yet I do not despair of convincing every candid mind, that wherever the Gospel has been permanently established, such is the only legitimate and safe course, and that no departure from it is justifiable, except in case of clear and urgent necessity.

In the scanty memorials left us in Scripture of the origin of the first churches, we are not indeed expressly told, that none preached the word but ministers ordained by the hands of the Apostles. In that of Rome we know that Christ was preached in the Jewish synagogues, and that considerable progress had been made in converting Gentiles, before any Apostle appeared among them; and although it is probable that many of these preachers obtained their commission from the Apostles at Jerusalem when they attended the annual festivals there, yet it should seem that no regular system of church discipline had yet been established in that city. St. Paul's Epistle to the Romans implies all this. He does not even address it, as he does many others, to the bishops and elders, and rulers of the Church, but to all the saints. He expresses a strong desire to impart to them some spiritual gifts, and we know that when he arrived in the neighbourhood of Rome, he was met and welcomed by a large number of brethren, at whose presence he took courage.

It should seem then that the exact model of church government was not yet prescribed, and that much was left to Apostolical authority there as in other places, to be regulated according to the condi

tion and circumstances of each particular church. The same may be collected from incidental passages in the Epistles to the Corinthians', and Galatians 2. We do not yet recognize that precise form of hierarchy, which soon became universal throughout Christendom; but what is much more satisfactory to a candid inquirer, we find submission to spiritual authority always enjoined, and the plenary right of an Apostle to regulate the Church firmly asserted, and steadily maintained.

Now, as this course corresponds with the origin of all communities and societies that have arisen among men, whose constitution, after they have arrived at maturity, is always traced up to certain principles once existing in a ruder form, and modified according to the change of circumstances and the exigency of the case, it is, I say, satisfactory to observe, that the history of the Christian Church is marked with the same character.

It would have excited just suspicion if we had been told, that the whole machinery by which a large and growing community was to be governed, had been applied from the beginning to its first elementary assemblages, and if men had been scrupulously forbidden to disseminate the truth, except under the same commission and the same titles, which were soon found expedient, in proportion as the multitude of disciples became more and more

numerous,

12 Cor. xvi. 21.

2

Chap. vi. 1.

B

The order of Deacons was in fact, we know, created in this very manner. It grew out of the necessity which increased numbers imposed; and after this example, the Presbyters and Bishops, with other inferior officers, were appointed by the direction or with the approval of an Apostle, and adapted to the respective wants of each society.

Organized, then, as the several churches evidently were, in this gradual and progressive order, yet constantly assuming the same character, as soon as ever their condition could be said to admit of it, and to require it, (whether in Asia, or Greece, or Italy, or in the more remote provinces,) the conclusion seems to be irresistible to an unprejudiced mind, that this form of government is the only one which ever received the sanction of an Apostle; and that if the form had been at all accounted a matter of indifference, some examples must have arisen, varying in the nature or title of their ministers from the rest. The very instances given in several of the Epistles, of a disorderly and factious spirit in many of the infant churches, and their occasional resistance to Apostolic rule, afford the strongest moral evidence that such would have been the issue, if any diversity had been thought consistent with the Divine command; and the total absence of such varieties is reconcileable only with the notion, that all the Apostles acted upon the same principle, and all followed the same pattern; that this pattern was regarded as a fundamental rule, agreeable to the injunctions left them

by our Lord himself, and that no society of Christians was recognized as a genuine church which departed from it 1.

If, indeed, the Gospel were a thing not of practice, but of theory, addressed to the understanding only; if its doctrines and ordinances were presented to us merely as matters of curious and subtle disputation; a demand might perhaps be made for documents and direct proofs bearing upon this point. We might be perplexed with questions as to the precise definition of Bishop, of Presbyter, of Deacon, even of Apostle itself; for all these were words in common use, long before the appropriation of them to the offices of the Church 2. But the great truths of religion are not to be thus handled: we look to the spirit, not to the letter of the law. That these titles were soon appropriated in the sense they now bear, through all the Churches of the Apostolic age, is an unquestionable fact. Away then with the frivolous cavil, or, rather, let us answer it after the example set us by our Divine Master, when a disciple thought to evade the spirit of his Commandment, saying, “And who is my neighbour?" The large and liberal construction put by our Lord upon this word is a standing commentary

"That which is held by the universal Church," says Augustin, "and, without having been ordained by any Council, hath been always retained in the Church, is most truly believed to have been delivered by no other than apostolical authority."See Russell's Consecration Sermon. Note E.

2 See Appendix A.

6

upon all similar objections. They proceed not from a sincere love of truth, but from a spirit of contention and doubtful disputation.' To an honest and ingenuous mind, the argument that is gathered from a wide survey of facts, all conspiring to the same conclusion, is more instructive and satisfactory than the most rigid technical definition. From undeniable evidence we know, that for 1500 years the Apostolic ordinance of Priest and Deacon, under a common head or superintendent called their Bishop, was the standing rule of the Church; that none but heretics departed from this rule; that none even doubted of its Divine authority. And if ever a captious question deserved to be cut short with the rebuke, "Go and do thou likewise," it surely is that which pretends to invalidate a practice so introduced into the Church, and so long continued without dispute or interruption, by the frivolous enquiry, ‘And who is theBishop1?'

But while we contend for this order as essential to the constitution and to the well-being of the Church, let us ever bear in mind, that it is a means only, subservient to a greater end; that the more tenacious we of the Priesthood are of our just privilege, and unwilling that any should usurp it uncalled, the more awful is the responsibility we voluntarily incur. When we hinder others from entering in, how grievous is the offence if we use not the key of knowledge ourselves! if we preach not to the world around us

1 See Appendix A.