With respect to there being Presbyters at Crete, when Titus was set over the Church in that island, we may very reasonably suppose it; yet, as the Scripture does not mention it, you are determined not to allow it; nor is it, Sir, of any consequence whether you do or not. It is proved with respect to Timothy; but if it had not been, it would make no difference with respect to his office. We have produced abundant evidence, that Timothy and Titus were the first Bishops of Ephesus and Crete, and that they had their successors; and from the epistles it appears, that after they had ordained Elders, they were to govern them, and all orders in their respective Churches. This is the point we wish to establish, and I think it is completely established. Your other objections shall be considered in my next letter.

REV. SIR:

LETTER X.

I SHALL now resume my answers to your objections. Previously, I would observe, that there is nothing more easy than to start difficulties with respect to the best authenticated facts, and the most universally received opinions. There is not a single principle of religion, whether natural or revealed, to which plausible objections may not be made; nor is there any fact around which ingenuity may not spread a mist. It is unnecessary for me to give a detail of the instances of this kind: Nay, Sir, you yourself are a proof of what ingenuity can do in this sort of management. I have given sufficient evidence of the correctness of this assertion. I have shown, that what you very positively call facts, have not the least pretension to that character; and that what you object to the evidence of episcopacy, in the second and third centuries, is mere cavil and evasion. You give us another proof of this in the quotation which follows. You say, 'Admitting, for the sake of argument, that there were Presbyters ordained and residing both at Ephesus and Crete, previous to the respective missions of Timothy and Titus, still no advantage to the episcopal cause can be derived from this concession. We learn from the epistles directed to those Evangelists, that divisions and difficulties existed in both the Churches to which they were sent. Among the Christians at Ephesus there had crept in ravenous wolves, who annoyed and wasted the flock; and also some who had turned aside unto vain jangling, desiring to become teachers of the law without understanding what they said, or whereof they affirmed.' And nearly the same account is given of the Church of Crete; from which you think it a probable inference, that the Presbyters themselves were involved in the disputes and animosities which

prevailed; and that it was, therefore, necessary to send special missionaries to set in order the affairs of those Churches.' Now, if the necessity of sending missionaries arose from the Presby ters being involved in the contentions, (which, however, is altogether supposition,) you pay presbyterian government but a very poor compliment; for it seems, according to your account of the matter, that such a mode of government is by no means adequate to the exigences of the Church. This was your friend Jerome's opinion, and it appears that you have at length discovered his meaning, and made it your own. Well, Sir, I have no objection.

Further: It seems, when there were Presbyteries completely organized in those Churches, that the Apostle sent persons invested with superior powers to curb the unruly Presbyters, to reclaim the wandering among them, 'to repress the ambition of those who wished to become teachers, or to thrust themselves into the ministry, without being duly qualified; to select and ordain others of more worthy character; and, in general, to set in order the affairs of those Churches.' If all this does not prove the superiority of those special missionaries over the Presbyteries of the Churches of Ephesus and Crete, it is hard to say what does.

But these are not the only difficulties in which your theory involves you. By your hypothesis, presbyterian government is of divine institution. Yet it seems, very shortly after the Apostles, under the influence of divine inspiration, had established that government, it became totally inadequate to the purposes for which it was instituted. If this be not a severe censure upon the wisdom of inspired Apostles, I do not know what is.

Still further: Timothy and Titus, if we may believe the unanimous testimony of the ancients, had successors in the authority which they exercised in the Churches of Ephesus and Crete. Then the authority which they exercised over the presbyteries of their respective Churches was conveyed to others; and consequently episcopacy is an apostolic institution.

It is a very natural reflection from all this, that when men leave the plain path of truth, palpable error and inextricable difficulties are the inevitable consequence.

Your fifth remark, which, you say, 'invalidates the argument under consideration,' is the following: 'We know not that either Timothy or Titus alone ordained a single Presbyter, at Ephesus or Crete.' Is it possible that this should have come from your pen? You tell us, that there is no evidence that there were Presbyters at Ephesus or Crete; and yet that Timothy and Titus were sent upon an ordaining tour. In the name of common sense, how could they have had any Presbyters to assist them, when, if you are right, there were none at Ephesus or Crete? A man, when he deals much in surmises, ought to have, at least, a good memory; otherwise, the probability is that he will run himself into gross and palpable inconsistencies.

You go on: The whole force of the Episcopal argument depends upon taking for granted, that each of those missionaries was, alone, vested with the whole ordaining and governing power, in the diocese supposed to be assigned him." Now, I leave it to every impartial reader, whether, if, as you suppose, there were no Presbyters at Ephesus and Crete, when Timothy and Titus went to their respective charges; and when the Scriptures do not give us the slightest hint, that they took any with them; whether, I say, we have not a right to conclude, that they were the sole ordainers, and whether you have any right to surmise that they took Presbyters with them; and particularly, as the epistles, in all the directions relating to ordinations, say not one syllable about Presbyters having a right to ordain? If groundless surmises are to be set in opposition to the evidence, both from Scripture and antiquity, that Timothy and Titus presided over the Churches of Ephesus and Crete with episcopal powers, it is perfectly idle to dispute upon the subject. Facts are just what men please to fancy such, and surmise is proof when it suits the reader.

Your seventh remark, relating to the journeys of Timothy and Titus, which, as you imagine, disqualified them from being Bishops, has, I flatter myself, been completely answered in the preceding letter.

Your final remark upon the case of Timothy and Titus, has in it something specious; but it is totally destitute of solidity.

The substance of the remark is, that if Timothy and Titus were diocesan Bishops, then the Apostles sustained a still higher office; and, consequently, there are four orders in the Church instead of three. You had previously reasoned in the same manner in page 92.

A few words will show the fallacy of this. The Bishops of our Church consecrate A. B. a Bishop for the state of Georgia. After his departure for his diocese, sensible of the many difficulties he will have to contend with, they jointly address an epistle to him, in which they give him advice on every point that may occur-charge him in a solemn manner to lay hands suddenly on no man-to receive no accusation against an Elder but before two or three witnesses—to reject a man that is a heretic after the first and second admonition to take heed to himself and to his doctrine, and a number of other injunctions; would all this prove that they were of a different order from the newly consecrated Bishop? Certainly not.

Besides, let it be remembered, that the Apostles, in delivering to the world the mind of CHRIST, and in regulating every thing essential either to the being, or well being of the Church, were directed by the HOLY GHOST; and then it will be evident, from the very nature of the case, that Bishops, as well as Presbyters, were to be instructed by them; but this did not make the Apostles of a superior order to Bishops. It is different orders of the ministry that we are speaking of, and, with these, inspiration

had no necessary connexion. Laymen were inspired as well as the Apostles. St. Luke has delivered to us the mind of CHRIST; but yet, so far as we know, he never was admitted into any clerical order. Bishops, as well as Presbyters, Deacons, and Laymen, were obliged to receive his Gospel as of divine inspiration; but that gave that Evangelist no authority over the clergy. The circumstance, then, of Bishops being obliged to submit to the instructions and directions of the Apostles, was of an extraordinary nature, springing out of the state of things, and, therefore, ceasing with that state.

But the case was quite different with respect to the Apostles' jurisdiction and authority over Presbyters. It was a strict and proper jurisdiction, founded not simply in the inspiration of the Apostles as with respect to the Bishops, but in their superior sacerdotal character. The whole power of the ministry was lodged with the Apostles: this plenitude of clerical power was communicated to the Bishops, but not to the Presbyters. This plenitude of power made the Bishops equal with the Apostles in their ordinary, permanent authority, and superior to the Presbyters; inasmuch, as but a part of that power was communicated to them. This was the foundation of the authority which the Apostles exercised over the Presbyters; but with respect to the Bishops, it had no existence. The Bishops were inferior to the Apostles, not in point of clerical order, but in respect to miraculous powers; the Presbyters (at least many of them) were inferior in both respects.

By this simple distinction, manifest enough in the Scriptures, particularly in the epistles to Timothy and Titus, to whom—Í flatter myself it has been fully proved-this plenitude of apostolic sacerdotal power was communicated by St. Paul, and also from the whole current of the primitive writers as they have been exhibited in the preceding letters; by this simple distinction, I say, your specious dilemma proves perfectly harmless.

It is really, Sir, wasting time to make a reply to so many frivolous surmises, when the question between us is a simple matter of fact, to be determined by Scripture and the primitive writers. The sole question is, whether the Apostle's communicated that plenitude of sacerdotal power which they received from CHRIST, to the Presbyters; or restricted them to a portion of it; communicating the whole of it to those, who, from the close of the apostolic age, have been styled Bishops. No evidence has yet appeared that they communicated the whole of it to Presbyters; but, on the contrary, I think that the most complete evidence has been exhibited, that Bishops were the depositaries of that plenitude of power; and that, consequently, they are an order superior to Presbyters. If this be the case, a thousand surmises and conjectures are not of the least weight; but if that has not been fully proved from the primitive writers and the Scripture, you need not amuse your readers with suppositions; the fact must be evident, either the one way or the other, from what has been exhibited, either by you or by me,

The sum of what has been said upon the cases of Timothy and Titus, is this:-It has been proved, that they were sent to Ephesus and Crete to ordain Presbyters and Deacons, and to govern those officers as well as the laity, in all spiritual matters; that those officers, from the powers of ordaining and governing, were necessarily superior to Presbyters; that Timothy and Titus were the stationary Bishops of their respective Churches; the former having never been absent that we know of, but on a short visit to St. Paul before his martyrdom, and the latter absent no longer than on a visit to the Apostle at Nicopolis and at Rome: but if Timothy and Titus had made but a short stay at Ephesus and Crete; yet, exercising the powers which they did in those Churches, they were Bishops at large. But what proves to a certainty that they were fixed Bishops, as much so, at least, as the exigencies of the Church in that day would admit, is the circumstance of their having successors in the very same authority which they exercised at Ephesus and Crete; and for the proof of this, numerous testimonies have been adduced from the fathers. It has also been shown, that it was not as Evangelists they acted at Ephesus and Crete; for an Evangelist was one who carried good news of salvation to the Heathen; but the people of Ephesus and Crete had been converted in great numbers to the faith of CHRIST, before the appointment of Timothy and Titus. The result of the whole then is, that these officers were Bishops in the appropriate, ecclesiastical sense of the word.

Before I conclude this part of the discussion, I shall make a few observations upon your quotation from Dr. Whitby. You say, this commentator, "notwithstanding all his zeal for episcopacy, speaks on the subject in this manner. 'The great controversy concerning this, [the epistle to Titus,] and the epistle to Timothy, is, whether Timothy and Titus were indeed made Bishops, the one of Ephesus, and the proconsular Asia; the other of Crete. Now, of this matter, I confess I can find nothing in any writer of the first three centuries, nor any intimation that they bore that name.' And afterwards he adds, generally concerning the whole argument-'I confess that these two instances, absolutely taken, afford us no convincing arguments in favour of a settled diocesan episcopacy, because there is nothing which proves they did, or were to exercise these acts of government rather as Bishops than as Evangelists." But why, Sir, did you not give us the whole of Whitby's words? After he had said, "I can find nothing in any writer of the first three centuries, nor any intimation that they bore that name"-the name of Bishop; why did you not add the following words, "But this defect is abundantly supplied by the concurrent suffrage of the fourth and fifth centuries?" He then gives us a number of testimonies from writers of those ages; and which I have already given in

a Letter III. p. 97,