church of Thessalonica those who, as the people were exhorted to know them, as well as esteem them very highly for their work's sake, could not have been appointed by those people themselves to "labour among them, and be over them in the Lord," and that in all churches there are overseers, whom the people are bound to "obey as those who have the rule over them, and to submit themselves as to those who watch for their souls."t Who those rulers were, it is not difficult to discover. We have seen that, in every completely organized church mentioned in the New Testament, there were three orders of men, who, each in his station, laboured in the word and doctrine. Of these the lowest order was that of deacons, who appear, from the conduct of Stephen and Philip, to have preached and occasionally administered the sacrament of baptism. Superior to the deacons was the order of presbyters, often called bishops, whose duty it was to feed the flock of Christ, by preaching the word, and administering both the sacraments; and over both these orders we find a president, who is generally called in the New Testament the angel or apostle of the particular church over which he presided; whose pastoral care extended over more than one congregation; to whom alone belonged the privilege of ordaining presbyters and deacons; who was himself always ordained by apostolic hands; and who alone could finally cut off unworthy Christians from the communion of the church. It has been often said that the apostles neither had nor could have successors, and that therefore the elders, whom all admit to be often called bishops in the New Testament, are the highest order of ministers intended to continue in the church of Christ. This, however, is said, not only without authority, but in direct contradiction to the plainest testimony of Scripture, and the consequent practice of all antiquity. It was to the apostles alone, and not to the multitude of believers, or even to the seventy, that our blessed Lord said, "Go ye and teach all nations." It was to them alone that he gave the keys of the kingdom of heaven, saying, "whatsoever ye shall bind on earth, shall be bound in heaven; and whatsoever ye shall loose on earth, shall be loosed in heaven:" and the apostles alone were sent by him, as his Father had sent him, with authority to govern that kingdom which he had purchased with his own blood. As he knew all things, he was fully aware that the apostles were mortal, and that, in fact, none of them would long survive the approaching destruction of Jerusalem. It could not therefore be with themselves personally, but with their successors in office from age to age, that he was to be always even to the end of the world. The church, which he every where calls his kingdom, and which he declared to Pilate was not to be of this world, was founded by himself, and built by his apostles acting under his authority; and its privileges, whatever they may be, are derived wholly from him. No man could be admitted into the * 1 Thess. v. 12, 13. † Heb. xii. 17. VOL. II.-42 church, or cast out of it, but by the authority which he conferred on the apostles for these purposes; and therefore, if they were to have no successors, the church must have been swept from the face of the earth, almost as soon as that ritual service, which was established among the Jews, merely as preparatory to it. After the death of St. John, no man could either have been received into the church, or cast out of it; and the church itself must have perished with that generation. Yet Christ himself solemnly promised, that "against the church to be built on the faith confessed by St. Peter, the gates of hell-So-the gates of death, or of the receptacle of the deadshould never prevail;" for he well knew, that the perpetuity of the church is necessary to the perpetuity of the faith. There are indeed men of some learning, who seem to think otherwise; who profess great regard for the doctrines and morality of the Gospel; but who raise hideous outcries against every claim to any other authority in the church of Christ, than what is exercised in literary clubs, or philosophical societies. But what must have been the consequence to the faith, if, on the death of the apostles and other inspired preachers of the Gospel, all ecclesiastical authority had ceased, or devolved on the multitude at large? With the Old and New Testaments in their hands, could the rabble have maintained the purity of the faith? Could they have discovered, even from those writings, the consequences of the first transgression; the necessity of a redeemer to fallen man; or the nature and extent of the redemption wrought for him? Could they have discovered the necessity of divine aid to enable us to work out our own salvation with fear and trembling, or have guarded that doctrine, supposing it discovered, from the opposite and dangerous extremes, to which it is too often carried even by learned ministers of the church? Could such men have preserved in purity the doctrine of one God in three persons; or would they not rather have immediately relapsed into polytheism and idolatry, with which, as they had themselves but lately emerged from it, they were still surrounded? Would they have long maintained the resurrection of the dead, and a general judgment, against the sophisms of those philosophers, who considered the body as the prison of the soul, who thought a resurrection of the dead impossible even to omnipotence, and who taught, either that the gods could not be offended with men, or that the human soul is no subject either of reward or of punishment; being in fact a portion of To sv, or the soul of the world, in which it was finally to be re-absorbed. Even the morality of the Gospel, so justly admired, would, if left to the guardianship of the people at large, have been as liable to corruption as its peculiar doctrines. From the epistles of St. Paul, as well as from the philosophers, satirists, and profane historians of the age, it appears that the morals of the heathen world, at the period when the Gospel was first preached to all nations, were sunk to a state of the lowest depravity; that the sensual appetites of our nature were indulged to the ut as Barnabas certainly was another, and warns the Corinthians against false apostles; whilst our blessed Lord, by the pen of St. John, makes express mention of some, who "said they were apostles, and were not, but were found liars." Nothing of all this could have happened, if it had been understood, that the primary apostles were to have no successors; for the twelve with St. Paul were all, except St. John, dead some time before the false apostles were detected by the angel of the church of Ephesus; and, had they been alive, they must have been too well known for the most impu most excess; that some of those, who were converted to the faith, had themselves, in their unregenerated state, given way to every inordinate affection; and that vices, not even to be named among Christians, were countenanced by the teaching, if not the practice, even of some of the philosophers. Had the multitude been left, each to interpret the scriptures for himself; had they been left without control, to choose their own teachers and governors; had the power of the keys, or the supreme authority in the church, been committed to them, is it not probable is it not, indeed, morally certain, that they would soon have relapsed into their for-dent liars then existing, to personate them in mer courses, as the dog turns to his vomit again, and the sow that is washed to her wal- || lowing in the mire?" a church which had been founded by St. Paul, and so lately governed by his son Timothy. Although all the doctrines and precepts of The case appears to have been as Theod ret Christianity, which are essential to salvation, and others expressly represent it-" That those are easily understood by candour, combined now called bishops were anciently called aposwith attention, yet some of them, such as St. tles; but in process of time the name of apostle Paul's doctrine of justification by faith for in- was left to them, who were truly apostles (viz. stance, are very liable to be misapprehended, the twelve and St. Paul;) and the name of biwhere either candour or attention is wanting. shop was restrained to those who were anciently But candour and attention are not to be look- called apostles. Thus Epaphroditus was the ed for in ignorant and illiterate men, when apostle of the Philippians, Titus of the Crethey are under the dominion of corrupt habits, tans, and Timothy of the Asiatics." This or are impelled by the strongest propensities of change of the denomination of the highest orour animal nature; and therefore such men, der of ecclesiastics, from apostle to bishop, and the teachers chosen by such men, may be seems to have been made about the beginning expected to interpret that doctrine so as to of the second century, soon after the death of make it encourage their "continuance in sin St. John, and probably gave occasion to Ignathat grace may abound," and enable them totius to insist so much on the obedience due to reconcile their impure practices with their profession of Christianity. This is not a mere hypothesis formed for the sake of argument. It is a fact well known to ecclesiastical historians, and occasionally pointed out by our author, that some of the ancient sects, who renounced the communion of the regular church, taught that Christ hath set men free, not only from the ritual law of Moses, but even from the ob-churches; for Clement, bishop of Rome, is by ligations of morality; and there is reason to suspect that some of the mob-commissioned teachers of the present age, acquire their popularity by the same execrable doctrine. the bishops, lest the churches, to which his epistles were addressed, should imagine that the authority of their chief pastors had been diminished by the change of their designation. That change, however, appears not to have been strictly attended to, for several centuries, by those who had occasion to write of the immediate successors of the apostles in particular Clement of Alexandria, called§ ATOSTOλOS KANvs, and Ignatius, one of the first bishops of Antioch, is by Chrysostom|| styled CтOÀNG XXI επισκοπος. no ecclesiastical office, but by authority derived from the bishop; that the people had All this was well known to Christ, who Thus, then, it appears that the constitution therefore established a society or church in the of the church, in the first century, was episcoworld, to be "the pillar and ground of his pal in the diocesan sense of that word; that truth," and the guardian of the morals of the bishop was the chief pastor of a greater or his disciples. To that society are confined all less number of congregations, according to the the privileges of the Gospel; men are to be ad- extent of his diocese; that though both presmitted into it only by baptism; he who, when byters and deacons preached and administhe Gospel has been fully preached to him, re- tered the sacrament of baptism, and the forfuses to be baptised, has no claim, by the Chris-mer the Lord's supper, they could perform tian covenant, to salvation;§ and he who submits not to the discipline of the church, is in the state of a heathen man or a publican. But we have seen that the apostles alone had received authority to admit into the church, or cast out of it; and that therefore the apostolical order must be continued by succession from those, who were originally raised to that order by the divine head of the church, even to the end of the world. Accordingly St. Paul speaks of apostles ordained by men¶ in his time, of whom Epaphroditus appears to have been one, * 2 Cor. xi. 13. † Rev. ii. 2. 1 Τους δε νυν καλουμένους επισκόπους αποστολους ανθο μαζον, του δε χρόνου προϊόντος το μεν της αποστολής όνομα τους αλήθως αποστόλοις κατέλιπον την δε της επίσκοπης προσηγορίαν τοις παλαι καλουμένοις αποστ He re50v, &c. Theod. in Tim. cap. 3. peats the same thing, Com. in Phil. i. 1, and ii. 25. The author under the name of Ambrose, generally believed to be Hilary the deacon, asserts that all bishops were at first called apostles, and that it was to distinguish himself from such apostles, that St. Paul called himself an "apostle, not of men, neither by men, but by Jesus Christ and God the Father." Ambros. Com. in Eph. iv. and in Gal. i. 1. § Strom. lib. 4. Encom. Ign. Η Μηδεις χωρις του επισκόπου τι πρασσιτω των ανη κόντων εις την εκκλησίαν...... ουκ εξον εστιν, χωρίς του no such authority in the church, as Dr. Mo- middle of the third century, it is evident that, sheim supposes; and that neither the presby- without acknowledging any superiority of orters, nor people, nor both united, could ex- der, the bishops of every province paid a parcommunicate any person, or cast him entirely ticular respect to the bishop of the chief city; out of the church, but by the sentence of the and hence the origin of metropolitans and pabishop. It does not however appear that for triarchs. To this deviation from primitive pracseveral centuries a bishop's diocese, or the tract tice several things contributed. In the chief of country over which his pastoral care ex-city, it must have been the practice of the tended, was every where divided into what we church, from the beginning, to place as bishop now call parishes, each with its resident pastor. a man of approved talents, and piety, and virOn the contrary, this division became not ge- tue; and even when the clergy subsisted on the neral before the fifth century, and seems not voluntary oblations of the faithful, the bishops to have been made in England previous to the of the larger cities must have been more opuseventh. It is indeed hardly supposable that lent than those of the smaller; and in every in the first century the Christians had any age of the church-the purest as well as the buildings wholly set apart for the service of most corrupt-opulence has always commandthe church. During that period, the proba-ed a degree of respect, especially when in the bility is that the bishop, with one or two infe- possession of talents and virtue. rior clergymen to assist him, convened part of his flock in his own or some other house; that the presbyters were sent by him to other private houses, where, in different divisions, the remainder of the flock assembled themselves together, for the breaking of bread and for prayer; and it is certain, that, when the presbyters returned to their bishops, they delivered, each into the common stock of the church, the oblations which had been made by their respective congregations. When the number of Christians every where increased, presbyters appear, indeed, even during the era of persecution, to have been stationed in a suburb, or in the country-region of the bishop's diocese; but even then the oblations of the people were all delivered into the common stock of the mother-church, and there distributed into shares, for the maintenance of the bishop, for the support of the clergy under him, for assisting the poor and strangers, and for purchasing whatever was necessary for the public service of the church. After the empire became Christian, what we now call parish churches were built, and endowed, sometimes by the public, and more frequently by opulent individuals; and hence the origin of patronage, or the right granted to individuals, to present their own clerks to the churches which they had endowed. This practice seems to have become general about the year 500, as there are two laws by Justinian of that date, authorising and confirming it; but even then no clerk could be presented without the concurrence of the bishop under whom he was to minister, nor be supported by any patron against the censures of his diocesan, when so unhappy as to have incurred them. In the first and second centuries there seems to have been a perfect equality of rank among the several bishops of the church, he presiding in provincial synods, in whose diocese the synod was holden. Thus, though St. Peter certainly took the place of St. James in the college of the Apostles, St. James appears to have presided in the first council, because it took place in Jerusalem, of which he was acknowledged to be the bishop. This perfect equality, however, was gradually done away; for, by the επισκοπου, ούτε βαπτίζειν, ούτε αγάπην ποιειν αλλ, ο αν εκεινος δοκιμαση, τουτο και τω Θεώ ευάρεστον. Igna. tii Epist. ad Smyrn. cap. 8. There was, however, another and a better motive than this for giving precedency to the bishops of the chief cities. The whole Christian church is, or ought to be, one society or kingdom, united under its divine head, by the profession of the same faith, by the administration of the same sacraments, and by the same government and discipline. In the apostolic age, whoever had the misfortune to be expelled from one particular church, found himself expelled from all particular churches, or, in other words, excommunicated by the church universal; and, by the authority of Christ himself, was reduced to the state of a heathen man or a publican. Hence St. Cyprian says*"Episcopatus unus est, cujus a singulis in solidum pars tenetur:"-and elsewhere, "Ideirco copiosum est sacerdotium concordiæ mutuæ glutino atque unitatis vinculo copulatum, ut siquis ex collegio nostro hæresin facere, et gregem Christi lacerare et vastare tentaverit, subveniant cateri, et, quasi pastores utiles et misericordes, oves Dominicas in gregem colligant." This is indeed the doctrine of a much greater man than Cyprian. It is the doctrine of the illustrious apostle of the Gentiles, who compares the unity of the church, and the due subordination of its several members, to the unity of the human body, and the adaptation of its members to their respective uses; beseeching Christians "to keep the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace, because, among them, there is but one body and one spirit, even as they are called in one hope of their calling, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in them all."§ It is the doctrine of a still greater-an infinitely greater personage than St. Paul-even of our Lord himself, who declared, that the whole Christian world was to be "one fold under him the one shepherd," and who, when praying for his immediate followers, added-"Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also who shall believe in me through their word, that they all may be one, as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us; that the world may believe that thou hast sent me."|| * De Unitate Ecclesiæ. Epist. 67. ed. Pamel. 68. ed. Fell. 1 Rom. xii. 4, 5. 1 Cor. xii. 12. 31. § Ephesians iv. 3, 17. St. John x. 16. xvii. 20, 21. At a very early period there seems to have been, in every church where there were many deacons, one who by the bishop's authority had precedence of the rest; but there is no good evidence that visiting presbyters were any where appointed to offices similar to those of our archdeacons, until the abolition of the order of chorepiscopi. That the appointment took place then, is rendered unquestionable by the 57th canon of the council of Laodicea, which substitutes visiting presbyters for those village-bishops, of whom it decreed that no more were to be ordained. · Whether the church acted prudently in all these apparent deviations from primitive simplicity, is a question which we are not called upon to answer; but it is certain that in none That this catholic unity might be preserved || ded each with a resident pastor, it was judged entire, every bishop elect was obliged, before expedient to give to the bishop a permanent his ordination, to make a declaration of his council, which might supply the place of those faith to the bishops who ordained him, and, presbyters who had hitherto lived with him, immediately after his ordination, to send, by but were now removed to their respective the hands of some confidential clergymen, cir- cures; and from this appointment may be dated cular or encyclical letters, as they were called, the origin of deans and chapters. to foreign churches, declaratory of his faith, announcing his promotion to such a see, and professing his communion with the churches to which the letters were sent. If his faith was deemed catholic, and nothing irregular appeared to have taken place in the various steps of his promotion, answers were immediately returned to his letters, approving what had been done, and acknowledging him as a bishop of the catholic church; but, if doubts were excited in the minds of those to whom the encyclical letters were addressed, no answer was returned until proper inquiries were made, and all doubts respecting the faith of the lately consecrated bishop, or the regularity of his promotion, were completely removed. It was thus that Christian communion was maintained between the remotest churches. But had the of them did she exceed that authority, with bishops been, in the modern sense of the word, which, as an independent society to be spread parochial, and therefore as numerous as the va- over the whole world, she must have been inrious congregations of Christians, which as- vested by her divine lawgiver, to adapt her sembled under separate roofs for the celebra- constitution, as much as possible, to the cirtion of the mysteries of their religion, it is ob- cumstances in which she might be placed. To vious that this salutary process could not have this authority St. Paul repeatedly alludes; and been carried on; the doctrines taught in dis- if her metropolitans and patriarchs, her deans tant churches must have been unknown to each and chapters, her visiting presbyters and archother; and catholic unity could have been no- deacons, &c., contributed in any degree to the thing but a name. Even among diocesan bi-maintenance of order and decency, she had an shops, when all of equal rank, such a correspondence must have become so difficult and tedious, after churches were planted in every corner of the empire, that the authors of heresies might, as Cyprian expresses it, have divided and laid waste the flock of Christ, before the bishops at a distance could have stepped in to its assistance; but, by the institution of metropolitans and patriarchs, it became easy and expeditious, as the bishops corresponded with their own metropolitans, the metropolitans with their respective patriarchs, and the patriarchs with each other. unquestionable right to appoint them. Her patriarchs and metropolitans, however dignified with titles and outward splendour, derived from Christ, by apostolical succession, no authority which was not equally possessed by every other bishop; the visiting presbyters, though the bishop devolved on them such parts of his authority as presbyters were capable of exercising, were still nothing more than mere presbyters; and an archdeacon, although he had precedence among his brethren, could not administer the Lord's supper, and was therefore inferior to the lowest presbyter in After the conversion of Constantine, the dis-the church. tinctions of rank which had thus been introduced among the bishops of the church, were confirmed by the council of Nice, and modelled according to the precedency that was allowed among the civil provinces into which the empire was divided; but, if such an arrangement was attended by some advantages, it was productive likewise of many evils. It was the parent of those fierce contentions between the bishops of Rome and Constantinople for precedency, which disgrace the character of both as the ministers of the meek and lowly Jesus; and, at last, it furnished the former of those prelates with the means of erecting that tyranny, which he so long exercised over the whole western church. The authority of the church to decree rites or ceremonies and to make such regulations in the mode of administering her discipline, as are best adapted to produce the effects for which her discipline itself was instituted, are facts which cannot indeed be questioned. When incorporated with the state, her governors may certainly be armed by the civil magistrate with civil rank and civil power; but she has no authority to depart in a single article from the faith which was once delivered to the saints, or to surrender to any man that authority which her bishops derive by succession from the apostles. The church is a kingdom not of this world; and therefore, as she derives not her inherent authority from the potentates About the sera of the council of Nice, if not at of this world, to the potentates of this world an earlier period, distinctions, unknown in the she cannot resign that authority. Wherever apostolic age, were introduced likewise among the faith is maintained in purity, and the episthe inferior clergy of the same order. When copal succession preserved, there is a true parochial churches were endowed and provi-church, or the elements of a true church: "quando," to use the words of Cyprian, "Ec- || scure pastor; for, as another ancient writer clesia in episcopo, et clero, et in omnibus stan- || observes, " potestas peccatorum remittendorum tibus, sit constituta;" and to the efficacious apostolis data est, et ecclesiis quas illi a Chrisadministration of the word and sacraments, it to missi constituerunt, et episcopis qui eis ordiis of no consequence whether the bishop of natione vicariâ successerunt." such a church be a prince, a peer, or an obEpist. 27, edit. Pamel.-33, edit. Fell. *Firmilian. inter Cyp. Epistolas, Ep. 75. edit. Pamelii et Fell. THE SECOND APPENDIX, BY DR. MACLAINE; CONCERNING THE SPIRIT AND CONDUCT OF THE FIRST REFORMERS, AND THE CHARGE OF ENTHUSIASM (i. e. FANATICISM) THAT HAS BEEN BROUGHT AGAINST THEM BY A CELEBRATED AUTHOR. ties of human nature, be duly and attentively considered. The question here is, what was the spirit which animated the first and principal reformers, who arose in times of darkness and despair to deliver oppressed kingdoms from the dominion of Rome, and upon what principles a Luther, a Zuingle, a Calvin, a Melancthon, a Bucer, &c. embarked in the ardous cause of the Reformation? This question, indeed, is not at all necessary to the defence of the Reformation, which rests upon the strong foundations of Scripture and reason, and whose excellence is absolutely independent of the virtues of those who took the lead in promoting it. Bad men may be, and often are, embarked in the best causes, as such causes afford the most specious mask to cover mercenary views, or to disguise ambitious purposes. But until the more than Jesuitical and disingenuous Philips resumed the trumpet of calumny, even the voice of popery had ceased to attack the moral characters of the leading reformers. THE candour and impartiality, with which Dr. Mosheim represents the transactions of those who were agents and instruments in bringing about the reformation, are highly laudable. He acknowledges that imprudence, passion, and even a low self-interest, mingled sometimes their rash proceedings and ignoble motives in this excellent cause; and, in the very nature of things, it could not be otherwise. It is one of the inevitable consequences of the subordination and connexions of civil society, that many improper instruments and agents are set to work in all great and important revolutions, whether of a religious or political nature. When great men appear in these revolutions, they draw after them their dependents; and the unhappy effects of a party spirit are unavoidably displayed in the best cause. The subjects follow their prince; the multitude adopt the system of their leaders, without entering into its true spirit, or being judiciously attentive to the proper methods of promoting it; and thus irregular proceedings are employed in the maintenance of the truth. Thus it happened in the These eminent men were indeed attacked important revolution that delivered a great part from another quarter, and by a much more reof Europe from the ignominious yoke of the spectable writer. The truly ingenious Mr. Roman pontiff. The sovereigns, the eccle- Hume, so justly celebrated as one of the first siastics, the men of weight, piety, and learning, favourites of the historic muse, has, in his hiswho arose to assert the rights of human nature, tory of England, and more especially in the the cause of genuine Christianity, and the ex- history of the houses of Tudor and Stuart, reercise of religious liberty, came forth into the presented the character and temper of the first field of controversy with a multitude of depen-reformers in a point of view, which undoubtdents, admirers, and friends, whose motives and conduct cannot be entirely justified. Besides, when the eyes of whole nations were opened upon the iniquitous absurdities of popery, and upon the tyranny and insolence of the Roman pontiffs, it was scarcely possible to set bounds to the indignation of an incensed and tumultuous multitude, who are naturally prone to extremes, generally pass from blind submission to lawless ferocity, and too rarely distinguish between the use and abuse of their undoubted rights. In a word, many things, which appear to us extremely irregular in the conduct and measures of some of the instruments of our happy reformation, will be entitled to a certain degree of indulgence, if the spirit of the times, the situation of the contending parties, the bar Neve, and other commendable writers who have ap barous provocations of popery, and the infirmi-peared in this controversy. edly shows, that he had not considered them with the close and impartial attention that ought always to precede personal reflections. He has laid it down as a principle, that superstition and enthusiasm are two species of religion that stand in diametrical opposition to each other; and seems to establish it as a fact, that the former is the genius of popery, and the latter the characteristic of the Reformation. Both the principle and its application must appear extremely singular; and three sorts of persons must be more especially surprised at it. In the first place, persons of a philosophical * See the various answers that were made to this biographer by the ingenious Mr. Pye, the learned Dr. |