power, to whose researches I am deeply indebted, has beautifully developed the relation of the early Christian societies to the Jewish polity, and has shown that an absolute Church-organisation, while the ancient system yet remained, was not only unnecessary but would have been unnatural, perhaps impossible. The subject is one far too extensive for any attempt at its development here; but it may simply be observed that the Jewish ecclesiastical system was not abolished by our Lord or his apostles; that these in their preaching addressed the Jews as brethren already under the covenant of God, and exhorted them collectively, rather to a development of their own spiritual relation to God as children of Abraham, and within the scope of the original promise to that patriarch, than to the adoption of a new one; that they do not announce in their addresses even their own official capacity, but, appear as witnesses to facts; that the organisation of the synagogue might have proved quite compatible with the purposes of the Church, as indeed it was imitated in the first Christian societies; and lastly, that it is easy to perceive what additional jealousies and obstructions they would have encountered, if they had publicly preached to the Jews a rival polity together with a new doctrine.

52. The apostles themselves appear to have fulfilled originally the entire functions of the ministry with relation both to spiritual and also to the accessory temporal affairs. When these began to press too heavily, they appointed deacons to replace and relieve them. We do not yet, be it observed, hear of any pres

byterate; but the college of apostles remained at Jerusalem, and they went forth thence from time to time, as occasion might serve (Acts viii. 14; ix. 32). In the course of time we find bodies of elders established, as in Jerusalem (Acts ix. 30; xv. 4, 16, 23), and in Ephesus (Acts xx. 17); and permanent provision for their continuance in the Epistles to Timothy and Titus. We do not yet find the episcopate, properly so called. The presbyterate preceded the episcopate, as the diaconate preceded the presbyterate. But when the further multiplication of the Churches was such that the apostles could no longer personally discharge the functions even of government in them all, then we find them beginning to establish persons, as Timothy and Titus, who should discharge these functions too in their stead, in this manner preparing gradually, as the exigencies arose, for the continuance of their own essential powers, after their personal removal from the earth to their reward.

53. Thus the three orders were originally enveloped together in the persons of the apostles, and they shed, as it were, each in succession, according to the gradual pressure of their labours in the Gospel; so that the one last in rank was first in time; and the one first in rank, and on which the others hang, last in time. And

it

may be noticed as a collateral advantage attending this natural genesis of the Christian ministry, that by means of it men were trained under the eye of the apostles (Timothy, Titus, Clement, Ignatius, Polycarp) to exercise the function of supreme government

in the Church, instead of being appointed to it without previous experience, as would have been the case if the order had been reversed.

54. Nothing, I may add, can be more contrary to reason than to complain because Scripture does not convey to us a full account of the establishment of the order of bishops. And this not simply because the notices which it does furnish are entirely analogous to the general character of the New Testament in its historical bearings, which is not systematic, but occasional; but further and more especially, because to expect from Scripture a full account of the establishment of an order, whose function it was to replace the apostles, is to anticipate what is absolutely precluded by the nature of the case, inasmuch as Scripture only records what took place during the lifetime of the apostles, mentioning the death of one alone,* and in no other case carrying down the account of their proceedings to the conclusion of their ministry or life.t

55. Of those who rely upon the very superficial notion that Christ did not institute any determinate form of government in His Church, let it be asked

*Acts xii. 2.

See a remarkable passage in a note to Rothe's "Anfange der Christlichen Kirche," § 48, vol. 1. p. 506. He there says it is difficult to conceive why Catholic writers should have been at pains to discover actual bishops, in the determinate sense of the term, in the historical records of the New Testament, inasmuch as it was totally unnecessary, from their accurate view of the episcopate, to their argument. For if the episcopate be a real continuance of the apostolate, how should we find it existing while the apostles themselves held the reins of ecclesiastical administration? And to this effect he quotes Gabler, both, like himself, a non-episcopal, and, I believe, even an anti-episcopal writer.

that they should inquire of themselves what in truth is meant by this allegation; and whether it can with justice import more than this, that He did not give any abstract and theoretical statement of the form of government appointed in the Church any full verbal expression of its conditions. But this, which may be granted to be true, is very far indeed from determining the proposition that no such form was appointed. Let us look back to the Jewish dispensation. I apprehend no one will dispute, that a form of government was then Divinely instituted. And yet even there we should scarcely find any abstract scheme of an ecclesiastical constitution. We find what is quite sufficient-the appointment of certain persons to certain functions, with power to transmit their offices. And this is as much the establishment of a form of government, although the form itself be unwritten, as if the form had been written. Just so in the New Testament our Lord appointed certain persons to certain functions, with the same power of transmission. The persons were the apostles, the functions comprised the government of the Church in general, as well as the temporary endowments of inspiration and of miraculous gifts. The power of transmission is ascertained by the fact of transmission.

56. *Now the record of the circumstances is in such

Compare the following passage from William Law:-"Is it needful for the Scriptures to tell us that, if we take our Bible from any false copy, it is not the Word of God? Why then need they tell us that, if we are ordained by usurping false pretenders to ordination, not de

R

His Church, and

a case equivalent to any statement of principles, however formal and precise. The rights of civil sovereignty and of hereditary succession may be, and often have been, conveyed from generation to generation under an established yet unwritten constitution. But even such an illustration is very inadequate; because succession by derivation is not necessarily implied in such a case. In the case of the Church it has been contended that the fact of such succession is historically established; and the argument now raised is, that a fact of this nature is equivalent to the most definite and exclusive statement. The Redeemer had the absolute right of sovereignty in no one could have it but from Him. Now it is surely quite immaterial whether the powers of government were derived under a written document, as they are in some civil constitutions, or by command orally conveyed. In the former sense, the statement of the form of Church government was needless; in the latter, it has been given. Nothing can be more definite than the commissions imparted to the apostles. Nothing can be more exclusive; it would have been riving their authority to that end from the apostles, we are no priests? Does not the thing itself speak as plain in one case as in the other? The Scriptures are only of use to us as they are the Word of God; we cannot have this Word of God, which was written so many years ago, unless we receive it from authentic copies and manuscripts. The clergy have their commission from the Holy Ghost; the power of conferring this commission of the Holy Ghost was left with the apostles; therefore the present clergy cannot have the same commission, or call, but from an order of men who have successively conveyed this power from the apostles to the present time."-Law's Second Letter to Hoadly, p. 31.