"until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ" at the day of judgment; but, as the apostle knew that Timothy would not live till that day, the charge must have been intended to apply to Timothy's successors, who might bear the same

office to the end of time.

9. St. Paul, after charging Timothy to preach the Word, and to make full proof of his ministry, adds this reason, ، For I am now ready to be offered, and the time of my departure is at hand," 2 Tim. iv. 6; which plainly intimates that the government of the Ephesian Church would ere long devolve permanently on Timothy, who was therefore to exercise such authority, and to take such order for its transmission, as the apostle had done before. It implies that Timothy was to succeed not only to the government of the church, but to the same power of delegating it which St. Paul himself possessed.

On a dispassionate review of what has been advanced, it is impossible to come to any other conclusion than that an imparity consisting of three gradations in the ministry, analogous to those which are ecclesiastically called bishops, priests, and deacons, was a divine institution ; and that this institution was designed to be perpetuated by a continual succession in the Christian church. To this conclusion additional strength will be given by a consideration of their distinctive and appropriate duties; to which, therefore, our attention must now be directed.

V. A distinction of officers necessarily infers a distinction of offices; and, as office implies power, where there are distinct offices there must be distinct powers. powers. In respect to their spiritual character, there are duties which, being inherent to the pastoral office, may be performed by all ministers in common; and in respect to the second order, that of presbyters, little difference of opinion exists among the various denominations of Christian societies. It will, therefore, only be necessary to state briefly those which are appropriate and peculiar to bishops and deacons. Those belonging to the former are government, confirmation, and ordination.

1. That to the office of the highest order of church ministers belongs the control and superintendency over the other orders of ministers, and over the general affairs of the church, is included in the nature and notion of episcopacy; and of course the arguments which prove its divine and apostolical origin go equally to prove that bishops are invested with this power and presidentship; so that further illustration on this head would be superfluous.

2. Confirmation, the next office peculiar to bishops, has always been reckoned by the church, from the earliest ages, as a sacred and apostolical institution, and it is founded upon the express authority of Scripture. When Philip, the deacon and evangelist, had converted and baptized the Samaritans, "the apostles

which were at Jerusalem sent unto them Peter and John, who, when they were come down, prayed for them that they might receive the Holy Ghost; for as yet he was fallen upon none of them, only they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. Then laid they their hands on them, and they received the Holy Ghost," Acts viii. 14-17. Again, after the disciples of Ephesus had been baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, Paul "laid his hands upon them, and the Holy Ghost came on them," ch. xix. 1-6. From these passages we learn two things; first, that even in the apostles' times a new solemnity and ministration besides baptism was required; otherwise Peter and John would not have been sent from Jerusalem to impose hands on the baptized converts at Samaria, nor would Paul have laid his hands on those at Ephesus; and, secondly, that this office was strictly appropriated to the apostles. Ananias, it is true, who was not an apostle, put his hands on St. Paul; but this was by the special command of Christ, Acts ix. 17. In ordinary cases, however, it was a rite, as these examples prove, to be administered only by men of the apostolic order.

The ceremony performed by the apostles was confessedly in part for the conveyance of the extraordinary gifts of the Spirit, which were temporary, and have long since ceased; but the function itself may be designed for perpetuity.

The preaching of the apostles was attended by extraordinary conversions of the people, yet the office is not now to cease, because it is no longer attended with miraculous effects. But the limitation "in part" is above added, because it is unreasonable to suppose that it was wholly for the communication of extraordinary gifts. It cannot be imagined that the apostles would send two of their own body to bestow promiscuously upon the whole multitude of Samaritan converts the power of working miracles. The ceremony must surely have been intended partly for the conveyance of ordinary grace; and assuredly, notwithstanding a miraculous efficacy at the first institution of a rite, it may have something in it fitted for ordinary and perpetual use.

That it was not to expire with the apostles appears also from the promise of the Spirit being extended "to as many as the Lord shall call," Acts ii. 39. The fulfilment of this promise must be either by an extraordinary way, or by an ordinary ministry. Not certainly by the former, for the gift of miracles has long ceased. It must consequently be by the second; and hence there must always be an ordinary office with apostolic power in the church, by whose instrumentality the promised grace of the Spirit is to be communicated; and if so, the mode of communicating it will hardly be denied to be by that imposition of hands which the apostles used for the conveyance of the Holy Ghost. That it

was not a temporary institution is also manifested by its being placed among the essential principles of Christianity: "Leaving the principles of the doctrine of Christ, let us go on unto perfection; not laying again the foundation of repentance from dead works, and of faith towards God, of the doctrine of baptisms, and of laying on of hands, and of the resurrection of the dead, and of eternal judgment," Heb. vi. 1, 2. Imposition of hands is here reckoned one of the first principles and fundamental doctrines of Christ's religion; for it is ranked among such primary truths as the resurrection of the dead, and eternal judgment; and its being placed immediately after baptism shows that the apostle is speaking of the laying on of hands in confirmation, which constantly followed baptism.

Confirmation, then, so far from being a temporary rite, is to be administered by the successors of the apostles to the end of the world. The design of it, as the preceding observations evince, is to be the means of conferring grace by the prayers and imposition of the bishop's hands upon those who have already by baptism been made members of Christ. It is the ordinary channel by which grace and ability are derived to act according to our baptismal professions and engagements. It cannot without the guilt of incredulity be denied, that it is the established order of God's providential government of mankind to confer his spiritual blessings through