pleasure, sweetly drink in his own death. Wherefore, guard yourselves against such persons, and that you will do if you are not puffed up; but continue inseparable from Jesus Christ our God, and from your Bishop, and from the commands of the Apostles. He that is within the Altar is pure, but he that is without, that is, he that does any thing without the Bishop and Presbyters, and Deacons, is not pure in his conscience." In his Epistle to the Magnesians, speaking of those who reject the Bishop and become schismatics, he says, "I can never think that such as these have a good conscience, seeing they are not gathered together thoroughly according to God's commandment." He was, it seems, no very good friend of those who are accustomed to talk so fluently about their "weak consciences," and their "tender consciences;" he tells them, that if their own conscience lead them to commit the sin of schism, however tender it may pretendedly be, it is not "a good conscience." In his Epistle to the Ephesians, he cautions them against the soul-destroying sin of schism, or Dissent, in these words “ μηδεὶς πλανάσθω· ἐὰν μή τις ἢ καὶ κ. τ. λ.” Let no man deceive himself; if a man be not within the ALTAR, (that is within the pale of the Church) he is deprived of the bread of God; (because no man has or can administer that bread but the duly authorised Bishop, or one appointed by him,) for if the prayer of one or two be of such force, how much more powerful shall that of the Bishop and the whole Church be? He, therefore, that does not come together into the same place (with the Church) is proud, and has already condemned himself. For it is written, “God resisteth the proud; let us take heed, therefore, that we do not set ourselves against the Bishop, that we may be the servants of God:" evidently implying that if we do "set ourselves against the Bishop," who may by the Providence of God be placed over us, we cannot be the servants of God. I could add numerous other quotations, not only from Ignatius, but also from his contemporaries, Clement, who is so honourably mentioned by St. Paul, in the fourth chapter of his Epistle to the Philippians, and Polycarp, who was the disciple of the Apostle John, by whom he was ordained Bishop of Smyrna. But as those produced are a fair specimen of what might be added, and contain not only the sentiments of Ignatius regarding Episcopacy, but also those of Clement, Polycarp, and of all the Fathers of the first and purest age of the Christian Church, they cannot but be considered amply sufficient, and indeed more than sufficient, by every disinterested and unprejudiced Christian. For when we consider that this holy Saint was himself Bishop of the Church at Antioch nearly forty years, with many Priests and Deacons under him, and that he was intimately acquainted with the Apostles, particularly with the Apostle John, whose disciple he was, and who died only about ten years before him; and that he consequently was well acquainted with their doctrine and manner of proceeding in every particular, as it regarded the government of the Church, his testimony must be considered decisive. The man, indeed, who shall endeavour to invalidate such testimony, and to prove that Episcopacy, or the government of the Church by Bishops, in the sense in which we now understand the terms, was not instituted and established by the Apostles, and exercised and submitted to by the Christian Church in its first times, and in every succeeding age, may with equal propriety and show of argument, attempt to deny that Jesus Christ himself ever appeared on earth. I now pass on to Ireneus, who flourished shortly after Ignatius, and who was first Priest and afterwards Bishop of Lyons, in France.* He says, "We are able to number up those who by the Apostles were The ingenious reader will be struck with the crafty devices by which modern Dissenters attempt to prop up their system. A Mr. William Jones has published a History of the Church, in which he has Dissenterised, as far as he durst, the Primitive Churches of Christ, and their transactions. But as truth is so very powerful, she has sometimes got the imade Bishops in their several Churches, and their successors to this time.' "Polycarp was not only instructed by the Apostles, and acquainted with many of those who saw our Lord, but was also by the Apostles made Bishop of the Church of Smyrna, in Asia, whom I also saw when I was young."* Tertullian, who lived about the same time, writing against certain Heretics, who presumptuously pretended that they had derived their notions from the Apostles, says, """Let them, therefore, show the origin of their Church, let them exhibit the order of their Bishops so succeeding each other from the beginning, that the first Bishop had for his author and predecessor, some one of the Apostles, or of those Apostolical men who persevered mastery of this Dissenter, and made him contradict himself in HIS History, which would have been more properly styled-"A vain and unsuccessful attempt to discover the existence of Congregational Independency, at any time, or in any place, during the first fifteen hundred years of the Christian era. This Mr. Jones is a Baptist, and as the Baptist Teachers are generally called "PASTORS," he has, in speaking of the Bishops of the earliest Churches, denominated them "PASTORS." Hence we read in the book of 1gnatius, one of the PASTORS of the Church at Antioch-of Simeon, who succeeded the Apostle James as PASTOR of the CHURCH at Jerusalem ;-of Quadratus, PASTOR of the Church at Athens;-of Polycarp, PASTOR of the Church at Smyrna; of Melito, PASTOR of the Church at Sardis;-of Pothinus and Irenæus, PASTORS of the Church at Lyons, &c. &c. The good man had very probably an idea that some, if not most of his readers, would very naturally conceive that the word PASTOR, when applied to such as Ignatius, Polycarp, &c. meant the very same as it does when applied to the Teachers of their own Conventicles.-See Vol. I. p. 234, 236, 241, 243, 246, &c. In reference to the word "Priest," also Dissenters continually insist that it means a "sacriticer," and insinuate that it is used in that sense by the Church of England; whereas every body who has the least knowledge of Greek knows perfectly well, that the word neither is nor can be derived from " LEGEUS," sacerdos, or a sacrificer; but that it is derived from the Greek word " πρεσβύτερος, Presbyter, Prester, Preste, Priest, or Elder, and that it is never used by the Church to signify the second order of the Ministry, and never in the sense of a sacrificer. And if Dissenters have not Greek enough to know what the word is derived from, nor what its meaning is when applied to a Minister of the Church of England, surely they might be contented after having been so repeatedly told. The fact, however, is-" a keen hatred" of the Church must be kept up, by some means or other, to keep Dissent on its legs; and consequently Dissenters are obliged to pick up any thing they can to serve their PIOUS purpose, and to satisfy their "tender consciences." And if they were not to resort to such petty, childish trifling, which can only excite the pity of sensible people, they would have just nothing at all to cavil about, and to furnish fuel for their "keen hatred and round abuse of the Church."-See Vol. 1. p. 234, 236, 241, 243, 246, &c. Lib. 3, cap. 3. with the Apostles; for in this manner Apostolical Churches assert their rights; thus the Church of Smyrna has Polycarp, who was placed there by John; the Church of Rome has Clement, who was ordained by Peter; and other Churches show other persons, who by being placed in the Bishoprics by the Apostles, transmitted the Apostolic seed."* He also says, upon another occasion" When your Captains, that is to say, the Deacons, Presbyters, and Bishops, fly, who shall teach the laity that they must be constant."† Again, speaking of Baptism, he says, "The High Priest, who is the Bishop, has the chief right of administering it, then the Presbyters and Deacons, but not without the authority of the Bishop." Optatus, another Christian Father writes-" To what purpose should I mention Deacons, who are in the third, or Presbyters, in the second degree of Priesthood, when the very heads and Princes of all, even certain of the Bishops themselves, were content to redeem life with the loss of heaven."§ In the tenth canon of the Council of Sardis, which was held in the year 347, is the following passage:-"Every degree of holy orders requires a considerable length of time wherein the faith of the ordained persons, his morals, his firmness, and his moderation, may be known; for it is not proper, nor is it consistent with the necessary knowledge and good conversation, that a person should be rashly and lightly appointed a Bishop, or Priest, or Deacon." To these positive authorities, which might be greatly increased, both by earlier and later writers of the Christian Church, it may be added, that Episcopal power was not once called in question in the first three centuries. And it is only a wonder, or rather a striking evidence of the wickedness of these latter times, that any man can be found so unreasonable as to imagine that a few interested and ambitious men, living nearly eighteen hundred years after the Blessed Apostles, are * De Præsc. adv. Hær., &c. See Bishop Tomline on 23rd Art. Lib. 1. better able to judge as to the form of Church Govern ment instituted and practised by the Apostles, than those holy and disinterested Saints who lived in the very days of the Apostles, conversed with them, and were themselves ordained by them, and hesitated not to shed their blood in defence of the truth. You can not deny, Sir, with any show of argument, that the existence of the three distinct orders of Bishops, Priests, and Deacons, and the superiority of Bishops in the Government of the Church, were not once called in question till towards the end of the fourth century, when an ambitious Monk, named Aerius, a Presbyter, or Priest, and an Arian, mortified at being disappointed of the Bishopric of Sebastia, in Pontus, immediately wrote against Episcopacy, contending that Presbyters were equal to Bishops, determined as he could not raise himself to the dignity of a Bishop, to bring that dignity to a level with his own. He was, notwithstanding, forced to acknowledge that Bishops had existed as a distinct order, and as the Governors of the Church, from the very days of the Apostles to his own times; and, for centuries after, his singular opinions met with not a single advocate. "It seems, therefore, as clear as written testimony can make it, that Bishops were appointed by the Apostles, that there were three distinct orders of Ministers, namely, Bishops, Priests, and Deacons in the Primitive Church, and that there has been a regular succession of Bishops from the Apostolic age to the present time, and we may safely challenge the enemies of Episcopacy to produce evidence of the existence of a single ancient Independent (not also Congregational) Church which was not governed by a Bishop."* You know well, Sir, that it is absolutely impossible for you to mention a single Church whose government was not Episcopal before the days of Calvin. And even that great man himself honestly allowed that no * Vide Bishop Tomline on 2ôrd Art. |