first Christian Church presented itself. Just as the services of the synagogue did not at all interfere with those of the temple, so we find the Apostles still frequenting the latter, and at the regular hours appointed for prayer; even of the whole body of believers it is recorded that they continued "with one accord in the temple.' ." Their peculiar association as believers in Christ by no means, in their own estimation, or in that of the people, dissolved their connexion with the Jewish law. Had it been otherwise, they never would have enjoyed, as we are told they did enjoy, “favour with all the people."+ Perhaps there is no point more deserving of attention, as illustrative of the nature of Christianity, than that of which we are now speaking, viz. the absence of any attempt on the part of the Apostles to assume a hostile or separatist attitude in reference to the divinely appointed Jewish ordinances. According to the testimony of St. James, and the elders of Jerusalem, the believing Jews of that place were "all zealous of the law;" and they mention the fact without any accompanying mark of disapprobation. St. James's own practice in this respect may be gathered from his manner of life as described by Eusebius, or rather Hegesippus, and from the high estimation in which he was held by not only the believing, but the unbelieving Jews.§ Even the great Apostle of the Gentiles, who contended so earnestly against the false teachers who would have made the observance of the ceremonial law in the case of Christians a necessary condition of justification, thought it not inconsistent with his professed opinions to comply, as a matter of expediency, with the legal ordinances. He took upon himself "a vow:" he "hasted, if it were possible for him, to be at Jerusalem on the day of Pentecost:" he associated himself at Jerusalem with certain persons about to purify themselves in the temple as the law prescribed; and this by the advice of St. James and the elders. It was St. Paul's constant practice, when he broke new ground in the course of his ministry, instead of setting up a new visible system, to betake himself, in the first instance, to the synagogue of the place, if it possessed one, and, exercising the right which belonged to him as a Jewish doctor of expounding the Old Testament Scriptures, to

*Acts, iii. 1, 2. 46.

† Acts, ii. 47.

Acts, xxi. 20.

8 Οἶνον καὶ σίκερα οὐκ ἔπιεν, οὐδέ ἔμψυχον ἔφαγεν· ξυρὸν ἐπὶ τὴν κεφαλὴν αὐτοῦ οὐκ ἀνέβη, ἔλαιον οὐκ ἀλείψατο, καὶ βαλανείῳ οὐκ ἐχρήσατο· τουτῷ μόνῳ ἐξῆν εἰς τὰ ἅγια εἰσιέναι· οὐδὲ γὰρ ἐρεοῦν ἐφόρει, ἀλλὰ σινδόνας καὶ μόνος εἰσήρχετο εἰς τὸν ναόν ηὑρίσκετό τε κείμενος ἐπὶ τοῖς γόνασι, καὶ αἰτούμενος ὑπὲρ τοῦ λαοῦ ἄφεσιν.-Euseb. Hist. l. ii. c. 23.

Acts, xviii. 18.; xx. 16.; xxi. 24.

dispute therein, "persuading the things of the kingdom of God," as long as he was permitted to do so.* Even the believing Jews he was by no means anxious at once to detach from their old connexion, with the view of forming them into a distinct society. At Ephesus at least, it was not until "divers" (of the synagogue) "were hardened, and believed not, but spake evil of that way before the multitude," that "he departed from them, and separated the disciples, disputing daily in the school of one Tyrannus."+

In fact, let the case be supposed (it is one that might easily have occurred) of a whole synagogue, with its elders and ministers, having been, through the preaching of the Apostles, converted to the faith of Christ; and we have at once a Christian church or congregation, such as that at Philippi, consisting of "the saints" in that place, "with the bishops," or elders, "and deacons." With the single exception of the two sacraments, the external aspect of the society would remain the same as before; the officers would bear the same names, and their duties would be the same; the religious services would be the same in nature, being, in each case, not sacrificial, but homiletic. Wherein, then, would be the essential difference between the present and the former state of the society? It is not denied that the sacraments would serve to mark the change; but surely the real point of distinction would be, as has been already remarked, that Christ, who before was absent, is now present in the assembly of His worshippers.

If it be important for the determining of the question at issue to observe that the general form of polity which Christian societies were to assume had been provided long before the Saviour came into the world, not less worthy of attention is the fact that that organisation was a matter of gradual development, and advanced by successive steps. Were the Romish view the true one, the Church ought to have exhibited itself from the very beginning, in the complete panoply of a graduated hierarchy, with the supreme pontiff at its head; or, at least, with the episcopal polity fully developed. It has been observed, that nothing is more incompatible with the nature and object of a legal institution, than that its polity should be left to grow up, and enlarge itself, as need might require. It is most certain, however, that thus it was that the polity of the Church grew into form. Setting aside the fanciful hypothesis of the three grades of the Christian ministry being enveloped in the Apostolate, the Church appears, in the first mo

Acts, xix. 8.

t Acts, xix. 9.

ment of its existence, without any visible organisation properly so called. It was a company of men, "filled with the Holy Ghost," associating together for the purposes of common prayer and "the breaking of bread," and cleaving to the teaching of the Apostles. That the Apostles appear as the teachers and governors of the infant society is easily accounted for, without the supposition of their embodying in themselves any formal system of Church polity. Even previously to the descent of the Spirit, the Apostles, as the chosen attendants upon Christ, and witnesses of His resurrection, are found assuming the chief place in the body of expectant believers: nothing was more natural than that they should do so. If to the privileges just mentioned we add the various commissions given them by Christ, by which they were invested generally with supreme authority in the Church, we have all that is necessary to account for the position of presidency which they assumed when, by the outpouring of the Spirit, the Church was formally constituted. By the miracles which they wrought, and especially by the exercise of the power conveyed to them by Christ, of pronouncing sins remitted or retained (as in the case of Ananias), they proved their divine commission: what more natural than that it should be acknowledged? For a time, then, the Church existed without a formal polity, under the presidency of its natural leaders, the Apostles, no intermediate grades of ministry being as yet visible. In this state it remained until an alteration of circumstances gave rise to the first real step in the permanent organisation of Christian societies. "When the number of the disciples were multiplied," a dispute arose between the Grecians and the Hebrews concerning the daily ministration of the alms of the Church.* Perceiving that the time was come for enlarging the simple polity which had hitherto sufficed, the Apos tles acted in this emergency (doubtless under a general guidance of the Holy Spirit, but still,) according to the dictates of human wisdom: they introduced a subdivision of labour, assigning to a separate body of officers a part of those duties which they had hitherto discharged themselves. In creating this new order of ministers, they did not separate from their apostleship a ministerial grade which had hitherto been enveloped in it: they found in the synagogue an office resembling that which had become necessary in the Church, and in the Church they instituted a corresponding one. Whether the so-called first seven deacons discharged the

* Acts vi. 1.

same functions as the officers known by that name in after times, or not, is immaterial to the present question: it must at least be granted that in them we have, if not the diaconate proper, yet, the substratum of it. That the Apostles, in the appointment of deacons, designedly followed the synagogical model, it is not necessary to maintain: they probably acted without any such special reference: but it is not the less certain that the idea of the office must have been suggested to them by the analogous one of the Jewish institution.*

To a similar concurrence of natural causes we must refer the rise of the presbyterate, the first institution of which, however, is not recorded. For several years after the appointment of deacons, the Church at Jerusalem seems to have had no other ministers than deacons and Apostles. Released from the secular business which they had found incompatible with the discharge of their higher functions, the Apostles acted both as the chief governors and the teachers of the society; devoting themselves more particularly to the "ministry of the Word and to prayer." It is obvious that this state of things could not last. The growth of the mother church at Jerusalem, and the rapid formation of other Christian societies, first in Judea, and then beyond its boundaries, rendered it more and more difficult for the Apostles to attach themselves, in person, to any one society. The remedy obviously was to appoint, in each church or congregation, one or more officers to superintend its affairs, and act as its permanent teachers; who should, so far, supply to it the place of the Apostles. And here, as in the former instance, the synagogue supplied, in its college of governing elders, the pattern of what was wanting. The Apostles, in establishing, as they did, a governing presbytery in every church, did not detach from themselves what had never

• Vitringa (De Synag. Vet. lib. iii. p. 2. c. 5.) argues that the office of Stephen and his companions was altogether different from that of the deacons mentioned in St. Paul's Epistles; but it should seem on insufficient grounds. - See Neander, Geschichte der Pflanzung, &c., vol. i. p. 46; and Rothe, Anfânge, &c. p. 166. Vitringa was led to adopt this view, from finding that the seven persons mentioned in Acts vi. discharged higher functions than those of the Chazzan of the Synagogue, which appeared to him to render the derivation of the Christian diaconate from the synagogue doubtful. But it is the characteristic tendency of his valuable work to strain the comparison between the polity of the church and that of the synagogue beyond what is allowable or necessary. That the synagogue furnished the general groundwork of the polity of the church is most true: more than this cannot with truth be affirmed. To suppose that the Apostles slavishly followed the synagogical pattern in every particular is consistent neither with recorded facts, nor with the spirit of the Christian dispensation.

† Aets, vi. 4.

been, as a formal office, in themselves; they instituted a new office, and yet an old one; new to the Christian Church, but of ancient standing in the synagogue. Thus it was that the polity of the Church grew up by degrees, and according to a natural law. The Apostles proceeded, in this matter, neither according to a divine prescription, nor as if the Church had no proper existence until its visible organization was complete, but step by step, according as the exigencies of the Christian Society, as a society, called for new provisions. As long as the simpler usages sufficed, they were permitted to remain: it was only when difficulties arose, or the extension of Christianity rendered additional organization necessary, that the Apostles interfered to supply the defect. The Church was permitted to develope her polity from within outwards; the want was always allowed to be felt before it was supplied. No fact is more certain, or more significant, than this. For the question immediately arises, Was the Church in existence on the day of Pentecost, or was it not? If it was, as all parties admit, then its true being cannot lie in the visible polity with which it afterwards became clothed, whether we stop at the Episcopal system, or advance to the apex of the pyramid- the Roman pontiff: for at the period of which we are speaking, even the first essays towards establishing that polity had not been made.* If it did not exist implicitly in the Apostles (and that it did not has been already shown), it was not, for some time after the establishment of the Church, formally in existence at all; so that if the Romish theory be correct, the primitive Church at Jerusalem resembled the spirit of a man separate from his body; that is, it had no visible existence upon earth. Moreover, if covenanted grace be connected with, for example, the episcopal polity, how comes it that the Apostles did not at once establish that polity in every Christian society? Was the Pentecostal Church destitute of a privilege which the Church in the times of Ignatius enjoyed? Had the members of it no covenanted access to God, and its Sacraments no validity? It is difficult to suppose that the Apostles

That is, by any formal enactment. It is with this limitation that the above observations, and those which occur in a subsequent part of this work on the subject of episcopacy, must always be understood. For, in its rudiment, or informal state, the episcopate may be said to have been coeval, or nearly so, with the Church itself. If the position of the apostolic college collectively, in reference to the other orders of the Christian ministry, presents but a slender analogy to that of the episcopate proper, the place which St. James evidently occupied in the Church of Jerusalem appears to have been really that of a bishop or chief

overseer.

another.

But the informal sudiment of an office is one thing; the formal creation of it