it is no small commendation which the Holy Ghost, by St. Paul, has left us of him, Phil. iv. 3, where the Apostle mentions him, not only as his fellowlabourer in the work of the Gospel, but as one whose name is written in the book of life; a character which, if we allow our Saviour to be the judge, far exceeds that of the highest power and dignity; and who therefore, when his disciples began to rejoice upon the account of that authority which he had bestowed upon them, insomuch that even the devils were subject unto them, (Luke x. 17.) though he seemed to allow that there was a just matter of joy in such an extraordinary power, yet bade them not to rejoice so much in this, that those spirits were subject unto them, but rather, says he, rejoice that your names are written in the book of life." This eminent Saint seems to have written his Epistle principally with a view to compose those divisions which had unhappily crept into the Church of Christ, and which had before been noticed by St. Paul. After the death of the Apostle they seem to have increased. Wherefore, St. Clement largely insists on the necessity of obedience to the regularly constituted Ministry, and on an orderly discharge of all christian duties. He shows the orders of Ministers in Christ's Church, established by the Apostles; he enforces peace, from examples out of the holy Scriptures; he observes on the value which God puts upon love and unity, and exhorts such as had been concerned in religious divisions to repent, and to return to their unity, confessing their sins unto God. We shall next offer extracts from the Epistles of St. Ignatius, who was, " upon the death of Evodius chosen by the Apostles, that were still living, to be Bishop of Antioch, the metropolis of Syria." (Archbishop Wake. Introduction, page 45.) In his several epistles to the Ephesians, the Magnesians, the Trallians, the Philadelphians, the Smyrnæans, and to St. Polycarp, he amply states the policy of an episcopal discipline in the church, and forcibly urges the necessity of religious unity. It will not escape the attentive reader of the extracts which we shall offer, that erroneous doctrine is considered the natural result of divisions. In his epistle to the Smyrnæans, having cautioned them against false doctrine, he specially exhorts them to "flee all divisions as the beginning of evil." (Page 117.) Much more to the same purpose might be produced from these epistles; but our object is not so much to show the evils arising from divisions, and prevailing among those Christians who have renounced the episcopal authority, as to demonstrate what that authority is, and ever has been, in the christian church; and how strongly it was urged, and repeatedly enforced, by the primitive professors of Christ's religion, that nothing should be done without the bishop. We have cause to believe, that what these primitive professors taught concerning the doctrine, the government, and the discipline of the church, they received, as Archbishop Wake observes, from the apostles, the apostles from Christ, and and that blessed Spirit who directed them both in what they taught and in what they ordained." (Page 5 of preface.) It may be further observed, in the language with which Archbishop Wake concludes the preface to his most useful work. "The doctrine, government, and discipline" of the primitive church, thus made known to us, "is so exactly agreable to the present doctrine, government, and discipline of the church of England, by law established, that no one who allows of the one, can reasonably make any exceptions against the other. So that we must either say, that the immediate successors of the apostles had departed from the institutions of those holy men, from whom they received their instruction, in the gospel of Christ, and by whom they were converted to the faith of it; or, if that be too unreasonable to be supposed of such excellent persons, who not only lived in some of the highest stations of the christian church, but the most of them suffered martyrdom for the sake of it, we must then conclude, what is indeed the truth, that the church of England, whereof we are members, is both in its doctrine, government, discipline, and worship, truly apostolical, and in all respects comes the nearest up to the primitive pattern of any christian church at this day in the world." In illustration of this fact, important to us as Christians and as Englishmen, we subjoin to the extracts from the apostolical fathers, the simple and very judicious explanation of the Ember days of our |