelist, Acts xxi, 8. It is worthy of notice, that his office of deacon is there also named, that we may not confound them, or ascribe to the one what belonged to the other. We entered into the house of Philip the evangelist, who was one of the seven. Though it might be unsuitable, when the number of believers was greatly increased, to an office of so much weight as the apostleship, to be encumbered with a charge of this nature, it might not be incompatible with any office (like that of evangelist) of less importance. But soon, after the apostolick age, (or perhaps sooner) though, by the way, we have no direct information concerning it, the deacons were admitted to assist in the inferiour parts of the sacred service. At present, indeed, in almost all the churches where the three orders of bishop, presbyter, and deacon, are found, the last mentioned has no sort of charge in that particular which at