Hence, probably, the ministers of the Asian

churches are termed angels;' or if in any case there was a plurality of pastors, the appellation must have been intended to designate the individual who took the lead.

This view of the subject has been taken both by Presbyterians and Independents, as well as Episcopalians. Certain it is,' says Campbell, 'that the very names of church-officers were borrowed from the synagogue, which had also its elders, overseers, deacons, or almoners; and amongst them one usually presided, who was called the angel of the congregation, the title given by our Lord in the Apocalypse to the presidents of christian assemblies.'. . . . . It would be necessary, for the sake of order, that one should preside, both in the offices of religion, and in their consultations for the common good. . . . Some of the most common appellations, whereby the bishop was first distinguished, bear evident traces of this origin. He was called president, chair

in Rev. ii. iii. the ministers of the Asiatic churches are called angels.'-Horne's Introduction, vol. iii. p. 247. See also Townsend's N. T. p. 165; and Prideaux, apud Ewing on church-government, p. 89.

Campbell Lect. vii.

N. B. The angel' must not be confounded with the åpxiouváywyos, or ruler, for of these there were several in one synagogue. See Horne and Townsend, ibid.

man.' He was, in the presbytery, as the speaker in the house of commons, who is not of superior order to the other members of the house, but is a commoner amongst commoners, and is only, in consequence of that station, accounted the first among those of his own rank. A letter to the congregation might very naturally be directed to him who possessed the first place, and presided among them. . . . It is likely that John, in the direction of the epistles to the seven churches, availed himself of a distinction, which had subsisted from the beginning; but as it implied no difference in order and power, was too inconsiderable to be noticed in the history." Doddridge remarks that the angels of the churches might be no more than pastors of single congregations with their proper assistants;'3 and he paraphrases the term by 'presiding minister,' and 'presiding officer.'

Episcopacy in the sense of a certain precedency among co-pastors, conceded to years, or to piety and talent, would, therefore, be admitted by those who are not Episcopalians, as a mode likely to have prevailed in the early church, though no

He was not only called poesws, but πpoedpos, president, chairman: and by periphrasis the presbyters were called δι εκ δευτέρου θρονου, they who possessed the second seat or throne, as the bishop was πрwтокaledρоs, he who possessed the first.'-Campbell, Lect. v.

divine ordinance can be found rendering any definite degree of superiority essential, and generally binding in the church. Many Episcopalians, however, would consider that the 'angel' belonged to a third, and the highest order; that he was the principal ecclesiastical overseer or bishop, by way of excellency, the overseer not only of the church, but also of its 'pastors or presbyters;" and this, by divine appointment.' But as no evidence is brought from scripture, that any official superiority among pastors was intended to be permanent in the church, further than human prudence, subject always to the general principles of Christianity, might dictate,—the attempt to render a marked and wide distinction of rank essential, may safely be pronounced inconsistent with the spirit and genius of the apostolical institution.

Further: it has been supposed that James, Timothy, and Titus, were divinely designed to be the first examples of the third order of ministers, an order, who were, in all future time, to possess functions distinct from those of ordinary pastors, and to exercise over them a certain authority and control. Were the above apostolic men, then, Diocesan Bishops? and is the admission

1 Gauntlett on the Book of Revelation, 1821. p. 18. 2 The divine and simple appointment of bishop, priest, and deacon,' etc.-Townsend's N. T., vol. ii. p. 165.

of these supposed divine precedents to be made a term of visible unity in the church of Christ?

It has never been proved, we may venture to say, that Timothy and Titus were other than evangelists, or itinerant assistants to the apostles, possessed of extraordinary and temporary functions. That this was their true description, is the conclusion of no less eminent and learned an advocate for Episcopacy than WHITBY. After stating that he can find nothing in any writer of the first three centuries, nor any intimation that they (Timothy and Titus) bore the name of bishops,' he adds, 'I assert that if by saying Timothy and Titus were Bishops, the one of Ephesus, the other of Crete, we understand that they took upon them these Churches or Dioceses, as their fixed and peculiar charge, in which they were to preside for the term of life, I believe that Timothy and Titus were not thus Bishops. For 1st. Both Timothy and Titus were evangelists, and therefore were to do the work of an evangelist. Now the work of an evangelist, saith Eusebius, was this, to lay the foundations of the faith in barbarous nations, to constitute them Pastors, and having committed to them the cultivating of these new plantations, they passed to other countries and nations. 2ndly. As for Titus, he was only left at Crete to ordain Elders in every city, and to set in order the things that were wanting; having, therefore, done that

work, he had done all that was assigned him in that station: And, therefore, St. Paul sends for him the very next year to Nicopolis. Tit. iii. 12. And so, according to Bishop Pearson's Chronology, he was left at Crete, A. D. 64, and sent from thence A.D. 65, and returned thither, as the ancients conjecture, after the death of St. Paul.'

'As for Timothy, St. Paul saith he exhorted him to abide at Ephesus, when he went into Macedonia. Now, as he writes to the Church of Philippi, A. D. 62, that he hoped to be shortly with them, so saith Bishop Pearson, he went thither A. D. 64, and wrote his first Epistle to him, A.D. 63. Two years after this, he sends for him to Rome, 2 Tim. iv. 9. 21. and there he continued, as the ancients conjecture, till the martyrdom of St. Paul. . . . Now I confess, that these two instances absolutely taken, afford us no convincing arguments for a settled Diocesan Episcopacy, because there is nothing which proves they (Timothy and Titus) did, or were to exercise these acts of government rather as Bishops than Evangelists.''

Again, supposing that James, the Lord's brother,' (cousin,) who appears to have remained at Jerusalem, was not the son of Alphæus, and therefore not one of the twelve,2-what evidence have Whitby on the New Testament, Preface to Titus.

1

So Eusebius, Jerom, Epiphanius, Chrysostom, Gregory of Nyssa, and Theodoret. This James could not