touches this point; and I need not repeat that it is the grand point in dispute. On the other hand, we have seen that Jerome, who lived and wrote a little after Eusebius, not only touches this point, but formally discusses it, and unequivocally decides, that the Bishops of Ephesus, Philippi, and Crete, in the days of Paul, were a very different kind of church officers from those Bishops.who lived in the fourth century.

But this is not all. When Eusebius gives us formal catalogues of Bishops in succession, from the Apostles' time until his own, he himself warns us against laying too much stress on his information ; frankly confessing, “ that he was obliged to rely “ much on tradition, and that he could trace no

footsteps of other historians going before him “ only in a few narratives." Another confession of the same writer, no less pertinent, I shall present in the words of the great Milton. “ Eusebius, the " ancientest writer of church history extant, con“ fesses in the 4th chapter of his 3d Book, that it

was no easy matter to tell who were those that " were left Bishops of the churches by the Apos" tles, more than what a man might gather from " the Acts of the Apostles, and the Epistles of St. “ Paul, in which number he reckons Timothy for

Bishop of Ephesus. So as may plainly appear, " that this tradition of Bishopping Timothy over

Ephesus, was but taken for granted out of that “place in St. Paul, which was only an entreating

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" him to tarry at Ephesus, to do something left “ him in charge. Now if Eusebius, a famous wri

ter, thought it so difficult to tell who were ape pointed Bishops by the Apostles, much more may we think it difficult to Leontius, an obscure Bishop, speaking beyond his own diocese; and

certainly much more hard was it for either of " them to determine what kind of Bishops these

were, if they had so little means to know who they were ; and much less reason have we to * stand to their definitive sentence, seeing they " have been so rash as to raise up such lofty Bish.

ops and Bishopricks, out of places of Scripture

merely misunderstood. Thus while we leave " the Bible to gad after these traditions of the an. “ cients, we hear the ancients themselves confess“ ing, that what knowledge they had in this point

was such as they had gathered from the Bible." Milton against Prelatical Episcopacy, p. 3.

Besides the quotations above presented, which abundantly prove that the primitive Bishop was the pastor of a single congregation, there are some facts, incidentally stated, by early writers, which serve remarkably to confirm the same truth.

The first fact is, the great number of Bishops which ecclesiastical historians inform us, were found in early periods of the church, within small districts of country. Eusebius tells us, that about the year 260, wherr Gallienus was emperor, Paul, Bishop of Antioch, began to oppose the doctrine of

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the Divinity of Christ. A Council was immediately called at Antioch, to consider and judge of Paul's heresy. Dionysius, Bishop of the church of Alexandria, being invited, came to this Council; and the historian, after mentioning six conspicuous names, adds, "It would be nowise dif "ficult to enumerate six hundred other Bishops, "who all flowed together to that place." At a conference which Augustin, and the Bishops of his Province, in Africa, had with the Donatists, about the year 410, there were present between five and six hundred Bishops. Dalmatius, the Bishop of Cyzicum, who assisted at the general Council of Ephesus, against the Nestorians, told the Emperor that there were six thousand Bishops in that Council who opposed Nestorius. Victor Uticensis, in his work De Persecutione Vandalica, informs us, that from the part of Africa in which this persecution took place, six hundred and sixty Bishops fled, besides the great number that were murdered and imprisoned, and many more who were tolerated. › And, to mention but one more instance, we are told by Archbishop Usher, and other ecclesiastical historians, that Patrick, the Apostle of Ireland, who went thither about the year 432, founded in that island 365 churches, ordained over them the same number of Bishops, and also ordained for these churches: 3000 Elders* No one who is acquainted with

the state of the church in those early times, and especially with the difficulty and infrequency of long journies, at that period, will believe, that these Bishops were any other than the pastors of single congregations. To suppose that they were diocesans, in the modern sense of the word, would be an absurdity. In the State of New-York there is but one Episcopal Bishop, and over all the ten thousand parish churches in England, there are only twenty-seven of this order. In proportion as the church, among other corruptions, receded from the scriptural doctrine of ministerial parity, in the same proportion those who were called Bishops became less and less numerous; insomuch, that at the great Council of Trent there were only about forty Bishops convened.

A second fact, which goes far towards proving that Bishops, in early times, were the ordinary pas. tors of single congregations, is that it was then customary for the flock of which the Bishop was to have the charge, to meet together for the purpose of electing him; and he was always ordained in

land, is little short of demonstration, that primitive Episcopacy was parochial and not diocesan. Here was a Bishop and a little more than eight Elders, on an average, to each congregation. He who will take the trouble to compare the number of Bishops in Ireland in Patrick's time, when perhaps not more than a tenth part of the population was Chris. tian, with the number of those who bear the same denomi. nation in that country at present, will, without hesitation, say, that primitive Episcopacy and modern Episcopacy, are essentially different.

their presence. Cyprian, in a passage quoted in a preceding page, expressly tells us, that these were standing rules, in choosing and ordaining Bishops; and Eusebius, (lib. 6. cap. 28, p. 229) in giving an account of the election of Fabianus to the office of Bishop, in Rome, confirms the statement of Cyprian. He tells us, that upon the death of Bishop Anterus, "All the people met together in the "church to choose a successor, proposing several "illustrious and eminent personages as fit for that office, whilst no one so much as thought upon Fd bianus, then present, till a dove miraculously 06 came and sat upon his head, in the same manner "as the Holy Ghost formerly descended on our "Saviour; and then all the people, guided as it

were with one Divine spirit, cried out with one "mind and soul, that Fabianus was worthy of the "Bishoprick: and so straightway taking him, they