but no kind of jurisdiction or authority over other churches and pastors was as yet admitted. The episcopal character was considered as one and the same in all the bishops. The text on which the papists ground the authority of the pope, "Thou art Peter," &c., was considered as spoken alike to all the apostles, of whom the bishops were all equally the successors. The church was built upon the bishops." The practice, often noticed in this age, of assembling together the neighbouring bishops in synods, in which the bishops of the greater churches presided, had indeed given them something of a superior influence among their brethren, especially the bishops of Rome, Antioch, Alexandria, and Carthage. Thus we remark that, in the imperial edict of Aurelian, the reference is not made to the bishop of Rome personally, but to the bishops of Italy and Rome, that is, to the synod of Italian bishops, of which the Roman bishop was the head. It was such an assembly of bishops that condemned and deposed the bishop of Antioch on that occasion, and instances of these synods are very frequent in

this age.

But whatever might be the official importance of some of these pastors in their own age, the historian of the church is principally concerned in tracing the appearance of those great men, of what order soever they may be, who, in the period of their ascendant, influenced the opinions of mankind, and by the writings which they have left, have conveyed to posterity all the information now to be had, of what was then passing in the church. The two great luminaries of the era of which we are now treating, were Origen and Cyprian. Of the former we have already taken some notice. He lived till the time of the Decian persecution, and suffered much for his Christian profession. His works are numerous; but whatever benefit the church might have derived from his labours, in the extension of the numbers of her professors, and in the vindication of her name against her philosophical opponents, we can only regard him as one great instrument of introducing those opinions and sentiments of the Alexandrian school, which now began to eradicate the truth in the minds of multitudes of professing Christians, until, at length, almost all the leading characters of the Christian name, of which history knows any thing, are become involved, more or less, in this new Egyptian darkness.

The latter, Cyprian, flourished as bishop of Carthage, from the year of our Lord two hundred and forty-eight, to the year two hundred and fifty-eight, when he suffered martyrdom. He

was certainly the greatest teacher of his day, and his writings are the chief source of our information respecting the state of the church in these primitive times.

Concerning the doctrine and practice of the church, in the apostolic age, which it most concerns us to study and to imitate, we have, happily, the inspired oracles for our guide. The condition of that same society, a hundred and fifty years after the apostles had fallen asleep, must be collected, chiefly, from the works of Cyprian. In the philosopher Justin, in Clemens, Origen, and the fathers of the Alexandrian school, we trace rather the history of the invaders of that church, which held the distinguishing tenets of true religion as delivered in the divine oracles. In Cyprian we learn the state of the invaded party; how the truth once delivered to the saints, was now held; how its doctrines and precepts were now taught, by those " who seemed to be pillars." We learn the condition of that religion, which had once triumphed over the powers of darkness, but now was not able long to stand before a more masked and insidious attack of the same adversaries; which saw the foundations of the 'truth gradually undermined and giving way, till, at length, all was laid in ruins, and the holy city trampled beneath the feet of her new masters, who, indeed, extended her name and her dominion, but changed almost all her original principles and institutions.

This, however, was a work of ages; and it should always be remembered, that church history can give us only the general results and changes introduced by the conflicting opinions of professed Christians. The visible church receives her character from the majority of her leaders and members. Of the true history of religion, in this age, little trace is left in public records. It could be learned only in the lives of those, of whom no one wrote; of those who, in obscurer stations, possessed the spirit of the Gospel, while men more conspicuous for their situation, seemed to be contending more for its form ;-of those who long struggled with the prevailing corruptions of the times in which they lived, but whose voice was overpowered, and they died in obscurity! Or it is seen only in the sufferings of those whom, in the midst of corruption, the Lord "loved and chastened;" whom he tried in the furnace of affliction, and purified to himself in the midst of persecution. But from the preservation of the writings of so eminent a Christian teacher as Cyprian, though we cannot learn the secret history of the reserved in Israel," we may form a pretty correct estimate of

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the general state of the public sentiment and profession of the church in these days. We shall find, I think, the same society, or chartered company, well united and compact in all its parts; the line of distinction between it and the world around it visible and well preserved; and all its original institutions entire in form. If we have cause to think that the vital spirit which animates the body is enfeebled and fast ebbing, and that somewhat of decay and alteration is discernible, yet the features are the same; and what is most distorted, we remember to have observed as distinctive and characteristic in the fairer proportions of youth. If the alteration strikes us at first, and we sigh for the destruction of time, yet we say: "It is the same!"

Thus, in the outward fabric of the church, when Cyprian tells us that the church consists" in the bishop and clergy, and in all who stand1," we cannot fail to recognise the form of polity in the apostolic church of Jerusalem: "James, and the elders, and all the multitude."

The bishop, with his presbyters or priests-sacerdotes, -as they are indifferently called, appear as objects of great respect and veneration, "highly esteemed in love for their work's sake." Their government, in the concerns of the society, evidently rested on a popular basis. If Cyprian speaks of " the sacerdotal authority and power," he mentions also "the faithful and incorrupted majesty of the people ;" and tells us, "the maxim of his own government was, to do nothing alone, by his own private opinion, without the advice of his fellow-presbyters, and the consent of the people;"-" as mutual honour requires 3, At the same time, the episcopal character, as derived from the apostles, was the very bond of union and centre of the visible association. They gathered around the bishop, and waited on his ministrations, as indeed "the angel of the church." Cyprian has, somewhere, the metaphor of the queen-bee; and the regimen of the hive may, in various respects, stand as emblematical of the polity of a primitive Christian church, and of the planting of its new societies, which even the heretics or separatists of the day copied as correctly as they could. But these were regarded by Cyprian, and his contemporaries, as destitute of all spiritual

"Ecclesia in episcopo et clero et in omnibus stantibus sit constituta." Epist. xxxiv.—That is, in the bishop and presbyters, and the people-or the deacons and people, who stand around them in their church assembly or consistory, or who had stood faithful in the time of trial.

power, and as being no churches, because they had not the true episcopal character among them. Adverting to St. Peter's answer to our Lord, (John, vi. 68,) he observes, "Here Peter speaks, upon whom the church was built; teaching and shewing, in the name of the church, that although the disobedient and proud multitude of those, who liked to hear, might depart, yet the church does not recede from Christ; and the people united to the priest, and the flock adhering to their shepherd, they are the church. Hence you should know that the bishop is in the church, and the church is in the bishop; and if any are not with the bishop, they are not in the church; and that those vainly flatter themselves, who, not having peace with the priests of God, privately creep in, and secretly, with certain persons, believe that they communicate; since the church, which is catholic, is one, and cannot be cut into parts nor divided, but is connected and joined together, by the cement of the priests, cohering among themselves one with another1.

We perceive, therefore, that, according to the notions of these times, a bishop departing from the church, took not with him his apostolical character; neither could a body of people, without the judgment and concurrence of the episcopate in the general church, originate or change that office among themselves; or, according to the interpretation then given to that text, they would not be built upon the rock Peter. But for the successor of Peter, they did not then look to Rome exclusively, but to the episcopal character, as held by all the bishops of the general church, which was considered as one and the same, and as indivisible. But the neighbouring bishops interfered no further than to hold a consistory of the church, to sanction the catholicity of their proceedings, and to convey the episcopal character on the person of the people's choice, to whose sufficiency the clergy gave their testimony. This appears from a letter of Cyprian and the African bishops, to some churches of Spain, concerning two bishops who had defiled themselves with idolatries to escape persecution, and had presumed, contrary to the laws of the universal church, still to exercise their sacred functions. Cyprian and his brethren thought this an occasion when they might apply the words of Moses respecting the people's separating themselves from Korah, Dathan, and Abiram. "Wherefore the people, obeying the precepts of the Lord, and fearing God, ought to separate themselves

from a sinful ruler-præposito - nor ought they to communicate together at the sacrifices of a sacrilegious priest; since the people' themselves have chiefly the power, either of choosing worthy priests, or of refusing the unworthy."

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Wherefore, respecting the right celebration of ordinations, is diligently to be observed and retained what, from divine tradition and apostolical observance, is retained among us, and almost in every province-that the bishops of the province who are nearest, should repair to the people, for whom a ruler is to be ordained," and the " bishop be chosen, the people being present:" and thus, "by the suffrage of all the brotherhood, and by the judgment of the assembled bishops, the episcopate might be transferred from one to another 1."

It appears plainly from Cyprian's correspondence, that the primitive Christians of this age attached to the clergy and their functions, many notions taken from the priesthood and administrations of the patriarchal and Jewish priests. The same character and consideration is challenged for them, as "taken from among men, and ordained for men in things pertaining to God, that they may offer gifts and sacrifices"-though not sacrifices for sin. The Christian minister was, in this age, certainly regarded as a priest serving at an altar, as well as a teacher and preacher of the Gospel. The altar, if we may so speak, was the chief implement of worship. The altars of the primitive Christians cannot indeed be compared to that altar, among the Jews, where the atonement was made, by the sacrifice of the victim; but it may justly be compared to the altar of incense, where the continual memorial was offered, or where the body of the peace-offering was laid, of which those who were to partake of the altar were to eat. The presenting of the bread and wine, which were to be blessed, as consecrated emblems of the Saviour-once offered; the presents and alms which the people brought; the prayers of the ministers for the people; the mentioning of the names of benefactors, of the faithful deceased, and of the martyrs, in the thanksgivings,--in whose names also presents were suffered to be brought, as still belonging to the church;-all these services were considered in the character of oblations, and sacrifices-in a lower sense, offered to God in the name of Christ, by the hands of his appointed ministers officiating in his place. To be allowed a

See Epist. Ixvii.

"Ille sacerdos vice Christi verè fungitur, qui id quod Christus fecit imitatur." Epis. Ixiii.