think it contemptible or degrading, but I see no more striking image of a primitive Church, than a little methodist meeting in a mud-floor room, in a little town or village, where a few persons are assembled to hear the word of God."

Here is an idea exactly calculated to flatter the prejudices of the uninformed persons to whom it is addressed. "A little methodist meeting in a mud-floor room, in a little town or village," is here represented to be a Church, and the teacher of it (some self-constituted minister, it may be, an ignorant shoemaker, baker, tailor, or weaver) appears in the character of a primitive bishop. But the author of this letter, if he knew any thing of the history of the primitive Church, must have known, that it was not the place where Christians were assembled, but the ministerial authority under which they were assembled, that gave to the congregation> the title of a Church. The question is not, whether the primitive Christians were assembled in an upper story, or in a mud-floor; but whether they were assembled under the ministry of the Apostles, or that of those who had received commission from them to officiate in holy things. He must, more. over, have known, that the jurisdiction of the pri mitive bishops was by far more extensive than that of their modern successors.

To establish, however, the position respecting the bishop being only a minister of a single congregation, an appeal is made to the writings of St. Ignatius, as demonstrative upon the point. Upon his authority the reader is informed, that "no baptism must be administered, no love-feast kept,

without the bishop; no marriage was to be contracted without his consent; and he was required to speak separately to every one of his flock about their souls." From whence the following conclusion is drawn: "These and other particulars annexed to the office of a bishop, besides his constant ministrations in the congregation, incontestibly demonstrate how small the district or diocese was at first, over which the primitive bishop presided."

The object which the writer had in view, in the quotation from St. Ignatius, was to convince the reader that the bishop must personally assist at the administration of every service of the Church; from whence it followed, that every assembly of Christians must have its attendant bishop; and, consequently, that the office of the primitive bishop could not be extended beyond a single congregation.

Admitting the writer's premises, his conclusion will follow. But instead of incontestible demonstration, all that I discover, on this occasion, is great want either of information or of integrity. Either the writer of the letter alluded to had not read St. Ignatius's epistles; or if he had, he made a partial quotation from them, for the purpose of misleading his reader. Upon turning to the epistles in question, I find St. Ignatius writing thus: "Let no man do any thing of what appertains to the Church without the bishop;" that is, as the context proves,

* σε Μηδεις χωρίς Επίσκοπο τι πρασσετω των ανηκόντων εις την εκκλησ Εκείνη βεβαια ευχαρισια ηγείσθο, η υπο το Επίσκοπε εσα, η ω αν AUTOS EDITGEN.—IGNAT. Ep. ad Smyrn.

without commission from the bishop. "Let that sacrament be judged effectual and firm, which is dispensed by the bishop, or him to whom the bishop has committed it." The above quotation places the office of the bishop in the proper point of view, as the governor of the Church, without whose authority nothing was to be done in the Church; at the same time that it removes the idea placed before his reader by the writer of the letter in question, out of sight. "There are which hold, that between a bishop and presbyter, touching power of order, there is no difference. The reason of which conceit is, for that they see presbyters no less than bishops authorised to offer up prayers, &c.; but they considered not withal, as they should, that the presbyter's authority to do these things is derived from the bishop, who doth ordain him thereunto; so that even in those things which are common to both, the power of the one is a certain light, borrowed, as it were, from the other's lamp."

Indeed, had the author of the letter in question been properly acquainted with Church history, he would have known that he was only going over old ground. Cartwright, the arch-puritan, in Queen Elizabeth's days, wrote a book to prove the same point that primitive bishops were ministers of parishes only, not overseers of dioceses. The solid answer which this book received, put an end to the subject for the time. At the latter end of the last century, however, when the dissenters began to recover their wonted activity, the subject was again

* Hooker, Ec. Pol. book vii. sect. 5.

revived by a Mr. Clarkson, and considered as a new discovery. But it was laid completely to rest by the learned Dr. Maurice, to whom no answer has ever been given.*

In fact, independency, which is grounded upon this notion respecting the primitive bishops as pastors of single independent congregations, was never heard of at the time of the reformation. Bishop Stillingfleet calls it a "novel fancy, that hath not age enough to plead prescription."+ When it first appeared in the world, it was condemned by an express canon of the whole reformed Church in France, in the year 1644, "as a sect most prejudicial to the Church, and dangerous to the 'state, because, in case it should prevail, it would form as many religions as there be parishes."‡

The letter here alluded to contains many other confident assertions, calculated to impose upon the uninformed reader, and to render him dissatisfied with the ecclesiastical establishment of his country. It will be sufficient to point out one of them. "It deserves," the letter writer says, "especial notice, that universally throughout the whole Church the offices of every kind were elective, and bishops, priests, and deacons, the choice of the people; nor can I find, in a single instance, the appointment

This subject has lately been revived in form by Professor Campbell; but he has said little upon it which had not been said, and completely answered, near one century before his Ecclesiastical History (which in many parts speaks the language neither of truth nor charity) made its appearance in the world. + Sermon against Separation.

‡ Bingham's Apology of the French Church, book i. chap. 1.

to these offices without the suffrage of the faithful. It was the most undisputed axiom, that they who knew the value of their own souls, should elect those as their teachers in whom they could repose the greatest confidence." Here we have bold assertion, unaccompanied with the least shadow of proof. Such was well calculated for parties, who, not being qualified to examine, must be contented to take things upon trust. But the writer, if acquainted with his subject, must have known, that what he calls a "most undisputed axiom," has not only been disputed, but disproved by numberless writers. Without detaining you, by entering particularly into this controverted point; there are two or three circumstances which I would take leave to recommend to this writer's consideration.

St. Clement, in his first epistle to the Corinthians, writes thus: "The Apostles (says he) constituted (or ordained) bishops and deacons, for such as (were not yet converted, but) should in some time to come be brought over to the faith." There needs no comment upon this testimony; for, whatever imaginary people may be suggested to have borne a part in the election or ordination of such bishops and deacons as these, it is plain the people, over whom they were afterwards to preside, or to whom they were to minister, could have none at all." It is not imaginable, (says the learned Hammond)* on this epistle of St. Clement's, how the

* Hammond on Ignatius's Epistles, page 31. Should the author of the letter here alluded to be open to conviction, and not determined to maintain, per fas et nefas, his own favourite positions, I would recommend to his consideration the Disser.