THE

SECTION VI.

SAME ARGUMENT CONTINUED PRESBYTERS

AND

BISHOPS THE SAME; PROVED FROM THE PUREST CHRISTIAN ANTIQUITY.

We are now coming upon ground of NO ESSENTIAL importance to our cause. DIVINE RIGHT can ONLY be proved by DIVINE AUTHORITY; the fathers are mere human authority: they never expected to be received in any other light. Indeed no church, not even the Church of Rome, ever confined itself to the authority of the fathers any further than they found that authority favour their schemes and designs. Let any man read even Bishop Taylor's Liberty of Prophesying, sections 5-8, and he will be abundantly satisfied on this point. A short extract or two from him may suffice. "No CHURCH at this day admits the one-half of those things, which certainly by the fathers were called traditions apostolical," sec. 5. "And, therefore, it is not HONEST for either side to press the authority of the fathers, as a CONCLUDING argument in matters of dispute, unless themselves will be content to submit in all things to the testimony of an equal number of them, which I am certain neither side will do," sec. 8. One of the greatest of the fathers, St. Augustine, shall state this point, of the authority of fathers, councils, &c. To the Donatists he says, "You are accustomed to object against us the letters of Cyprian, the judgment of Cyprian, the council held under Cyprian. Now, who knows not that the holy and canonical Scripture is confined solely to the Old and New Testament; and in this it is distinguished from the writings of all succeeding bishops, that no doubt nor dispute whatever is to be had about the sacred Scriptures, as to the truth and right of any thing contained in the same: but the letters of bishops, written after the confirmation of the sacred canon, may be reprehended or corrected, if in any thing they deviate from the truth, by the wiser writings of ANY ONE having in this matter more knowledge than they, or by the weightier authority and deeper prudence of other bishops or councils. And even councils themselves, held

in particular regions or provinces, yield, without question, to the authority of fuller councils, collected from the whole Christian world; and these fuller councils are often corrected by succeeding ones, when experience has brought something to the light which was before hid, and something which escaped has become known; and all this may, and ought to be done, without any sacrilegious presumption, any inflated arrogance, and with Christian charity.' This is worthy of St. Augustine. The Scriptures are alone divine authority; all human writings and councils are fallible: their regulations are merely prudential. This the reformers maintained: this is the true principle of

PROTESTANTISM.

However, we shall see whether the boasting of these writers, as to the authority of the fathers, in favour of their scheme, is not vain also. The best writers on this subject mostly confine the purest Christian antiquity to the FIRST THREE CENTURIES. Now I challenge any man to produce clear evidence of high Church episcopacy from the fathers of this period.

There is one very natural mistake into which the advocates of this opinion have fallen. It is this, that whenever bishops are mentioned distinctly from presbyters, in ancient writers, they immediately suppose their point is proved. I say this, to them, is rather a natural mistake; for such men are so accustomed to use the terms bishops and presbyters, in their own times, for what they receive as, by DIVINE RIGHT, two distinct ORDERS, that they easily fall into the persuasion that the ancient writers meant the same as they mean. Bingham has quoted, though for a different purpose, a good observation from Cardinal Bona : They deserve very ill of the sacred rites of the church, and of their venerable antiquity, who measure all ancient customs by the practice of the present times, and judge of the primitive discipline only by the rule and customs of the age they live in; being deceived by a false persuasion, that the practice of the church never differed in any point from the customs which they learned from their forefathers and teachers, and which they have been inured to from their tender years: whereas we retain MANY WORDS in common

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* Contra Donatistas, lib. ii, c. 3, pp. 32, 33, vol. vii, fol. ed., Lugduni, 1664.

with the ancient FATHERS, but in a sense AS DIFFERENT from THEIRS as our times are REMOTE from the FIRST AGES after Christ."* Hence it is necessary to take care that we neither deceive ourselves, nor others, by a misapplication of words. Mr. Sinclair (p. 21) has a strange rule of criticism in these matters. Having translated the word nyovuevo, in St. Clement, by "supreme rulers," he justifies his translation by saying, that in "LATER times it is among the ordinary designations of a bishop." A very convenient way this of making the fathers say what we say. To prevent mistakes in words, it will be proper to fix the meaning of the terms ordo, gradus, &c., order and degree, as used by the fathers.

1. Order, and gradus or degree, then, are by the fathers used PROMISCUOUSLY. "It is evident," says Bishop Taylor, "that in antiquity, ordo and gradus (order and degree) were used promiscuously.", Bingham says, "St. Jerome, who will be allowed to speak the sense of the ancients, makes no difference in these words, ordo, gradus, officium,” (order, degree, and office.†)

So

2. By these words—order, degree, and office—the fathers only meant distinct classes of persons, without implying any DIVINE authority for the arrangement. It is not denied by these divines that there were OTHER classes of persons in the primitive church besides bishops and presbyters; THESE CLASSES are also called ORDERS, offices, or degrees, by the ancients. So, for instance, among clerical ordinations, "ordinationibus CLERICIS," Cyprian mentions his ordaining Aurelius to the DEGREE, "gradus," of a READER." of Celerinus as to the same office ;§-of Optatus to that of SUBDEACON."|| And Cornelius, bishop of Rome, in the third century, mentions "subdeacons, clerks, exorcists, readers, and janitors." Jerome, who, Bingham grants, will give us the sense of the ancients, mentions “QUINQUE ecclesiæ ORDINES, episcopi, presbyteri, diaconi, fideles, catecumeni; the FIVE ORDERS of the church, bishops, presbyters, DEACONS, the faithful, and catechumens.”** And there

* Bingham's Works, vol. i, Pref., p. 2, folio, London, 1726. † Book 2, chap. i, p. 17.

Ep. 34, p. 58.

Euseb. E. H. L. 6, c. 43.

Epistola 33, ed. Pamel.

|| Ep. 24.

** Hieronymi Op., vol. v, fol. 41, ed. 1516: Basil.

is a long treatise in Jerome's Works, distinctly treating upon SEVEN ORDERS, "the fossarius, the doorkeeper, the reader, the subdeacon, the deacon, the priest or presbyter, and the bishop." He calls the fossarius the first degree or order, and the bishop the seventh; and everywhere uses order and degree as synonymous. Here, then, if the term order means a distinct superiority by divine right, there is divine right for the gravediggers, doorkeepers, readers, and subdeacons. If it does NOT imply divine right in four or five instances out of the seven, by what logic will it be made to signify divine right for the order of bishops as distinct from presbyters? And this very writer, whether Jerome or not, says, that "the ordination of clergymen, the consecration of virgins, the dedication of altars or churches, and the preparation of the chrism, were reserved to the bishop SOLELY for the purpose of giving him authority or honour, lest the discipline of the church, being separated among many, divisions should arise between the ministers, and should produce general scandal." And he goes on to show that presbyters are, by divine right, the SAME as bishops, and have from God power to perform ALL the duties of the church; yea, that in a presbyter is the HIGHEST POINT, and the WHOLE of the ministry-" Ergo in presbytero SUMMAM SACERDOTII collocari."* He advises, however, to submit to the arrangement, made for the honour of the bishop and the concord of the church, only it be used with humility, and not with pride.

Among the canons and decrees of the British and AngloSaxon churches, are found the canons of Elfric to Bishop Wulfin. Howell thinks they were both bishops. Fox, the martyrologist, says, "that Elfric is supposed by Capgrave, and William of Malmsbury, to have been archbishop of Canterbury about 996; and Wulfsinus, or Wulfin, to have been bishop of Scyrburne or Sherborn. Elfric's two Epistles, in the Saxon canons and constitutions, were given by Wulfstane, bishop of Worcester, as a great jewel to the church of Worcester." In the tenth canon, Elfric numbers seven degrees, or orders, as follows:—“ 1, ostiarius or doorkeeper; 2, reader; 3, exorcist; 4, acolyth; 5, subdeacon; 6, deacon; 7, presbyter." These are all the *Vol. ii, fol. 54.

+ Fox's Acts and Monuments, vol. ii, p. 376, fol. ed. Lond., 1684.

orders he mentions in the church. He does not mention the bishops as either degree or order. But under the order of presbyter he says, "There is no more difference between the mass-presbyter and the bishop than this, that the bishop is appointed to confer ordinations, and to see to the execution of the laws of God; which, if every presbyter should do it, would be committed to too many. Воти, indeed, are ONE and the SAME ORDER, although the part of the bishop is the more honourable. Ambo siquidem UNUM EUNDEMQUE tenent ORDINEM quamvis sit dignior illa pars episcopi."*

These passages sufficiently prove, and more might be produced, that the ancients, by the terms order, degree, or office, only meant certain classifications of persons in the church, without intending to imply any DIVINE AUTHORITY or law for these arrangements. The use of these words alone, then, as applied to any distinction, in their day, between bishops and presbyters, will never prove more than a human or ecclesiastical custom or arrangement. Nay, even the VERY FACT OF THIS PROMISCUOUS USE of these terms proves that the ancients really had not the opinion that that distinction between bishop and presbyters was by divine right, and that it was such as our high Church divines maintain; but, on the contrary, that it was by ecclesiastical authority alone. The supposition is absurd, that they should hold the same views as our divines, and yet, though the matter was constantly before them, should NEVER say so. They mention the fact of the distinction repeatedly, especially in the second and following centuries, BUT NEVER THE DIVINE RIGHT of bishops as an order with powers incompatible with presbyters.

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In order to understand the fathers aright, as to this arrangement of bishops and presbyters, Jerome shall, first, according to Bingham, 'give us THE SENSE of the ANCIENTS. In his note on Titus, chap. i, he speaks at large and unequivocally, as follows:-" Presbyters and bishops," says he, " were FORMERLY the SAME. And before the devil incited men to make divisions in religion, and one was led to say, 'I am of Paul, and I of Apollos,' churches were GOVERNED by the COMMON COUNCIL of the PRESBYTERS. But afterward, when every one in baptizing rather made * Canones, &c., a Laur. Howel, A. M., pp. 66, 67, fol. Londini, 1708.