he could have no successor, being indeed temporary, and consisting in two single acts 9. Of these acts one was performed in Jerusalem, and in that city was the first Christian church gradually organized; but it was not placed under the government of St. Peter, nor was it governed by the apostles in common. We have already seen that he who presided over the church of Jerusalem, even before the dispersion of the apostles, was James, called the Lord's brother; that under him was a college of elders (we know not how many), and subordinate to them were the seven deacons. When it is said that the church of Jerusalem was not governed by the apostles in common, nothing more is meant than that James was its immediate governor, or stood in a relation to the elders, deacons and people of that church, in which the other apostles did not stand; and of this fact no man can doubt who has read without prejudice the Acts of the Apostles. That James was ready to be guided by the judgement of the apostles; that he consulted them, as long as he had an opportunity, in all the trials to which he must have been subjected; and that he occasionally enforced his own admonitions by the weight of their authority, is readily granted; but he never appears in the Acts, or is mentioned in the epistles of St. Paul, but as the chief governor of the church of Jerusalem, of which he is called by the unanimous voice of antiquity the first bishop. Here then is one church, of which the constitu tion was unquestionably not democratical; and all the other churches that we read of in the New Testament appear to have been constituted on the same. model with the church of Jerusalem. The apostles, in the discharge of the duties of their high commission, not only preached the Gospel every where, but This has been proved by bishop Horsley, in one of his published sermons, with a force of reasoning that admits no reply. See his Sermons. r." also "ordained presbyters or elders in every church and in the churches of Ephesus and Philippi', and doubtless in all the rest, they appear to have ordained deacons as well as presbyters. It has indeed been contended that the deacons were merely trustees for the poor in matters purely secular, and therefore no order of those who have long been known in every church by the denomination of the clergy; but the solemnity with which the first deacons were ordained by prayer and imposition of hands, the qualifications required of those who were to be ordained deacons in the church of Ephesus, and the universal practice of the primitive church, prove this to be a palpable mistake. To distribute the public charity has indeed been one part of the deacon's office in all ages, and in every church where a legal establishment was not made for the support of the poor; and it was that part of the office which gave rise to the order at the particular time at which it was instituted; but that the office included something more-and that the seven were, in the language of antiquity, dianovoi λογου-ministers of the word, as well as διακονοι TeαTECWV-ministers of the tables,-is evident from every thing that we read of deacons in the New Testament. It has been already observed that in the churches of Ephesus, Crete, and Asia Minor, as well as in the church of Jerusalem, there were officers of a higher order than the presbyters; and to these officers alone belonged the right to ordain the presbyters and deacons; to exhort them to the due discharge of their respective duties; to reprove them for their faults, and by consequence to degrade them from their offices, when no longer worthy of them. If Timothy and Titus had not been invested with all this authority, the admonitions of St. Paul to them would surely have been different from what we find r Acts xiv. 23. them in his three epistles. Timothy is particularly instructed in the qualifications requisite for presbyters and deacons; cautioned against laying hands suddenly on any man, lest he should be partaker of other mens sins; and directed how to receive accusations against presbyters; but, if the supreme power in the church of Ephesus had been vested in the people, or if the presbyters had shared equally with Timothy authority to ordain and reprove each other, such instructions as these to any individual would have been palpably absurd. It would likewise have been absurd to appoint Titus to ordain presbyters in every city of Crete, and after the first and second admonition to reject heretics; for, if it had belonged to the office of a presbyter to ordain, and finally to judge of heresies, the presbyter first ordained by him, might, er officio, and with the aid of the people, have either supported or resisted him in the discharge of these duties. The governors of churches, to whom the presbyters as well as people were thus subject, appear, as Dr. Mosheim acknowleges, to have been generally called, during the first century, the angels or apostles of their respective churches. Such a governor certainly was Epaphroditus, styled by St. Paul his "bro"ther, and companion in labor, and fellow-soldier; "but the apostle of the church of Philippi," and therefore to be "holden by the Philippians in reputa"tion "" Such likewise were Sosthenes and Sylvanus, whom he so frequently associates with himself as his partners, fellow-helpers and brethren; and such were those brethren whom he calls ἀπόστολοι ἐκκλησιῶν, Sóx Xgior" apostles of the churches, the glory of "Christ." Doubtless there were presbyters ordained in some places, where no men were sufficiently qualified for the government of the infant church; and the care of such churches was retained by the apostle by u Philip. ii. 25, 29. VOL. VI. G * 2 Cor. viii. 23. whom they were founded, until some persons could be found to whom the immediate inspection both of the presbyters and the people might be safely entrusted. Hence it is that St. Paul, when enumerating his labors and sufferings for the promotion of the Gospel, expressly mentions, as one of those labors which came upon him daily" the care of all "the churches which he had planted." It is however evident that each church was, as soon as possible, placed under the superintendance of an apostle or angel of its own, that the twelve, with St. Paul and Barnabas, might be as little as possible interrupted in their glorious career of converting all nations; but it does not appear that in the appointment of these angels or secondary apostles, or indeed of the presbyters, the people were, in the first century, so much as consulted. Paul and Barnabas ordained elders or presbyters in every church which they planted; but St. Paul himself assures us that the presbyters, so ordained in the church of Ephesus, "were made "overseers of the flock (not by the people but) by the "Holy Ghost, to feed the church of God, which he "hath purchased with his own blood"." He likewise informs us that God, and not the people, had set, in the church, governments and governors of different orders, of which the apostles were the first; that there were in the 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 " labor among them, and "be over them in the Lord" and that in all churches there are overseers, whom the people re bound to "obey as those who have the rule over "them, and to submit themselves as to those who "watch for their souls b❞ Who those rulers were, it is not difficult to dis y Acts xx. 28. 2 1 Thess. v. 12, 13. z 1 Cor. xii. 28, and Eph. iv. 11, 12. b Heb. xii. 17. cover. 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, labored 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 sacra ment 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 what"soever 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 |