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the Diocesan Episcopacy which early ecclesiastical history presents to us as flourishing in full vigour from one end of the earth to the other.

The principles of Church rule on which St. Paul acted, and on which he bid Timothy and Titus act, could not possibly develop into the Church organization of the Congregational or Presbyterian sects.

All ecclesiastical history, with one consent, presents to us the phenomenon of the huge cities of the Roman empire-Rome itself, Alexandria, Antioch, Jerusalem, Ephesus-having each but one ecclesiastical head, not elected annually or biennially, and not removable by ine popular will.

Now, seeing that, even on heathen testimony, there was an immense multitude of Christians in some of these cities, and seeing that the Christians were all this time under persecution, and so could not erect churches of any size, it is clear that there must have been in these cities a vast number of small congregations, each consisting of as many persons as a large room or court of a house would hold, and yet we read of but one supreme ecclesiastical governor, or bishop, with whom all the separate congregations were in communion as the centre or heart of the Apostolic κοινωνία.

The Scripture principles or facts stated in the foregoing pages form the only solution, which has the least shade of probability in it, of the universal prevalence of Episcopacy in the earliest period.

The scheme invented by late German writers appears to me to involve the greatest improbabilities. We are told that the first Churches were governed on a Presbyterian or on some popular model-that somehow or other, we are not told for what reasons, all these Churches, or their ministers rather, became tired of their liberty or

equality, and desired Episcopacy-that this epidemic for Episcopal rule seized the whole Church, so that (as is universally acknowledged) by the time of Irenæus (A.D. 180) the government of the Church was everywhere Episcopal, and had so long been so, that, according to a writer against Apostolic succession, all memory of any previous Presbyterian or other system had, by this time, utterly perished cut of the Church.

But surely we must ask, What was the will of God in this matter?

If Presbyterian equality or Congregational Democracy was established in all the primitive Churches by the will of God, how could this be altered except by going contrary to His will-if, that is, He willed such a government to be permanent?

If God willed that this supposed original Presbyterian or democratic Congregational constitution of the Churches should be merely temporary, then there is an end of the matter-then this original popular government is a thing of the past, just as the semi-Judaical state of the Church of Judæa is a thing of the past, and we have no practical concern with it.

But if it was the will of God that this supposed original democratic constitution was to be permanent, then we are to believe that a tide of popular opinion in favour of Episcopacy-a thing contrary to God's will-set in from the earliest period, and soon became so universal that it overwhelmed the original Divinely-appointed democratic government and yet neither St. Paul, nor any other Apostle, is inspired to say a word of warning against the impending ruin. On the contrary, he is inspired, as we have seen, to say and do much which could not but help on the tide against this supposed original popular government. He rules the Churches without the smallest regard

to any supreme democratic organization which God may have given to them, and he gives no orders to his subordinates to establish such a form or to recognise it as established.

If some original democratic constitution was ordained by the will of God, then Episcopacy in any form is a sinful usurpation, for it, of necessity, interferes with and neutralizes an organization adapted to express, and carry into effect, the will of the congregation. On the supposition, then, that God established some democratic form to be the permanent government of His Church, how came a constitution of a diametrically opposite character to be established without a protest? Why was not some Luther raised up to make his voice heard from one end of Christendom to another against such corrupt following of Apostolic precedent? How could the consent of the whole Church be got for the surrender of institutions founded on popular right, and the substitution for them of institutions founded on Apostolical succession? We cannot then account

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No less than three writers who flourished in the latter part of the second century, i.e., within sixty or seventy years after the death of St. John, ground the then existing Episcopal government very distinctly upon Apostolic succession.

First, Irenæus, A.D. 160-200. "We are in a position to reckon up those who were by the Apostles instituted Bishops in the Churches, and [to demonstrate] the successions of these men to our own times.

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. . For if the Apostles had known hidden mysteries, which they were in the habit of imparting to 'the perfect' apart and privily from the rest, they would have delivered them especially to those to whom they were also committing the Churches themselves. For they were desirous that these men should be very perfect and blameless in all things, whom also they were leaving behind as their successors, delivering up their own place of government to these men."-Adv. Hæres. lib. iii. cap. 3. Translation in AnteNicene Library, p. 260.

Again, Clement of Alexandria, A.D. 180-210, mentions the three orders in the words,-"The promotions of Bishops, of Presbyters,

for the universal prevalence of Episcopacy on the hypothesis of some original popular constitution becoming unpopularised.

It must be remembered that the hierarchical or Episcopal principles of the second or third centuries are in one sense a modification of the hierarchical principles of the New Testament—a most necessary modification, but still a modification, for the government exercised by Apostles, so far as it is revealed to us in the New Testament, was in

and of Deacons, are imitations, as I conceive, of the angelic glory." Also, "The Apostle John, when he settled at Ephesus, went about the neighbouring regions, ordaining Bishops, and setting apart such persons for the clergy as were signified to him by the Holy Ghost." -Strom. lib. vi. p. 667. Quoted in Sinclair's Vindication, p. 46.

Thirdly, Tertullian, A.D. 180—220. "But if there be any heresies, which venture to plant themselves in the midst of the age of the Apostles, that they may therefore be thought to have been handed down from the Apostles, because they existed under the Apostles, we may say, Let them then make known the originals of their Churches; let them unfold the roll of their Bishops, so coming down in succession from the beginning, that their first Bishop had for his ordainer and predecessor some one of the Apostles, or of Apostolic men, so he were one that continued steadfast with the Apostles. For in this manner do the Apostolic Churches reckon their origin as the Church of Smyrna recounteth that Polycarp was placed there by John; as that of Rome doth that Clement was in like manner ordained by Peter. Just so can the rest also show those whom, being appointed by the Apostles to the Episcopate, they have as transmitters of the Apostolic seed."-Tertullian, De Præscrip. Hær. xxxii. p. 465 of Oxford translation.

Let the reader remember that Tertullian lived at Carthage, Irenæus in Gaul, Clement in Alexandria; so that we have the testimony of the most distant places in the Christian world of that time.

Let the reader also remember that these places are not cited as proving Episcopacy merely, but Episcopacy founded upon Apostolic Succession.

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substance hierarchical. It was a government, no doubt, utterly without pomp or parade. It was a government entirely in the interests of the governed, and was altogether free from all self-aggrandizement in those who exercised it; but notwithstanding this it was absolute, and it was carried on by sacred persons not designated to their office by the popular voice, or removable by the popular will, and so was in the highest sense hierarchical. The government of the Churches after the Apostles' decease, by such men as Timothy and Titus even, could not possibly have had the prestige of the purely Apostolical, and must necessarily have been a modification of it.

Again, the Church government by Bishops, Priests, and Deacons, as it appears in the Greek copies of Ignatius, is not only a modification of that higher Episcopacy which is necessarily implied in the rule of inspired companions of Christ, but it is also a modification of that Episcopacy which must have been exercised by such men as the constant companions of St. Paul, such as St. Timothy, for "Presbyters" and "Deacons" are joined with the Bishop by St. Ignatius, as commanding, along with the Bishop, the obedience of the faithful.' So that it is the greatest mistake to assume that the earlier we get in Church

The three recensions (as they are termed) of St. Ignatius are now accessible to every one, being collected and translated in the Ante-Nicene Library, in the volume entitled "The Apostolic Fathers." Taking any of these recensions, it seems to me absurd to speak of Ignatius as an advocate for Episcopacy, as distinguished from Presbyterianism. He is rather to be considered an advocate for submission to Ecclesiastical rulers of every grade; for, as I have said, in almost every case-certainly in four cases out of fivewhere he mentions Ecclesiastical rule, he associates the Presbyters and the Deacons with the Bishop as joint governors under him. The following are instances: "And that, being subject to the

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