the bishop; that the people had no such authority in the church, as Dr. Mosheim supposes; and that neither the presbyters nor people, nor both united, could excommunicate any person, or cast him entirely out of the church, but by the sentence of the bishop. It does not however appear that for several centuries a bishop's diocese, or the tract of country over which his pastoral care extended, was every where divided into what we now call parishes, each with its resi dent pastor. On the contrary, this division became not general before the fifth century, and seems not to have been made in England previous to the seventh. It is indeed hardly supposable that in the first century the Christians had any buildings wholly set apart for the service of the church. During that period, the probability is that the bishop, with one or two inferior 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, thẹ oblations which had been made by their respective congregations. When the number of Christians every where increased, presbyters appear indeed, even during the æra 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

• Μηδείς χωρίς του ἐπισκόπου τὶ πρασσέτω τῶν ἀνηκόντων εις την ἑκκλησίαν......ουκ ἐξόν ἐστιν, χωρὶς τοῦ ἐπισκόπου, ὄντε βαπτίζειν, οὔτε ἀγάπην ποιειν· ἀλλ ̓ ὃ ἂν ἐκεῖνος δοκιμάση, τουτο και τῷ Θεῷ ÉvápeσTov. Ignatii Epist. ad Smyrnæos, cap. 8.

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 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 acknowleged to be the bishop. This perfect equality, however, was gradually done away; for, by the middle of the third century, it is evident that, without acknowleging any superiority of order, the bishops of every province paid a particular respect to the bishop of the chief city; and hence the origin of metropolitans and patriarchs. To this deviation from primitive practice several things contributed. In the chief city, it must have been the practice of the church, from the beginning, to place as bishop a man of approved talents, and piety, and virtue; and even when the clergy subsisted on the voluntary oblations of the faithful, the bishops of the larger cities must have been more opulent than those of the smaller; and in every age of the church-the purest as well as the most corrupt-opulence has always commanded a degree of respect, especially when in the possession of talents and virtue.

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 P" Episcopatus unus est, cujus a singulis in "solidum pars tenetur: "-and elsewhere, "Idcirco "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 cæteri, "et, quasi pastores utiles et misericordes, oves Do"minicas in gregem colligant 4." 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

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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 "met."

That this catholic unity might be preserved entire, every bishop elect was obliged, before his ordination, to make a declaration of his faith to the bishops who ordained him, and, immediately after his ordination, to send, by the hands of some confidential clergymen, circular or encyclical letters, as they were called, 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 acknowleging 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 enquiries 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 bishops been, in the modern sense of the word, parochial, and therefore as numerous as the various congregations of Christians, which assembled under separate roofs for the celebration of the mysteries of their religion, it is obvious that this salutary process could not have been carried on; the doctrines taught in distant churches must have been unknown to each other; and catholic unity could have been nothing but a Even among diocesan bishops, when all of

name.

t St. John x. 16. xvii. 20, 21.

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.

After the conversion of Constantine, the distinctions of rank which had thus been introduced among the bishops of the church, were confirmed by the council of Nice, and modeled 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 disgraced 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.

About the æra of the council of Nice, if not at an earlier period, distinctions, unknown in the apostolic age, were introduced likewise among the inferior clergy of the same order. When parochial churches were endowed and provided each with a resident pastor, it was judged expedient to give to the bishop a permanent council, which might supply the place of those presbyters who had hitherto lived with him, but were now removed to their respective cures; and from this appointment may be dated the origin of deans and chapters.

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