communion. There would be nothing more extraordinary here, than the creating of a lord high steward, for instance, by certain solemnities accompanying the delivery of a white batoon into his hands, and placing him on an eminent seat, and his putting an end to his office, by publickly breaking the batoon, and coming down from his seat. Whereas for a man to do a thing, which nothing less than omnipotence can undo, and which even that in fact will never be employed in undoing, to imprint a character, a something which in spite of angels, men, and devils, shall, to eternity, remain indelible, appears the result of a power, inconceivable indeed, and little less than divine.

Whence ideas of this kind originated, ideas that do not seem to quadrate with the so much boasted power of the keys, which implies, alike, that of opening, and that of shutting, admitting and excluding, binding and loosing; ideas, of which the apostles and evangelists have no where given us the slightest hint, and of which it is plain they had not them. selves the smallest apprehension, is a matter of curious inquiry, and closely connected with the subject of the hierarchy. I shall therefore endeavour briefly (in this lecture) to trace the rise and progress of so strange a doctrine.

Ecclesiastical degrees were not instituted originally under the notion of dignities, pre-eminencies, or honours, as they became afterwards, but as ministries, charges, and what the apostle Paul called pya, works, 1 Tim. iii, 1." If a man desire the office of a bishop," says he, "he desireth a good work." Consequently if, in any thing denominated the office of a bishop, there be no work to do, it cannot be the office whereof the apostle speaks; for the misapplication of the name can never alter the nature of the thing. The persons accordingly possessed of such offices were styled, both by our Lord and by Paul his apostle, palas labourers, workmen. "The labourers are few," says the former, "and the workman is worthy of "his meat.' "" The latter recommends it to Timothy to acquit himself as 66 a workman that needeth not be ashamed."

For some time, indeed, it could hardly enter into the mind of any man, to think himself entitled to decline executing personally, whilst able to execute, a trust solemnly committed to him, and which he had himself undertaken. For the terms ordination and appointment to a particular pastoral charge were perfectly synonymous. If one, however, in those truly primitive times, (which but rarely happened) found it necessary to retire from the work, he never thought of retaining either the title, or the emoluments. And though the ministers were of two kinds, the one called anciently the ministry of the

word, and, in later times, the cure of souls, and the other a ministry in things temporal, for the support and relief of the poor and infirm, as was the deaconship, those in both offices were equally held bound to personal service. Nor would any one have thought, in the earliest ages, of serving by a deputy, unless for a short time, and on account of some remarkable and unavoidable impediment; much less would he have accepted another charge that was incompatible with his former one. But to be made a bishop, and in being so to receive no charge whatever, to have no work to execute, could have been regarded no otherwise than as a contradiction in terms.

Indeed, the name of the office implied the service, without which it could not subsist, that is, without which there was no office. The name bishop, as I have observed, means overseer, and this is a term manifestly correlative to that which expresses the thing to be overseen. The connexion is equally necessary and essential as between father and child, sovereign and subject, husband and wife. The one is inconceivable without the other. You cannot make a man an overseer to whom you give no oversight, no more than you can make a man a shepherd, to whom you give the charge of no sheep, or a husband to whom you give no wife. Nay, in fact, as a man ceases to be a husband, the moment that he ceases to have a wife, and is no longer a shepherd than he has the care of sheep, so in the only proper and original import of the words, a bishop continues a bishop only whilst he continues to have people under his spiritual care. These things, indeed, are so plain, that one is almost ashamed to attempt to illustrate them. Yet the changes that too soon ensued, have turned matters so entirely off their original bottom, that propositions which, in the age of the apostles, must have appeared self-evident, require a careful development to us moderns; so much is the import of names and phrases altered in the course of some successive centuries. Let us therefore endeavour to investigate the source of these alterations.

When, as it happened in a few ages, the church was become populous and extensive; and when released from persecution, it was beginning to taste the sweets of ease and affluence; when men, by consequence, were growing less zealous and more remiss; as the several congregations were supplied by their respective presbyteries, which were a sort of colleges of ministers, who under the bishop had the charge in common; it happened sometimes that one of these, without creating great inconvenience to his colleagues, retired from the service, and either for the sake of study and improvement, or from some other reason, resided elsewhere. The presbyters had not then separate charges, and the consistory could sufficiently

supply the necessary functions with one more or one fewer: But he, who in this manner retired from the parish, did not retain any charge of the people; as little did he draw thence any emolument whatever. Thus Jerom, a presbyter of Antioch, Ruffinus, in like manner, of Aquileia, and Paulinus of Barcelona, resided little in those places.

Afterwards, as evil customs always spring from small begin nings, the number of such absentees daily increasing, this degenerated into a very gross abuse; and those nominal pastors having become odious, on account of their idle way of living, got the name of vagabond clerks, of whom frequent mention is made in the laws and novels of Justinian. But before the commencement of the sixth century, none ever thought of holding the title, and enjoying the profits of an office, without serving. Then, indeed, in the western church, the condition of ecclesiastical ministries underwent a considerable change, and came to be regarded as degrees of dignities, and honours, and rewards of past services. As formerly, in ecclesiastick promotions, the need of a particular church being considered, a person fit for the charge was provided, so now the rule was inverted, and the condition and rank of the person being considered, a degree, dignity, or benefice, was provided, which suited his quality and expectations, whence sprang very naturally the custom of doing the work by a delegate. And as one abuse commonly ushers in another, the assistance, the presence, nay, the residence of the principal, came also gradually to be dispensed with. Indeed, when the man is not chosen, because fit for the charge, but when the charge is chosen, or (to speak more properly) when the rank, the titles, and the revenues are chosen as convenient for the man, things must inevitably take that course. The primitive view is totally reversed. The man's accommodation is then become the primary object, the people's accommodation, if an object at all, is but the secondary at the most. That is the end, this is only

the means.

In process of time, this became so frequent in some places, and particularly in some of the richest diocesses, and parishes, wherein, for several successions, the residence of the occupant had been dispensed with, that through the gradual, but sure operation of custom, he came to be considered as not obliged to perform any pastoral function, or so much as to reside among the people, of whom he was denominated the pastor, and from whom he drew a considerable stipend, or revenue. The apostle's maxim was a maxim no longer. "If a man "desire the office of a bishop, he desireth a good work." Many then desired the office of a bishop, if without absurdity

we can say so, who desired no work at all, good or bad, and they desired it for that very reason, because they chose to be idle. Indeed, it must be owned, the term on charge, oversight, used by the apostle, necessarily implies work. These two are indistinguishable. But in the times we now speak of, men were become much more refined than the apostles, both in distinguishing and in separating. First sprang the distinction, then the separation of the order from the office. Hence arose the odious distinction of benefices with residence, and benefices without residence. Of much the same import is the distinction of benefices cum cura, and those sine cura animarum; from the last of which comes the English name sinecure. This corruption in practice was followed by the absurdity in doctrine, which some did not blush to maintain, that one might acquire an ecclesiastical title and salary, without coming under any obligation. The absurdity here was the more glaring, that it had been an old and established maxim of the canonists, "beneficium datur propter officium." The benefice is given for the office. In order, however, to palliate, though ineffectually, their contradicting a maxim so reasonable, and so universally approved, they explained the office to mean his reading the horary prayers of the breviary; so that for once taking into his hand the breviary, and reading the prayers in publick, in a muttering voice, as quick as his tongue was able to utter them, which they explain to be doing the office, (for thus the best laws are eluded) he was entitled to a yearly rent of, perhaps, ten thousand crowns. There is a practice in England, when a man is presented to a rectory, which is there called reading himself in, that has but too close an affinity to the former.

But this was not all; there came insensibly into use, probably through the influence of such examples as those of Jerom and Paulinus above-mentioned, what was called loose or absolute ordination, wherein a man received the degree of presbyter, though of no particular church, and equally without a benefice, and without a charge. Some time after, for things always advance from less to greater, the degree of bishop was conferred in the same manner. This may be said, in some respect, to be much more pardonable than the former abuse, because here, if there was no office or duty required, there was no benefice given. Nothing, however, could be more repugnant both to primitive practice, and to the only meaning which the word originally bore. To ordain a man was nothing else but, in a solemn manner, to assign him a pastoral charge. To give him no charge, and not to ordain him, were perfectly identical. It has been urged in support of these honorary degrees, that a bishop is not so much to be considered

under the notion of the pastor of a particular church or congre gation as under the notion of a catholick bishop, or pastor of the universal church; that this last being the more important relation, ought to be regarded as the principal. But I beg to know what we are to understand by the term catholick, or universal bishop. In the strictest acceptation, it is applicable only to the apostles, as I had occasion formerly to observe. Nor was the title in that sense, after their time, assumed by any, till in the decline of all rational religion and useful knowledge, it was, to the great scandal of the better part of christians, arrogated first by the bishop of Constantinople, and afterwards by the bishop of Rome. But though it may be allowed, that in a looser sense every bishop may be styled a catholick bishop, that is, a pastor, belonging to the catholick church, and one who hath a share in its government, he is not otherwise accounted so, but as he has the charge of a particular church, which is a component part of the catholick church. The catholick, or universal church, is no other than the aggregate of all the individual churches, and the one christian episcopate, wherein all bishops have been said to be sharers, is the aggregate of all the individual episcopates possessed by the several bishops. Thus Cyprian (Epist. 55,) denominates the church of Christ, "Una ecclesia in multa membra divisa ;" and the episcopal office, (De unitate ecclesia) "Unus episcopatus, cu"jus a singulis in solidum pars tenetur.". One episcopate whereof each bishop occupies a distinct part; or still more explicitly in our language, One great superintendency, where of each is the superintendent of a part. He therefore can have no share in this one episcopate, who is bishop or pastor of no part, and has nothing to superintend. Again the same father tells us, "Singulis pastoribus portio gregis adscripta est, quam "regat unusquisque, rationem actus sui Domino redditurus." He consequently can be no bishop or pastor in the church, to whom no portion of Christ's flock is committed, and who has none to govern or instruct. That only is a member, which has in the body a particular function, by the proper discharge whereof the good of the whole is promoted. Any thing else, such as a wen, or other excrescence, though in the body, is no member, with whatever name you may please to dignify it.

We have seen, however, that from a few instances at first, in which men, for urgent reasons, obtained exemptions from ministring, when there did not seem to result any inconve niency from dispensing with their service, and when they readily renounced both the title and the profits of the place, there gradually sprang the abuse of ordaining more presbyters and deacons than the particular church, wherein they were or