ordained by the Apostles to one Church, gave rise to the ended, the bread, wine, and water are all brought cœtus presbyterorum, in which assembly the affairs of forth; then the President again praying and praising to the Church were attended to, and measures taken for his utmost ability, the people testify their consent by the spread of the Gospel, by the aid of the common saying, Amen."(8) "Here we have the Scriptures council and efforts of the whole. This meeting of read by one appointed for that purpose, as in the synaPresbyters would naturally lead to the appointment, gogue; after which follows the word of exhortation by whether by seniority or by election, of one to preside the President of the assembly, who answers to the over the proceedings of this assembly for the sake of Minister of the synagogue; after this public prayers order; and to him was given the title of Angel of the are performed by the same person; then the solemn Church, and Bishop by way of eminence. The latter acclamation of Amen by the people, which was the title came in time to be exclusively used of the pre- undoubted practice of the synagogue."(9) Ordination siding Elder, because of that special oversight im- of Presbyters or Elders is also from the Jews. Their posed upon him by his office, and which, as Churches Priests were not ordained, but succeeded to their office were raised up in the neighbourhood of the larger by birth; but the Rulers and Elders of the synacities, would also naturally be extended over them.gogue received ordination by imposition of hands and Independently of his fellow Presbyters, however, he prayer. did nothing. Such was the model which the Apostles followed in providing for the future regulation of the Churches they had raised up. They took it, not from the temple and its Priesthood; for that was typical, and was then passing away. But they found in the institution of Synagogues a plan admirably adapted to the simplicity and purity of Christianity, one to which some of the first converts in most places were accustomed, and which was capable of being applied to the new dispensation without danger of Judaizing. It secured the assembling of the people on the Sabbath, the reading of the Scriptures, the preaching of sermons, and the offering of public prayer and thanksgiving. It provided too for the government of the Church by a Council of Presbyters, ordained solemnly to their office by imposition of hands and prayer; and it allowed of that presidency of one Presbyter chosen by the others, which was useful for order and for unity, and by which age, piety, and gifts might preserve their proper influence in the Church. The advance from this state of scriptural Episcopacy to Episcopacy under another form was the work of a later age. The whole of this arrangement shows, that in those particulars in which they were left free by the Scriptures, the primitive Christians adopted that arrangement for the government of the Church which promised to render it most efficient for the maintenance of truth and piety; but they did not at this early period set up that unscriptural distinction of order between Bishops and Presbyters, which obtained afterward. Hence Jerome, even in the fourth century, contends against this doctrine, and says, that before there were parties in religion, Churches were governed communi consilio presbyterorum; but that afterward it became a universal practice, founded upon experience of its expediency, that one of the Presbyters should be chosen by the rest to be the head, and that the care of the Church should be committed to him. He therefore exhorts Presbyters to remember that they are subject by the custom of the Church to him that presides over them; and reminds Bishops that they are greater than Presbyters, rather by custom than by the appointment of the Lord; and that the Church ought still to be governed in common. The testimony of antiquity also shows, that, after Episcopacy had very greatly advanced its claims, the Pres-lages, the concerns of the Christians in these places byters continued to be associated with the Bishop in the management of the affairs of the Church. When the Gospel made its way into towns and vilnaturally fell under the cognizance and direction of the Bishops of the neighbouring cities. Thus diocesses were gradually formed, comprehending districts of country of different extent. These diocesses were orginally called #apoikiaι, parishes, and the word diotknois, diocess, was not used in its modern sense till at least the fourth century; and when we find Ignatius describing it as the duty of a Bishop, "to speak to each member of the Church separately, to seek out all by name, even the slaves of both sexes, and to advise every one of the flock in the affair of marriage," diocesses, as one observes, must have been very limited, or the labour inconceivably great. Much light is thrown upon the constitution of the primitive Churches, by recollecting that they were formed very much upon the model of the Jewish synagogues. We have already seen that the mode of public worship in the primitive Church was taken from the synagogue service, and so also was its arrangement of offices. Each synagogue had its Rulers, Elders, or Presbyters, of whom one was the Angel of the Church, or Minister of the Synagogue, who superintended the public service; directed those that read the Scriptures, and offered up the prayers, and blessed the people. The president of the council of Elders or Rulers was "As Christianity increased and overspread all parts, called, by way of eminence, the "Ruler of the Syna- and especially the cities of the empire, it was found gogue;" and in some places, as Acts xiii. 15, we read necessary yet farther to enlarge the Episcopal office; of these "Rulers" in the plural number; a sufficient and as there was commonly a Bishop in every great proof that one was not elevated in order above the rest. city, so in the metropolis (as the Romans called it), The Angel of the Church, and the Minister of the Syna- the mother city of every province (wherein they had gogue, might be the same as he who was invested with courts of civil judicature), there was an ARCHBISHOP the office of President; or these offices might be held or a METROPOLITAN, who had ecclesiastical jurisdicby others of the Elders. Lightfoot, indeed, states, that tion over all the Churches within that province. He the Rulers in each synagogue were three, while the was superior to all the Bishops within those limits; to Presbyters or Elders were ten. To this council of hirn it belonged to ordain or to ratify the elections and grave and wise men, the affairs of the synagogue, both ordinations of all the Bishops within his province, inas to worship and discipline, were committed. In the somuch that without his confirmation they were looked synagogue they sat by themselves in a semicircle, and upon as null and void. Once at least every year he the people before them, face to face. This was the pre- was to summon the Bishops under him to a Synod, to cise form in which the Bishop and Presbyters used to inquire into and direct the ecclesiastical affairs within sit in the primitive Churches. The description of the that province; to inspect the lives and manners, the worship of the synagogue by a Jewish Rabbi, and that opinions and principles of his Bishops; to admonish, of the primitive Church by early Christian writers, reprove, and suspend them that were disorderly and presents an obvious correspondence. "The Elders,"irregular; if any controversies or contentions hapsays Maimonides, "sit with their faces towards the pened between any of them, he was to have the hearpeople, and their backs to the place where the law is ing and determination of them; and indeed no matter deposited; and all the people sit rank before rank; so of moment was done within the whole province, the faces of all the people are towards the sanctuary, without first consulting him in the case. When this and towards the Elders; and when the Minister of the office of Metropolitan first began, I find not; only this sanctuary standeth up to prayer, he standeth with his we are sure of, that the Council of Nice, settling the face towards the sanctuary, as do the rest of the peo- just rights and privileges of Metropolitan Bishops, ple." In the same order the first Christians sat with speaks of them as a thing of ancient date, ushering in their faces towards the Bishops and Presbyters, first the canon with an apxaia εon крalεiтw, Let ancient to hear the Scriptures read by the proper Reader; customs still take place The original of the institu"then," says Justin Martyr," the Reader sitting down, tion seems to have been partly to comply with the the President of the assembly stands up and makes a people's occasions, who oft resorted to the metropolis sermon of instruction and exhortation; after this is ended, we all stand up to prayers; prayers being (8) Apol. 2. (9) STILLINGFLEET's Irenicum. for despatch of their affairs, and so might fitly discharge their civil and ecclesiastical both at once; and partly because of the great confluence of people to that city that the Bishop of it might have pre-eminence above the rest, and the honour of the Church bear some proportion to that of the State. granted to Bishops in distinction from Presbyters. The government of Pastors, as well as people, was at first in the assembly of Presbyters, who were individually accountable to that ruling body, and that whether they had a president or not. So also as to ordination; it was a right in each, although used by several together, for better security; and even when the presence of a Bishop came to be thought necessary to the validity of ordination, the Presbyters were not excluded. As for the argument from the succession of Bishops from the times of the Apostles, could the fact be made out, it would only trace diocesan Bishops to the Bishops of parishes; those, to the Bishops of single churches; and Bishops of a supposed superior order, to Bishops who never thought themselves more than presiding Presbyters, primi inter pares. This therefore would only show that an unscriptural assumption of distinct orders has been made, which that succession, if established, would refute. But the succession itself is imaginary. Even Epiphanius, a Bishop of the fourth century, gives this account of things, "that the Apostles were not able to settle all things at once. But according to the number of believers, and the qualifications for the different offices which those whom they found appeared to possess, they appointed in some places only a Bishop and Deacons; in others Presby. ters and Deacons ; in others a Bishop, Presbyters, and Deacons "a statement fatal to the argument from succession. As for the pretended catalogues of Bishops of the different Churches from the days of the Apostles, exhibited by some ecclesiastical writers, they are filled up by forgeries and inventions of later times. Eusebius, more honest, begins his catalogue with declaring, that it is not easy to say who were the disciples of the Apostles that were appointed to feed the Churches which they planted, excepting only those whom we read of in the writings of St. Paul. "After this sprung up another branch of the Episcopal office, as much superior to that of Metropolitans, as theirs was to ordinary Bishops; these were called PRIMATES and PATRIARCHS, and had jurisdiction over many provinces. For the understanding of this, it is necessary to know, that when Christianity came to be fully settled in the world, they contrived to model the external government of the Church, as near as might be, to the civil government of the Roman empire; the parallel is most exactly drawn by an ingenious person of our own nation; the sum of it is this:-The whole empire of Rome was divided into thirteen diocesses (so they called those divisions), these contained about one hundred and twenty provinces, and every province several cities. Now, as in every city there was a temporal Magistrate for the executing of justice, and keeping the peace, both for that city and the towns round about it; so was there also a Bishop for spiritual order and government, whose jurisdiction was of like extent and latitude. In every province there was a Proconsul or President, whose seat was usually at the metropolis, or chief city of the province; and hither all inferior cities came for judgment in matters of importance. And in proportion to this there was in the same city an Archbishop or Metropolitan, for matters of ecclesiastical concernment. Lastly, in every diocess the Emperors had their Vicarii or Lieutenants, who dwelt in the principal city of the diocess, where all imperial edicts were published, and from whence they were sent abroad into the several provinces, and where was the chief tribunal where all causes, not determinable elsewhere, were decided. And, to answer this, there was in the same city a Primate, to whom the last determination of all appeals from all the pro-regulation, is another question. We think it often may; vinces in differences of the Clergy, and the sovereign care of all the diocess for sundry points of spiritual government, did belong. This, in short, is the sum of the account which that learned man gives of this matter. So that the Patriarch, as superior to the Metropolitans, was to have under his jurisdiction not any one single province, but a whole diocess (in the old Roman notion of that word), consisting of many provinces. To him belonged the ordination of all the Metropolitans that were under him, as also the summoning them to Councils, the correcting and reforming the misdemeanors they were guilty of; and from his judgment and sentence, in things properly within his cognizance, there lay no appeal. To this I shall only add what Salmasius has noted, that as the diocess that was governed by the Vicarius had many provinces under it, so the Præfectus Prætorio had several diocesses under him and in proportion to this, probable it was, that Patriarchs were first brought in, who, if not superior to Primates in jurisdiction and power, were yet in honour, by reason of the dignity of those cities where their Sees were fixed, as at Rome, Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem."(1) Thus diocesan Bishops, Metropolitans, Primates, Patriarchs, and finally the Pope, came in, which offices are considered as corruptions or improvements; as dictated by the necessities of the Church, or as instances of worldly ambition; as of Divine right, or from Satan; according to the different views of those who have written on such subjects. As to them all it may, however, be said, that, so far as they are pleaded for as of Divine right, they have no support from the New Testament; and if they are placed upon the only ground on which they can be reasonably discussed, that of necessity and good polity, they must be tried by circumstances, and their claims of authority be so defined that it may be known how far they are compatible with those principles with which the New Testament abounds, although it contains no formal plan of Church government. The only scriptural objection to Episcopacy, as it is understood in modern times, is its assumption of superiority of order, of an exclusive right to govern the Pastors as well as the flock, and to ordain to the Christian Ministry. These exclusive powers are by the New Testament nowhere (1) CAVE'S Primitive Christianity. Whether Episcopacy may not be a matter of prudential and that Churches are quite at liberty to adopt this mode, provided they maintain St. Jerome's distinction, that "Bishops are greater than Presbyters rather by custom than by appointment of the Lord, and that still the Church ought to be governed in common," that is, by Bishops and Presbyters united. It was on this ground that Luther placed Episcopacy, as useful, though not of Divine right; it was by admitting this liberty in Churches, that Calvin and other Divines of the Reformed Churches allowed Episcopacy and diocesan Churches to be lawful, there being nothing to forbid such an arrangement in Scripture, when placed on the principle of expediency. Some Divines of the English Church have chosen to defend its Episcopacy wholly upon this ground, as alone tenable; and, admitting that it is safest to approach as near as possible to primitive practice, have proposed the restoration of Presbyters as a senate to the Bishop, the contraction of diocesses, the placing of Bishops in all great towns, and the holding of provincial Synods;-thus raising the Presbyters to their original rank, as the Bishop's "compresbyters," as Cyprian himself calls them, both in government and in ordinations. As to that kind of Episcopacy which trenches upon no scriptural principle, much depends upon circumstances, and the forms in which Christian Churches exist. When a Church composes but one congregation, the Minister is unquestionably a scriptural Bishop; but he is, and can be, only Bishop of the flock, episcopus gregis. Of this kind, it appears from the extract given above from Epiphanius, were some of the primitive Churches, existing, probably, in the smaller and more remote places. Where a number of Presbyters were ordained to one Church, these would, in their common assembly, have the oversight and government of each other as well as of the people; and in this, their collective capacity, they would be episcopi gregis et pastorum. In this manner, Episcopacy, as implying the oversight and government both of Ministers and their flocks, exists in Presbyterian Churches, and in all others, by whatever name they are called, where Ministers are subject to the discipline of assemblies of Ministers, who admit to the Ministry by joint consent, and censure or remove those who are so appointed. When the ancient Presbyteries elected a Bishop, he might remain, as he appears to have done for some time, the mere president of the assembly of Presbyters, and their organ of administration; or be constituted, as afterward, a distinct governing power, although assisted by the advice of his Presbyters. He was then in person an episcopus gregis et pastorum, and his official powers gave rise at length to the unfounded distinction of superior order. But abating this false principle, even diocesan Episcopacy may be considered as in many possible associations of Churches throughout a province, or a whole country, as an arrangement in some circumstances of a wise and salutary nature. Nor do the evils which arose in the Church of Christ appear so attributable to this form of government as to that too intimate connexion of the Church with the State, which gave to the former a political character, and took it from under the salutary control of public opinion,-an evil greatly increased by the subsequent destruction of religious liberty, and the coercive interferences of the civil Magistrate. the variations which they have undergone, have only been such as have ever belonged to all persons in public situations, whether civil or ecclesiastical, and which are indeed inseparable from every thing in which mankind are concerned in this transitory and fluctuating world. -"I have thought it right to take this general view of the ministerial office, and to make these observations upon the clerical orders subsisting in this kingdom, for the purpose of pointing out the foundation and principles of Church authority, and of showing that our ecclesiastical establishment is as nearly conformable, as change of circumstances will permit, to the practice of the primitive Church. But though I flatter myself that I have proved Episcopacy to be an Apostolical institution, yet I readily acknowledge that there is no precept in the New Testament which commands that every Church should be governed by Bishops. No Church can exist without some government; but though there must be rules and orders for the proper discharge of the offices of public worship, though there must be fixed and though a subordination among them is expedient in the highest degree, yet it does not follow that all these things must be precisely the same in every Christian country; they may vary with the other varying circumstances of human society, with the extent of a country, the manners of its inhabitants, the nature of its civil government, and many other peculiarities which might be specified. As it has not pleased our Almighty Father to prescribe any particular form of civil government for the security of temporal comforts to his rational creatures, so neither has he prescribed any particular form of ecclesiastical polity as absolutely necessary to the attainment of eternal happiness. But he has, in the most explicit terms, enjoined obedience to all governors, whether civil or ecclesiastical, and whatever may be their denomination, as essential to the character of a true Christian. Thus the Gospel only lays down general principles, and leaves the application of them to men as free agents."(2) At the same time, it may be very well questioned, whether any Presbyters could lawfully surrender into the hands of a Bishop their own rights of government and ordination without that security for their due admi-regulations concerning the appointment of Ministers, nistration which arises from the accountability of the administrator. That these are rights which it is not imperative upon the individual possessing them to exercise individually, appears to have the judgment of the earliest antiquity, because the assembly of Presbyters, which was probably co-existent with the ordination of several Presbyters to one Church by the Apostles, necessarily placed the exercise of the office of each under the direction and control of all. When, therefore, a Bishop was chosen by the Presbyters, and invested with the government, and the power of granting orders, so long as the Presbyters remained his Council, and nothing was done but by their concurrence, they were still parties to the mode in which their own powers were exercised, and were justifiable in placing the administration in the hands of one who was still dependent upon themselves. In this way they probably thought that their own powers might be most efficiently and usefully exercised. Provincial and national Synods or Councils, exercising a proper superintendence over Bishops when made even more independent of their Presbyters than was the case in the best periods of the primitive Church, might also, if meeting frequently and regularly, and as a part of an ecclesiastical system, afford the same security for good administration, and might justify the surrender of the exercise of their powers by the Presbyters. But when that surrender was formally made, or is at any time made now in the constitution of Churches, to Bishops, or to those bearing a similar office, however designated, without security and control, either by making that office temporary and elective, or by the constitution of Synods or Assemblies of the Ministers of a large and united body of Christians for the purpose of supreme government, an office is created which has not only no countenance in Scripture, that of a Bishop independent of Presbyters, but one which implies an unlawful surrender of those powers, on the part of the latter, with which they were invested, not for their own sakes, but for the benefit of the Church; and which they could have no authority to divest themselves of and to transfer, without retaining the power of counselling and controlling the party charged with the administration of them. In other words, Presbyters have a right, under proper regulations, to appoint another to administer for them, or to consent to such an arrangement when they find it already existing; but they have no power to divest themselves of these rights and duties absolutely. If these principles be sound, modern Episcopacy, in many Churches, is objectionable in other respects than as it assumes an unscriptural distinction of order. The following is a liberal concession on the subject of Episcopacy, from a strenuous defender of that form of government as it exists in the Church of England:"It is not contended that the Bishops, Priests, and Deacons of England are at present precisely the same that Bishops, Presbyters, and Deacons were in Asia Minor seventeen hundred years ago. We only maintain that there have always been Bishops, Priests, and Deacons in the Christian Church since the days of the Apostles, with different powers and functions, it is allowed, in different countries and at different periods; but the general principles and duties which have respectively characterized these clerical orders, have been essentially the same at all times, and in all places; and Bishop Tomline, however, and the high Episcopalians of the Church of England, contend for an original distinction in the office and order of Bishops and Presbyters, in which notion they are contradicted by one who may be truly called the Founder of the Church of England, Archbishop Cranmer, who says, "The Bishops and Priests were at one time, and were not two things; but both one office in the beginning of Christ's religion."(3) On the subject of THE CHURCH itself, opinions as opposite or varying as possible have been held, down from that of the Papists, who contend for its visible unity throughout the world under a visible head, to that of the Independents, who consider the universal Church as composed of congregational Churches, each perfect in itself, and entirely independent of every other. The first opinion is manifestly contradicted by the language of the Apostles, who, while they teach that there is but one Church, composed of believers throughout the world, think it not at all inconsistent with this to speak of "The Churches of Judea," "of Achaia," "the seven Churches of Asia," "the Church at Ephesus," &c. Among themselves the Apostles had no common head; but planted Churches and gave directions for their government, in most cases without any apparent correspondence with each other. The popish doctrine is certainly not found in their writings, and so far were they from making provision for the government of this one supposed Church, by the appointment of one visible and exclusive head, that they provide for the future government of the respective Churches raised up by them, in a totally different manner, that is, by the ordination of Ministers for each Church, who are indifferently called Bishops, and Presbyters, and Pastors. The only unity of which they speak is the unity of the whole Church in Christ, the invisible Head, by faith; and the unity produced by "fervent love towards each other." Nor has the popish doctrine of the visible unity of the Church any countenance from early antiquity. The best ecclesiastical historians have showed, that, through the greater part of the second century, "the Christian Churches were independent of each other, Each Christian assembly was a little State governed by its own laws, which were either enacted, or at least (2) Bishop TOM LINE's Elements. approved, by the soclety. But in process of time, all the Churches of a province were formed into one large ecclesiastical body, which, like confederate States, assembled at certain times in order to deliberate about the common interests of the whole."(4) So far indeed this union of Churches appears to have been a wise and useful arrangement, although afterward it was carried to an injurious extreme, until finally it gave birth to the assumptions of the Bishop of Rome, as universal Bishop; a claim, however, which, when most successful, was but partially submitted to, the Eastern Churches having always maintained their independence. No very large association of Churches of any kind existed till towards the close of the second century, which sufficiently refutes the papal argument from antiquity. 2. The only view in which the sacred writers of the New Testament appear to have contemplated the Churches, was that of associations founded upon conviction of the truth of Christianity, and the obligatory nature of the commands of Christ. They considered the Pastors as dependent for their support upon the free contributions of the people; and the people as bound to sustain, love, and obey them in all things lawful, that is, in all things agreeable to the doctrine they had received in the Scriptures, and, in things indifferent, to pay respectful deference to them. They enjoined it upon the Pastors to "rule well," " diligently," and with fidelity, in executing the directions they had given them;-to silence all teachers of false doctrines, and their adherents;-to reprove unruly and immoral members of the Church, and, if incorrigible, to put them The independence of the early Christian Churches away. On the other hand, should any of their Pastors does not, however, appear to have resembled that of the or Teachers err in doctrine, the people are enjoined not Churches which in modern times are called Independent."to receive them," to "turn away" from them, and not During the lives of the Apostles and Evangelists, they even to bid them "God speed." The rule which forbids were certainly subject to their counsel and control, Christia to eat," that is, to communicate at the which proves that the independence of separate societies Lord's table with an immoral "brother," held, of course, was not the first form of the Church. It may, indeed, good, when that brother was a Pastor. Thus Pastors be allowed, that some of the smaller and more insu- were put by them under the influence of the public lated Churches might, after the death of the Apostles opinion of the Churches; and the remedy of separating and Evangelists, retain this form for some considerable from them, in manifest defections of doctrine and morals, time; but the larger Churches, in the chief cities, and was afforded to the sound members of a Church, should those planted in populous neighbourhoods, had many no power exist able or inclined to silence the offending Presbyters, and as the members multiplied, they had Pastor and his party. In all this, principles were recog several separate assemblies or congregations, yet all nised, which, had they not been in future times lost sight under the same common government. And when of or violated, would have done much, perhaps every Churches were raised up in the neighbourhood of cities, thing, to preserve some parts of the Church, at least, the appointment of Chorepiscopi, or country Bishops, in soundness of faith, and purity of manners. A perfect and of visiting Presbyters, both acting under the Pres- religious liberty is always supposed by the Apostles to bytery of the city, with its Bishop at its head, is suffi- exist among Christians; no compulsion of the civil ciently in proof, that the ancient Churches, especially power is any where assumed by them as the basis of the larger and more prosperous of them, existed in that their advices or directions; no binding of the members form which, in modern times, we should call a religious to one Church, without liberty to join another, by any connexion, subject to a common government. This ties but those involved in moral considerations, of appears to have arisen out of the very circumstance of sufficient weight, however, to prevent the evils of faction the increase of the Church, through the zeal of the first and schism. It was this which created a natural and Christians; and in the absence of all direction by the competent check upon the Ministers of the Church; for Apostles, that every new society of believers raised being only sustained by the opinion of the Churches, should be formed into an independent Church, it was they could not but have respect to it; and it was this doubtless much more in the spirit of the very first dis- which gave to the sound part of a fallen Church the cipline exercised by the Apostles and Evangelists (when advantage of renouncing, upon sufficient and wellnone of the Churches were independent, but remained weighed grounds, their communion with it, and of under the government of those who had been chiefly kindling up the light of a pure ministry and a holy disinstrumental in raising them up), to place themselves cipline, by forming a separate association, bearing its under a common inspection, and to unite the weak with testimony against errors in doctrine, and failures in the strong, and the newly converted with those who practice. Nor is it to be conceived, that, had this simple were "in Christ before them." There was also in this, principle of perfect religious liberty been left unviolated greater security afforded both for the continuance of through subsequent ages, the Church could ever have wholesome doctrine, and of godly discipline. become so corrupt, or with such difficulty and slowness have been recovered from its fall. This ancient Christian liberty has happily been restored in a few parts of Christendom. The persons appointed to feed and govern the Church of Christ being, then, as we have seen, those who are called "Pastors," a word which imports both care and government, two other subjects claim our attention,the share which the body of the people have in their own government by their Pastors, and the objects towards which the power of government, thus established in the Church, is legitimately directed. As to the first, some preliminary observations may be necessary. 1. When Churches are professedly connected with, and exclusively patronised and upheld by, the State, questions of ecclesiastical government arise, which are of greater perplexity and difficulty than when they are left upon their original ground, as voluntary and spiritual associations. The State will not exclusively recognise Ministers without maintaining some control over their functions; and will not lend its aid to enforce the canons of an established Church, without reserving to itself some right of appeal, or of interposition. Hence a contest between the civil and ecclesiastical powers often springs up, and one at least generally feels itself to be fettered by the other. When an established Church is perfectly tolerant, and the State allows freedom of dissent and separation from it without penalties, these evils are much mitigated. But it is not my design to consider a Church as at all allied with the State; but as deriving nothing from it except protection, and that general countenance which the influence of a government professing Christianity, and recognising its laws, must afford. (4) MOSHEIM's Ecclesiastical History, cent. 2, chap ii. 3. In places where now the communion with particular Churches, as to human authority, is perfectly voluntary, and liberty of conscience is unfettered, it often happens that questions of Church government are argued on the assumption that the governing power in such Churches is of the same character, and tends to the same results, as where it is connected with civil influence, and is upheld by the power of the State. Nothing can be more fallacious, and no instrument has been so powerful as this in the hands of the restless and factious, to delude the unwary. Those who possess the governing power in such Churches are always under the influence of public opinion to an extent unfelt in establishments. They can enforce nothing felt to be oppressive to the members in general, without dissolving the society itself; and their utmost power extends to excision from the body, which, unlike the sentences of excommunication in State Churches, is wholly unconnected with civil penalties. If, then, a resistance is created to any regulations among the major part of any such religious community, founded on a sense of their injurious operation, or to the manner of their enforcement; and if that feeling be the result of a settled conviction, and not the effervescence of temporary mistake and excitement, a change must necessarily ensue, or the body at large be disturbed or dissolved: if, on the other haud, this feeling be the work of a mere faction, partial tumults or separation may take place, and great moral evil may result to the factious parties, but the body will retam its communion, which will be a sufficient proof the New Testament, than that all the candidates for the ministry were judged of by those who had been placed in that office themselves, and received their appointment from them. Such too was the practice of the primitive Churches after the death of both Apostles and Evangelists. Presbyters, who during the life of the Apostles had the power of ordination (for they laid their hands upon Timothy), continued to perform that office in discharge of one solemn part of their duty, to perpetuate the ministry, and to provide for the wants of the Churches. In the times of the Apostles, who were endued with special gifts, the concurrence of the people was not, perhaps, always formally taken; but the directions to Timothy and Titus imply a reference to the judgment of the members of the Church, because from them only it could be learned whether the party fixed upon for ordination possessed those qualifications without which ordination was prohibited. When the Churches assumed a more regular form. "the people were always present at ordinations, and ratified the action with their approbation and consent. To this end the Bishop was wont before every ordination to publish the names of those who were to have holy or ders conferred upon them, that so the people, who best knew their lives and conversation, might interpose if they had any thing material to object against them."(5) Sometimes also they nominated them by suffrages, and thus proposed them for ordination. The mode in which the people shall be made a concurrent party is matter of prudential regulation; but they had an early, and certainly a reasonable, right to a voice in the appointment of their Ministers, although the power of ordinanation was vested in Ministers alone, to be exercised on their responsibility to Christ. 4. It is also an important general observation, that in settling the government of a Church, there are preexistent laws of Christ, which it is not in the option of any to receive or to reject. Under whatever form the governing power is arranged, it is so bound to execute all the rules left by Christ and his Apostles, as to doctrine, worship, the sacraments, and discipline, honestly interpreted, that it is not at liberty to take that office, or to continue to exercise it, if by any restrictions imposed upon it it is prevented fro carrying these laws into effect. As in the State, so in the Church, government is an ordinance of God; and as it is imperative upon rulers in the state to be "a terror to evildoers, and a praise to them that do well," so also is it imperative upon the rulers of the Church to banish strange doctrines, to uphold God's ordinances, to reprove and rebuke, and finally to put away evil-doers. The spirit in which this is to be done is also prescribed. It is to be done in the spirit of meekness, and with long-suffering; but the work must be done upon the responsibility of the Pastors to Him who has commissioned them for this purpose; and they have a right to require from the people, that in this office and ministry they should not only not be obstructed, but affectionately and zealously aided, as ministering in these duties, sometimes painful, not for themselves, but for the good of the whole. With respect to the members of a Church, the same remark is applicable as to the members of a State. It is not matter of option with them whether they will be under government according to the laws of Christ or not, for that is imperative; government in both cases being of Divine appointment.peal to any other standard. They have, on the other hand, the right to full security that they shall be governed by the laws of Christ; and they have a right too to establish as many guards against human infirmity and passion in those who are "set over them," as may be prudently devised, provided these are not carried to such an extent as to be obstructive to the legitimate scriptural discharge of their duties. The true view of the case appears to be, that the government of the Church is in its Pastors, open to various modifications as to form; and that it is to be conducted with such a concurrence of the people, as shall constitute a sufficient guard against abuse, and yet not prevent the legitimate and efficient exercise of pastoral duties, as these duties are stated in the Scriptures. This original authority in the Pastors, and concurrent consent in the people, may be thus applied to particular cases :— 2. As to the laws by which the Church is to be governed. So far as they are manifestly laid down in the word of God, and not regulations judged to be subsidiary thereto, it is plain that the rulers of a Church are bound to execute them, and the people to obey them. They cannot be matter of compact on either side, except as the subject of a mutual and solemn engage ment to defer to them without any modification or ap Every Church declares, in some way, how it understands the doctrine and the disciplinary laws of Christ. This declaration as to doctrine, in modern times, is made by Confessions or Articles of Faith, in which, if fundamental error is found, the evil rests upon the head of that Church collectively, and upon the members individually, every one of whom is bound to try all doctrines by the Holy Scriptures, and cannot support an acknowledged system of error without guilt. As to discipline, the manner in which a Church provides for public worship, the publication of the Gospel, the administration of the sacraments, the instruction of the ig norant, the succour of the distressed, the admonition of the disorderly, and the excision of offenders (which are all points on which the New Testament has issued express injunctions), is its declaration of the manner in which it interprets those injunctions, which also it 1. As to the ordination of Ministers. If we consult does on its own collective responsibility, and that of the New Testament, this office was never conveyed by its members. If, however, we take for illustration of the people. The Apostles were ordained by our Lord; the subject before us, a Church, at least substantially the Evangelists by the Apostles; the Elders in every right in this its interpretation of doctrine, and of the Church both by Apostles and Evangelists. The pas- laws of Christ as to general, and what we may call for sage which has been chiefly urged by those who would distinction's sake moral discipline; these are the first originate the ministry from the people, is Acts xiv. 23, principles upon which this Church is founded. It is where the historian, speaking of St. Paul and Barna- either an apostolic Church, which has retained primibas, says, "And when they had ordained (xpoTový-tive faith and discipline; or it has subsequently been oavres) Elders in every Church, and had prayed with collected into a new communion, on account of the fasting, they commended them to the Lord." Here, be- fall of other Churches; and has placed itself, accause XELPOTOVεv originally signified to choose by way cording to its own conviction, upon the basis of primiof suffrage, some have argued that these Elders were tive doctrine and discipline as found in the Scriptures. appointed by the suffrages of the people. Long, how- On this ground either the Pastors and people niet and ever, before the time of St. Luke, this word was used united at first; or the people, converted to faith and hofor simple designation, without any reference to elec-liness by the labours of one or more Pastors, holding, tion by suffrages; and so it is employed by St. Luke himself in the same book, Acts x. 41, " Witnesses foreappointed of God," where of course the suffrages of men are out of the question. It is also fatal to the argument drawn from the text, that the act implied in the word, whatever it might be, was not the act of the people, but that of Paul and Barnabas. Even the Deacons, whose appointment is mentioned Acts vi., although "looked out" by the disciples as men of honest report, did not enter upon their office till solemnly " pointed" thereto by the Apostles. Nothing is clearer in ap as they believed, these scriptural views, placed themselves under the guidance of these Pastors, and thus formed themselves into a Church state, which was their act of accession to these principles. It is clear, therefore, that, by this very act, they bind themselves to comply with the original terms of the cominunion into which they have entered, and that they have as to these doctrines, and as to these disciplinary laws of Christ, which are to be preached and enforced, no (5) CAVE's Primitive Christianity. |