and were a spiritual paternity, is evident: we need | able appellative used amongst the Jews, as "alderlook no further for spiritual government, because in man amongst us; but it signifies no order at all, the paternal rule all power is founded; they begat nor was ever used in Scripture to signify any disthe family by the power of the word and the life of tinct company or order of clergy and this appears the Spirit, and they fed this family, and ruled it, by not only by an induction in all the enumerations of the word of their proper ministry: they had the the offices ministerial in the New Testament, where keys of this house, the steward's ensign, and they to be a presbyter is never reckoned either as a dishad the ruler's place; "for they sat on twelve tinct office, or a distinct order; but by its being inthrones, and judged the twelve tribes of Israel." But differently communicated to all the superior clergy, of this there is no question. and all the princes of the people. 2. The second thing I intended to say, is this: that although all the superior clergy had not only one, but divers common appellatives, all being called πрεσCúrερóι and diákovou, even the apostolate itself being called a deaconship; yet it is evident, that before the common appellatives were fixed into names of propriety, they were as evidently distin And as little of another proposition; that this stewardship was to last for ever, for the power of ministering in this office and the office itself were to be perpetual: for the issues and powers of government are more necessary for the perpetuating the church, than for the first planting; and if it was necessary that the apostles should have a rod and a staff at first, it would be more necessary after-guished in their offices and powers, as they are at wards, when the family was more numerous, and this day in their names and titles. their first zeal abated, and their native simplicity perverted into arts of hypocrisy and forms of godliness, when “heresies should arise, and the love of many should wax cold." The apostles had also a power of ordination: and that the very power itself does denote, for it makes perpetuity, that could not expire in the days of the apostles; for by it they themselves propagated a succession. And Christ, having promised his Spirit to abide with his church for ever, and made his apostles the channels, the ministers and conveyances of it, that it might descend as the inheritance and eternal portion of the family; it cannot be imagined, that when the first ministers were gone, there should not others rise up in the same places, some like to the first, in the same office and ministry of the Spirit. But the thing is plain and evident in the matter of fact also: "Quod in ecclesiâ nunc geritur, hoc olim fecerunt apostoli," said St. Cyprian : "What the apostles did at first, that the church does to this day," and shall do so for ever: for when St. Paul had given to the bishop of Ephesus rules of government in this family, he commands that they should be "observed till the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ;" and, therefore, these authorities and charges are given to him and to his successors; it is the observation of St. Ambrose upon the warranty of that text, and is obvious and undeniable. C 66 To this purpose St. Paul gave to Titus, the bishop of Crete, a special commission, command, and power, to make ordinations; and in him, and in the person of Timothy, he did erect a court of judicature even over some of the clergy, who yet were called presbyters; "Against a presbyter receive not an accusation, but before two or three witnesses: "s there is the measure and the warranty of the "audientia episcopalis," "the bishops' audience court;" and when the accused were found guilty, he gives in charge to proceed to censures: EλεYXε άτотóμWs, and de Émiσтoμížεiv "You must rebuke them sharply, and you must silence them, stop their mouths," h that is St. Paul's word; that they may no more scatter their venom in the ears and hearts of the people. These bishops were commanded to set in order things that were wanting" in the churches, the same with that power of St. Paul ;— "Other things will I set in order when I come," said he to the Corinthian churches; in which there were many who were called presbyters, who nevertheless, for all that name, had not that power. To the same purpose it is plain in Scripture, that some would have been apostles that were not; such were those whom the Spirit of God notes in the Revelation; and some did "love pre-eminence" that had it not, for so did Diotrephes; and some were judges of questions, and all were not, for therefore they appealed to the apostles at Jerusalem; and St. Philip, though he was an evangelist, yet he could not give confirmation to the Samaritans whom he had baptized, but the apostles were sent for; for that was part of the power reserved to the episcopal or apostolic order. Well, then, the apostles were the first stewards; and this office dies not with them, but must for ever be succeeded in; and now begins the inquiry, Who are the successors of the apostles? for they are, they must evidently be, the stewards to feed and to rule this family. There are some that say, that all who have any portion of work in the family, all the Now from these premises, the conclusion is plain ministers of the gospel, are these stewards, and so and easy. 1. Christ left a government in his all will be rulers. The presbyters surely; for, say church, and founded it in the persons of the apostles. they, presbyter and bishop is the same thing, and 2. The apostles received this power for the perhave the same name in Scripture, and, therefore,petual use and benefit, for the comfort and edificathe office cannot be distinguished. To this I shall very briefly say two things, which will quickly clear our way through this bush of thorns. tion of the church for ever. 3. The apostles had this government; but all that were taken into the ministry, and all that were called presbyters, had it 1. That the word "presbyter" is but an honour- not. If, therefore, this government, in which there is so much disparity in the very nature, and exercise, and first original of it, must abide for ever; then so must that disparity. If the apostolate, in the first stabiliment, was this eminency of power, then it must be so; that is, it must be the same in the succession that it was in the foundation. For, after the church is founded upon its governors, we are to expect no change of government. If Christ was the author of it, then, as Christ left it, so it must abide for ever: for ever there must be the governing and the governed, the superior and the subordinate, the ordainer and the ordained, the confirmer and the confirmed. Thus far the way is straight, and the path is plain. The apostles were the stewards and the ordinary rulers of Christ's family, by virtue of the order and office apostolical; and although this be succeeded to for ever, yet no man, for his now or at any time being called a presbyter or elder, can pretend to it; for, besides his being a presbyter, he must be an apostle too; else, though he be called "in partem sollicitudinis," and may do the office of assistance and under-stewardship, yet the kupos, "the government," and rule of the family, belongs not to him. 66 But then ris apa kaì σnμepov, “who are these stewards and rulers over the household now ?" To this the answer is also certain and easy. Christ hath made the same governors to-day as heretofore; " apostles still." For though the twelve apostles are dead, yet the apostolical order is not: it is τάξις γεννητικὴ, a generative order," and begets more apostles. Now who these "minores apostoli" are, the successors of the apostles in that office apostolical and supreme regiment of souls, we are sufficiently taught in holy Scriptures; which when I have clearly shown to you, I shall pass on to some more practical considerations. : 1. Therefore, certain and known it is, that Christ appointed two sorts of ecclesiastic persons,—twelve apostles, and the seventy-two disciples; to these he gave a limited commission; to those a fulness of power; to these a temporary employment; to those a perpetual and everlasting from these two societies, founded by Christ, the whole church of God derives the two superior orders in the sacred hierarchy; and, as bishops do not claim a Divine right but by succession from the apostles, so the presbyters cannot pretend to have been instituted by Christ, but by claiming a succession to the seventy-two. And then consider the difference, compare the tables, and all the world will see the advantages of argument we have; for since the seventy-two had nothing but a mission on a temporary errand; and more than that, we hear nothing of them in Scripture; but upon the apostles Christ poured all the ecclesiastical power, and made them the ordinary ministers of that Spirit, which was to abide with the church for ever: the Divine institution of bishops, that is, of successors to the apostles, is much more clear than that Christ appointed presbyters, or successors of the seventy-two. And yet, if from hence they do not derive it, they can k Gal. i. 19. m Philip. ii. 25. 1 Cor. viii. 23. n Psal. xlv. 16. never prove their order to be of Divine institution at all, much less to be so alone. But we may see the very thing itself-the very matter of fact. St. James, the bishop of Jerusalem, is by St. Paul called an apostle: "Other apostles saw I none, save James, the Lord's brother." For there were some whom the Scriptures call "the apostles of our Lord;" that is, such which Christ made by his word immediately, or by his Spirit extraordinarily; and even into this number and title, Matthias, and St. Paul, and Barnabas, were accounted. But the church also made apostles; m and these were called by St. Paul, ἀπόστολοι ἐκκληor, "apostles of the churches;" and particularly Epaphroditus was the "apostle of the Philippians;" properly so, saith Primasius; and "what is this else but the bishop," saith Theodoret; for rouS νῦν καλουμένους ἐπισκόπους ὠνόμαζον ἀποστόλους, "those who are now called bishops, were then called apostles," saith the same father. The sense and full meaning of which argument is a perfect commentary upon that famous prophecy of the church, "Instead of thy fathers thou shalt have children, whom thou mayest make princes in all lands; that is, not only the twelve apostles, our fathers in Christ, who first begat us, were to rule Christ's family, but when they were gone, their children and successors should arise in their stead: "Et nati natorum, et qui nascentur ab illis:" their direct successors to all generations shall be "principes populi," that is, "rulers and governors of the whole catholic church."- "De prole enim ecclesiæ crevit eadem paternitas, id est, episcopi quos illa genuit, et patres appellat, et constituit in sedibus patrum," saith St. Austin: "The children of the church become fathers of the faithful; that is, the church begets bishops, and places them in the seat of fathers, the first apostles." After these plain and evident testimonies of Scripture, it will not be amiss to say, that this great affair, relying not only upon the words of institution, but on matter of fact, passed forth into a demonstration and greatest notoriety by the doctrine and practice of the whole catholic church for so St. Irenæus, who was one of the most ancient fathers of the church, and might easily make good his affirmative: "We can," says he, "reckon the men, who by the apostles were appointed bishops in churches, to be their successors unto us; leaving to them the same power and authority which they had."--Thus St. Polycarp was by the apostles made bishop of Smyrna; St. Clement, bishop of Rome, by St. Peter; "and divers others by the apostles," saith Tertullian; saying also, that the Asian bishops were consecrated by St. John. And to be short, that bishops are the successors of the apostles in the stewardship and rule of the church, is expressly taught by St. Cyprian and St. Jerome, St. Ambrose and St. Austin, by Euthymius and Pacianus, by St. Gregory and St. John Damascenus, by Clarius à Muscula and St. Sixtus, by Anacletus and St. Isidore; by the Roman council under St. Sylvester, P In Psal. xliv. • In 1 Cor. xii. a Epist. 1. Simpronianum. and the council of Carthage; and the dadoxn, or "succession" of bishops from the apostles' hands in all the churches apostolical, was as certainly known as in our chronicles we find the succession of our English kings, and one can no more be denied than the other. The conclusion from these premises I give you in the words of St. Cyprian: "Cogitent❘ diaconi, quòd apostolos, id est, episcopos, Dominus ipse elegerit:" "Let the ministers know, that apostles, that is, the bishops, were chosen by our blessed Lord himself:" and this was so evident, and so believed, that St. Austin affirms it with a "Nemo ignorat," "No man is so ignorant but he knows this, that our blessed Saviour appointed bishops over churches.": Indeed the Gnostics spake evil of this order; for they are noted by three, apostles, St. Paul, St. Peter, and St. Jude, to be "despisers of government, and to speak evil of dignities;" and what government it was they did so despise, we may understand by the words of St. Jude; they were έv T avríλoyią roũ Kopè, "in the contradiction or gainsaying of Corah," who with his company rose up against Aaron the high priest; and excepting these, who were the vilest of men, no man, within the first three hundred years after Christ, opposed episcopacy. But when Constantine received the church into his arms, he found it universally governed by bishops; and, therefore, no wise or good man professing to be a christian, that is, to believe the holy catholic church, can be content to quit the apostolical government, (that by which the whole family of God was fed, and taught, and ruled,) and beget to himself new fathers and new apostles, who, by wanting succession from the apostles of our Lord, have no ecclesiastical and derivative communion with these fountains of our Saviour. If ever Vincentius Lirinensis's rule could be used in any question, it is in this: "Quod semper, quod ubique, quod ab omnibus;" that bishops are the successors of the apostles in this stewardship, and that they did always rule the family, was taught and acknowledged "always, and every where, and by all men" that were of the church of God: and if these evidences be not sufficient to convince modest and sober persons in this question, we shall find our faith to fail in many other articles, of which we yet are very confident: for the observation of the Lord's day, the consecration of the holy eucharist by priests, the baptizing infants, the communicating of women, and the very canon of the Scripture itself, rely but upon the same probation; and, therefore, the denying of articles thus proved, is a way, I do not say, to bring in all sects and heresies,-that is but little; --but a plain path and inlet to atheism and irreligion; for by this means it will not only be impossible to agree concerning the meaning of Scripture, but the Scripture itself, and all the records of religion, will become useless, and of no efficacy or persuasion. I am entered into a sea of matter; but I will break it off abruptly, and sum up this inquiry with the words of the council of Chalcedon, which is one Quæst. V. et N. T. q. 197. r Epist. 65. ad Rogat. t Isa lx. 17. VOL. II. D of the four generals, by our laws made the measures of judging heresies: Επίσκοπον εἰς πρεσβυτέρου βαθμὸν ἀναφέρειν, ἱεροσυλία ἐστίν, "It is sacrilege to bring back a bishop to the degree and order of a presbyter." It is indeed a rifling the order, and entangling the gifts, and confounding the method of the Holy Ghost; it is a dishonouring them whom God would honour, and a robbing them of those spiritual eminences with which the Spirit of God does anoint the consecrated heads of bishops. And I shall say one thing more, which indeed is a great truth, that the diminution of episcopacy was first introduced by popery; and the popes of Rome, by communicating to abbots, and other mere priests, special graces to exercise some essential offices of episcopacy, have made this sacred order to be cheap, and apt to be invaded. But then add this: if Simon Magus was in so damnable a condition for offering to buy the gifts and powers of the apostolical order, what shall we think of them that snatch them away, and pretend to wear them, whether the apostles and their successors will or no? This is evoaodai tò ayiov Ilvevμa, "to belie the Holy Ghost;" that is the least of it: it is rapine and sacrilege, besides the heresy and schism, and the spiritual lie. the government episcopal, as it was exemplified in the synagogue, and practised by the same measures in the temple, so it was transcribed by the eternal Son of God, who translated it into a gospel ordinance: it was sanctified by the Holy Spirit, who named some of the persons, and gave to them all power and graces from above: it was subjected in the apostles first, and by them transmitted to a distinct order of ecclesiastics: it was received into all churches, consigned in the records of the Holy Scriptures, preached by the universal voice of all the christian world, delivered by notorious and uninterrupted practice, and derived to further and unquestionable issue by perpetual succession. For I have done with the hardest part of the text, by finding out the persons intrusted," the stewards of Christ's family" which though Christ only intimated in this place, yet he plainly enough manifested in others: the apostles, and their successors the bishops, are the men intrusted with this great charge; God grant they may all discharge it well. And so I pass from the officers to a consideration of the office itself, in the next words; "whom the Lord shall make ruler over his household, to give them their meat in due season." 2. The office itself is the stewardship, that is episcopacy, the office of the bishop: the name signifies an office of the ruler indefinitely, but the word was chosen, and by the church appropriated to those whom it now signifies, both because the word itself is a monition of duty, and also because the faithful were used to it in the days of Moses and the prophets. The word is in the prophecy of the church: "I will give to thee princes in peace, καὶ ἐπισκόπους ἐν dikatoσurn, and bishops in righteousness ;"t upon which place St. Jerome says, "Principes ecclesiæ vocat futuros episcopos ;"" "The Spirit of God u Hunc locum etiam citat S. Clement. Ep. ad. Cor. the governor of the church, the minister of Christ, and the priest of God." These are great titles, and yet less than what is said of them in Scripture, salt of the earth,-lights upon calls them who were to be christian bishops, | the ruler of the people, the shepherd of the flock, 'principes,' or chief rulers,"" and this was no new thing; for the chief of the priests who were set over the rest, are called bishops by all the Hellenist Jews. Thus Joel is called ἐπίσκοπος ἐπ' αὐτοὺς, | which calls them "the bishop over the priests;" and the son of a candlestick,-stars and angels,-fathers of our Bani, EлioкOTOS Aɛvirwv," the bishop and visitor faith,-ambassadors of God,-dispensers of the mysover the Levites ;" and we find at the purging of teries of God,-the apostles of the churches,—and the land from idolatry, the high priest placed έio- the glory of Christ :"--but then they are great burκόπους εἰς οἶκον Κυρίου, “ bishops over the house | dens too; for the bishop is πεπιστευμένος τὸν λαὸν of God." y Nay it was the appellative of the high | τοῦ Κυρίου, "intrusted with the Lord's people;" priest himself, ñíσкoños 'Eλɛášup, "bishop Eleazar," ," the son of Aaron the priest, to whom is committed the care of lamps, and the daily sacrifice, and the holy unction. Now this word the church retained, choosing the same name to her superior ministers, because of the likeness of the ecclesiastical government between the Old and New Testament. 66 that is a great charge, but there is a worse matter And now I hope the envy is taken off; for the For Christ made no change but what was necessary baptism was a rite among the Jews, and the Lord's supper was but the "post-conium" of the Hebrews changed into a mystery, from a type to a more real exhibition; and the Lord's Prayer was a collection of the most eminent devotions of the prophets and holy men before Christ, who prayed by the same Spirit; and the censures ecclesiastical were but an imitation of the proceedings of the Judaical tribunals; and the whole religion was buttles; it was kλpoç diakovíaç kaì úπоσтоλñe̱, “their the law of Moses drawn out of its vail into clarity and manifestation; and to conclude in order to the present affair, the government which Christ left, was the same as he found it; for what Aaron and his sons, and the Levites, were in the temple, that bishops, priests, and deacons, are in the church: it is affirmed by St. Jerome more than once; and the use he makes of it is this, "Esto subjectus pontifici tuo, et quasi animæ parentem suscipe;" "Obey your bishop, and receive him as the nursingfather of your soul." a But above all, this appellation is made honourable by being taken by our blessed Lord himself; for he is called in Scripture the "great Shepherd and Bishop of our souls." 66 But our inquiry is not after the name, but the office, and the dignity and duty of it: "Ecclesiæ gubernandæ sublimis ac Divina potestas," so St. Cyprian calls it; "A high and a Divine power from God of governing the church ;" rem magnam et pretiosam in conspectu Domini," so St. Cyril; “a great and precious thing in the sight of God ;". Twν Év ȧvůρúñоiç εvктαίwv öρor, by Isidore Pelusiot; "the utmost limit of what is desirable among men:" -but the account upon which it is so desirable, is the same also that makes it formidable. They who have tried it, and did it conscientiously, have found the burden so great, as to make them stoop with care and labour; and they who do it ignorantly or carelessly, will find it will break their bones: for the bishop's office is all that duty which can be signified by those excellent words of St. Cyprian : "He is a bishop or overseer of the brotherhood, x Neh. xi 9. y 2 Kings xi. 18. Numb. iv. 16. a Epist. 2. ad Nepot. Epistol. ad Evagrium. b Heb. xiii. 17. Acts i. 25. and, lot was to be apostles, and yet to serve and minis- 66 4 Isaiah lx. 17. h John xiii. 13. But all this is | gainsayers, and to speak wisdom amongst them that are perfect. sity of making severe accounts. nothing but the general measures; I cannot be useful or understood unless I be more particular. The particulars we shall best enumerate by recounting those great conjugations of worthy offices and actions, by which christian bishops have blessed and built up christendom; for because we must be followers of them, as they were of Christ, the recounting what they did worthily in their generations, will not only demonstrate how useful, how profitable, how necessary episcopacy is to the christian church, but it will, at the same time, teach us our duty, by what services we are to benefit the church, in what works we are to be employed, and how to give an account of our stewardship with joy. 1. The christian church was founded by bishops, not only because the apostles, who were bishops, were the first preachers of the gospel, and planters of the churches,—but because the apostolical men, whom the apostles used in planting and disseminating religion, were, by all antiquity, affirmed to have been diocesan bishops; insomuch that, as St. Epiphanius witnesses, there were, at the first disseminations of the faith of Christ, many churches, who had in them no other clergy, but a bishop and his deacons and the presbyters were brought in afterwards, as the harvest grew greater: but the bishops' names are known, they are "recorded in the book of life," and "their praise is in the gospel;" such were Timothy and Titus, Clemens and Linus, Marcus and Dionysius, Onesimus and Caius, Epaphroditus and St. James, our Lord's brother, Evodius and Simeon; all which, if there be any faith in christians that gave their lives for a testimony to the faith, and any truth in their stories; and unless we, who believe Thucydides and Plutarch, Livy and Tacitus, think that all church-story is a perpetual romance, and that all the brave men, the martyrs and the doctors of the primitive church, did conspire, as one man, to abuse all christendom for ever; I say, unless all these impossible suppositions be admitted, all these, whom I have now reckoned, were bishops fixed in several churches, and had dioceses for their charges. The consequent of this consideration is this: If bishops were those upon whose ministry Christ founded and built his church, let us consider what great wisdom is required of them that seem to be pillars: the stewards of Christ's family must be wise ; that Christ requires: and if the order be necessary to the church, wisdom cannot but be necessary to the order; for it is a shame if they, who by their office are fathers in Christ, shall by their unskilfulness be but babes themselves, understanding not the secrets of religion, the mysteries of godliness, the perfections of the evangelical law, all the advantages and disadvantages in the spiritual life. A bishop must be exercised in godliness, a man of great experience in the secret conduct of souls, not satisfied with an ordinary skill in making homilies to the people, and speaking common exhortations in ordinary cases; but ready to answer in all secret inquiries, and able to convince the Lib. iii. tit. 1. If the first bishops laid the foundation, their successors must not only preserve whatsoever is fundamental, but build up the church in a most holy faith, taking care that no heresy sap the foundation, and that no hay or rotten wood be built upon it; and above all things, that a most holy life be superstructed upon a holy and unreprovable faith. So the apostles laid the foundation, and built the walls of the church, and their successors must raise up the roof as high as heaven. For let us talk and dispute eternally, we shall never compose the controversies in religion, and establish truth upon unalterable foundations, as long as men handle the word of God deceitfully, that is, with designs and little artifices, and secular partialities; and they will for ever do so, as long as they are proud or covetous. It is not the difficulty of our questions, or the subtlety of our adversaries, that makes disputes interminable; but we shall never cure the itch of disputing, or establish unity, unless we apply ourselves to humility and contempt of riches. If we will be contending, let us contend like the olive and the vine, who shall produce best and most fruit; not like the aspen and the elm, which shall make most noise in a wind. And all other methods are a beginning at a wrong end. And as for the people, the way to make them conformable to the wise and holy rules of faith and government, is by reducing them to live good lives. When the children of Israel gave themselves to gluttony, and drunkenness, and filthy lusts, they quickly fell into abominable idolatries; and St. Paul says, "that men make shipwreck of their faith by putting away a good conscience :" for the mystery of faith is best preserved έv kalapā σvveldoet, "in a pure conscience," saith the same apostle: secure but that, and we shall quickly end our disputes, and have an obedient and conformable people; but else never. 2. As bishops were the first fathers of churches, and gave them being, so they preserve them in being; for without sacraments there is no church, or it will be starved, and die; and without bishops there can be no priests, and consequently no sacraments; and that must needs be a supreme order, from whence ordination itself proceeds. For it is evident and notorious, that in Scripture there is no record of ordination, but an apostolical hand was in it; one of the årdpes youμevo, one of the chief, one of the superior and " ruling" clergy; and it is as certain in the descending ages of the church, the bishop always had that power: it was never denied to him, and it was never imputed to presbyters: and St. Jerome himself, when, out of his anger against John, bishop of Jerusalem, he endeavoured to equal the presbyter with the bishop, though in very many places he spake otherwise, yet even then also, and in that heat, he excepted ordination, acknowledging that to be the bishop's peculiar. And, therefore, they who go about to extinguish episcopacy, do as Julian did; they destroy the presbytery, and starve the flock, and take away their shepherds, |