seership not to be circumscribed by any local limits, but to embrace the whole of Christendom. The selection, by certain of their number, of different spheres of labour-Paul and Barnabas going unto the heathen, and James, Peter, and John, devoting themselves more particularly to the circumcision-presents no real analogy to the fixed oversight of one chief pastor in each church.

The truth is, the whole of the polity into which the Church is found at the close of the first century to have settled is of Apostolic, not of divine, institution; or divine only in so far as it is Apostolic. Christ gave to His Church Apostles: it was the Apostles who gave to the Church deacons, presbyters, and, finally, bishops. The episcopate can be traced to no higher a source than that to which the presbyterate and diaconate is traceable. The Apostolic office was altogether a peculiar one: it was vouchsafed by Christ for the purpose of founding and organizing Christian societies, but it was never intended to be a permanent part of their polity. When the Apostles had completed their work upon earth, they were removed for the very same reason that Christ Himself, having risen from the dead, did not remain in the world, -viz. that it was incompatible with the nature of a spiritual and universal dispensation that there should exist attached to any particular locality a living infallible tribunal; and for the same reason they neither had nor have any successors. Certain functions which the Apostles exercised continued to be exercised after their death by the ordinary ministers of the Church; but the Apostolic office ended with the persons of the Apostles, and has never since been vouchsafed to the Church. The place which the Apostles occupied while they lived is now filled, not by a living order of ministers, but by their own inspired writings, which constitute, or ought to constitute, the supreme authority in the Church of God. In these writings the Apostles yet live and speak: St. Paul, St. Peter, St. John, and St. Matthew, have not abdicated their office, or transferred it to other persons; they still govern the universal Church, decide points of doctrine, reform abuses, set in order Christian societies so that there is no need, as there is no evidence, for the continuation of a living apostolate. The New Testament Scriptures, as they are the only real apostolate now in existence, so, are sufficient to supply to us the place of the inspired Twelve. It is possible, indeed, that all that is meant by terming the Apostles bishops, and therefore bishops successors of the Apostles, is, that bishops now perform certain ecclesiastical acts which the Apostles, while they remained upon earth, appeared to have reserved to

themselves and their delegates: but, if this be the case, why retain a phrase which is sure to mislead, and which has, in fact, given rise to serious errors? No instance, in truth, can be adduced more strikingly illustrative of the mischievous consequences of using incautious language in reference to sacred subjects, whether without an end in view or designedly to introduce a theory. If bishops are really successors of the Apostles, it follows that the united episcopate (supposing it to be, as it once was, united) is infallible in matters of faith; a dogma which is, in no essential point, different from the Romish doctrine of infallibility, since, equally with the latter, it transfers the seat of that prerogative from the Apostles represented in their writings to the existing Church. That each of the three orders of the Christian ministry presents, in certain points, a resemblance to the ordinary Apostolic functions is admitted; but similarity of functions by no means constitute identity of office, and nothing can be more groundless in fact, or more dangerous in tendency, than to assert of any particular order of the ministry—whether bishops or presbyters—that they are formally successors of the inspired Twelve.

2. But if episcopacy cannot be traced up to Christ Himself, may it not claim to be, at least, an Apostolical institution? Here, indeed, the ground beneath us becomes firmer: there is every reason to believe that it is an Apostolic appointment: meanwhile it cannot be denied that Scripture alone furnishes but slender data for our pronouncing it to be so. And this, be it observed, may be admitted without weakening the evidence of its Apostolicity. There may be proof sufficient to satisfy any reasonable mind hat the Apostles bestowed on the Church, as their latest gift, episcopacy, and yet Scripture may not be the source whence the proof is to be drawn. Timothy and Titus may have been bishops of Ephesus and Crete respectively, and yet it may be impossible to prove from Scripture alone that they were so. And in truth it does seem an arduous task to attempt to discover in the inspired record, taken alone, the existence of an order of ministers, not Apostles, and yet superior to presbyters and deacons.

Besides the Apostles, two orders of ministers meet us in Scripture, distinguished by fixed titles of office, presbyters or overseers (¿σ×ón), and deacons; both of them, if we are to regard the seven mentioned in Acts, vi. as the first deacons, of express Apostolical institution. No order of ministers other than these three- Apostles, Presbyters, and Deacons are mentioned in the New Testament as forming part of the then existing polity of the

Church. For every attempt to establish a distinction between the presbyter and the episcopus of Scripture will proof fruitless; so abundant is the evidence which proves that they were but different appellations of the same official person. It is not from one, or two, but from a variety of passages that we infer this. One of the most conclusive proofs is that furnished by the well known address of St. Paul to the Ephesian elders in Acts, xx., in which the same persons, whom, at v. 28, St. Paul calls "bishops" (izioxónovs) are described by St. Luke, at v. 17., as "the presbyters of the Church" of Ephesus.* In 1 Tim. iii. 1. the office termed

xóŋ must, if Timothy was then formal bishop of Ephesus, be no other than that of presbyter; as indeed is evident from a comparison of the whole passage with the corresponding one in Titus, the qualifications required being precisely the same in both. Still more strikingly are the names interchanged in the passage just mentioned, Tit. i. 5—7.:-"For this cause left I thee in Crete that thou shouldest set in order the things that are wanting, and ordain elders (70eoßvτépovs) in every city: if any be blameless &c. For a bishop (inisxonos) must be blameless" &c. St. Peter's language, too, is decisive as regards the point in question:"The elders (geoßvrigovs) which are among you I exhort... feed the flock which is among you, taking the oversight thereof (ènioxonovνres), not by constraint, but willingly," &c. (1 Peter, v. 1, 2.).

This direct evidence is confirmed by indirect. When St. Paul, for example, salutes "the bishops and deacons" of the Philippian church, omitting all mention of the presbyters, the omission, and, as Chrysostom remarks, the fact of their being several "bishops" in one church, † can only be accounted for by the supposition that these inioxonoi were in fact presbyters. And that in the churches to which St. Peter addressed his first epistle there were no eccle

The supposition that the intoxóo mentioned in verse 28. were not identical with the poßuripot of verse 17., but bishops in the strict sense of the word, presiding over the neighbouring churches, resting as it does on the sole opinion of Irenæus, has long been abandoned by the best commentators as untenable. Irenæus and they who adopt his view argue upon the erroneous assumption that St. Paul in his address uses both the terms, presbyters and bishops. This is not the case. It is St. Luke, who, at verse 17., speaks of the "elders of the Church;" by which he undoubtedly means the presbytery of the Ephesian church. For the word ikkλnoía in the singular number denotes, in the New Testament, either the mystical body of Christ or a single church; never an aggregate of particular churches. Those whom St. Luke describes as "presbyters," St. Paul afterwards calls "bishops," which names, therefore, signify one and the same office.

†Σὺν ἐπισκόποις καὶ διακόνοις τί τοῦτο ; μιᾶς πόλεως πολλοὶ ἐπίσκοποι ἦσαν; οὐδαμῶς ἀλλὰ τοὺς #peaßurépovs ovrws ¿xáλere.— Hom. 1. in Ep. ad Phil.

siastical persons superior to presbyters is evident from the passage above cited:"the elders which are among you I your fellowelder (ó ovunqεoßúregos) exhort," &c.

There is no difficulty in accounting for this two-fold appellation of the same office. The order of ministers next above that of deacons first appears in connexion with the Church of Jerusalem (Acts, xi. 30.); and in that passage it is designated by the term proper to the office of the Jewish synagogue with which it corresponded, viz. that of the Day or elders, in Greek, noeоßureon. This, doubtless, was the original name, and the usual, if not exclusive, one in all the Christian communities of Jewish origin. But in the case of churches composed of those who had been heathens, and to whom Jewish titles and offices were consequently less familiar, while the office was established, another name was given to it, a name which was in general use among the Greeks, and signified any kind of overseer, — viz. iníoxonos; in accordance with the Apostolic rule of not disturbing old associations, where they did not contravene the essential truths of the Gospel. That this is the true account of the interchange of these words may be inferred from the fact that while the word inioxonos, as used to denote the second order of Christian ministers, is not found in the epistles of St. Peter and St. James, who were especially connected with the Jewish converts, it is, on the contrary, very commonly applied to that order by St. Paul, the Apostle of the Gentiles, and by his follower, St. Luke.

Nor is there any weight in the remark that all the names belonging to the Christian ministry-apostle, presbyter, and deacon are, in the New Testament, applied in an indiscriminate manner; that St. Peter, as we have seen, calls himself a presbyter, and St. Paul speaks of himself and his fellow Apostles as "ministers" (that is, deacons) of the New Testament; that Timothy is called a deacon, while Epaphroditus bears the name of an Apostle: so that, if, from the interchange of the names iníoxoлos and neoẞúteos, it is to be inferred that they were not distinct offices, we must carry the argument further, and conclude, from the interchange of all the names just mentioned, that there were no distinct offices of apostle, presbyter, and deacon.* This circumstance would doubtless cause some embarrasment, were it not that the offices of deacons and presbyters are repeatedly referred to in Scripture, as offices, and irrespectively of individuals; but,

* Manning, Unity, &c., p. 117.

this being the case, the indiscriminate application of the three names produces no real confusion. St. Paul might call himself a deacon, and Epaphroditus an Apostle; but we know that St. Paul did not belong to the order of deacons, and that Epaphroditus was not one of the Apostolic college. Whereas the interchange of the names ἐπίσκοπος and πρεσβύτερος, as applied not to individuals, but to a class, an order in the Church, would, if those offices were really distinct, be unintelligible except on the supposition that the inspired writers wished to mislead us as to the actual fact. If this be inadmissable, we must conclude that by these names is denoted one and the same ministerial order; which, indeed, is the truth.

It will be urged, however, that, although no order of ministers can be discovered in the New Testament inferior to Apostles, but superior to Presbyters, there yet meet us there certain individuals, not Apostles, and yet manifestly exercising functions superior to those of a simple presbyter. Allowing this to be the fact, we must, however, direct attention to the wide difference that exists, as regards argumentative value, between the institution of an order of ministers and individual cases of the kind alluded to. No one would contend that the evidence for the existence in the Apostolic age of the offices of presbyters and deacons would have been so cogent as it is, had Scripture, instead of recording the institution of the offices, merely informed us that a commission had been issued by the Apostles to certain individuals to exercise the functions of a presbyter or deacon. For, in the latter case, the Apostles might not have meant to create a new office, or an office at all; the commission might have been merely personal, or for a temporary purpose; and, therefore, we could not at once infer that in the persons of the individuals so commissioned a new order of ministers was intended to be established. In civil affairs commis sions are frequently issued for special purposes, without any inten tion on the part of the government of creating thereby a permanent office; and when the purposes of the commission are fulfilled, the individuals composing it revert to their former private capacity.

Even, therefore, if there were nothing in the epistles to Timothy and Titus, or in the peculiar relation in which these disciples stood to St. Paul, to create a presumption against their having been, by the commission contained in those epistles, appointed formal bishops of Ephesus and Crete, we should still remember that we have here, not the record of the institution of a new ministerial office, but simply a commission to certain individuals to exercise