governors of His Church also He gave them authority to delegate the like office to others as their successors; "as my Father hath sent me, even so send I you" and He promised to be with them, and with such their successors, for with themselves personally He could not be, "always, even unto the end of the world 2"

In pursuance of this authority, the Apostles did appoint other persons to succeed them in the government of the Church. Among these, their own writings more particularly specify Timothy and Titus, and inform us of some of the powers with which they were invested for the due discharge of their high office. Thus Timothy was invested with the power of "commanding and teaching "" the whole Church of Ephesus, officers as well as private Christians: of exercising ecclesiastical jurisdiction, by providing for the due celebration of divine worship, and repressing irregularities in the publick assemblies"; by charging the ministers of the Church to teach no other than the true doctrine; by taking cognizance of accusations against elders or presbyters; by inflicting censures corresponding to the offences proved against them, as a terror to others; and by pro

viding that the diligent and meritorious should receive proportionate honour. He was also invested with the power of ordination; by committing the doctrine which he had received to faithful men, who should be able to teach others also 2; by proving or examining those, who should be desirous of becoming subordinate ministers of the Church; by laying hands on those whom he should judge properly qualified; and of course rejecting others.

Similar powers were committed in the Churches of Crete to Titus, who was authorized to "set in order the things which St. Paul had left wanting 5" and accordingly he was empowered, on the one hand, to "teach" all degrees of men within his jurisdiction ; to "exhort and rebuke with all authority;" to take cognizance of heretics, and reject from the communion of the Church such of them as did not repent on the second admonition ; and on the other hand, to ordain those whom he himself should approve, to be "elders in every city' 9" of that large and populous island.

These commissions to Timothy and Titus plainly import, that they were invested with the episcopal office, the peculiar functions of which they were thus empowered to discharge. And that they

were invested with this office is fully attested by all ecclesiastical antiquity, which continually notices them respectively as Bishops of Ephesus and Crete; recording Timothy in particular, as the first of a series of twenty-seven bishops, who had uninterruptedly presided in the former see in a continued line of succession from him, before the celebration of the great Council of Chalcedon in the middle of the fifth century.

Ecclesiastical antiquity also distinctly affirms, and clearly illustrates the fact, that authority to preside over the Church was, by the Apostles, transmitted to bishops in the several other places, where the Apostles themselves had first preached and planted the gospel.

"It is evident," as observed in the Preface to our Ordination Services, "It is evident unto all men, diligently reading the holy scripture and ancient authors, that from the Apostles' time there have been these orders of ministers in Christ's Church; bishops, priests, and deacons." This distinction of orders, and the preeminence and superiority of the first, consisting in the power of ordaining to the ministry, and of exercising ecclesiastical jurisdiction, conformably to our preceding remarks on Timothy and Titus, are unequivocally stated by authors, who lived in, as well as immediately after, the Apostolical times. By no one are they more explicitly stated than by

St. Ignatius, whose familiar acquaintance with the Apostles must have rendered him thoroughly well acquainted with their constitution of the Church: whilst St. Clement, who likewise was an apostolical man, a companion and friend of St. Peter and St. Paul, and whom St. Paul mentions with honour to the Philippians, as one of his "fellowlabourers, whose names are written in the book of life 1," describes the practice of the inspired representatives of the Lord Jesus Christ; in instituting the episcopacy, in ordaining the first members of the episcopal order, and in providing for its perpetuity by means of duly appointed successors in their office and ministry.

After this manner did the Apostles ordain bishops to the government of all the Churches, which they planted throughout the world: and these bishops were esteemed "the successors of the Apostles, representing them by a vicarious ordination," as Cyprian says, each in his own Church from the beginning: and the names are still on record, not only of Timothy in Ephesus, and Titus in Crete, but of the bishops who were constituted by the Apostles themselves, and of those who succeeded in the episcopal government, over the then most celebrated churches of Jerusalem, Antioch, Rome, and Alexandria, and many

2 Phil. iv. 8.

others of the greatest distinction; whilst in more remote and barbarous regions likewise, wheresoever "the Apostles' doctrine" was preached, "the Apostles' fellowship," in the establishment of that form of ecclesiastical polity which they instituted, was maintained; the Church, which was "founded on the Apostles," in respect of its belief, was founded on them also in respect of its discipline; and episcopacy was confined within no narrower limits than the profession of Christianity itself.

In proof of this, all the best monuments of antiquity, down from the beginning of Christianity; the judgments of the first glorious saints and martyrs of Christ; the testimonies of particular fathers of the Church; the annals of ecclesiastical historians; the concurrent doctrine and canons of the Church, both Greek and Latin, both in the east and in the west; conspire to establish the fact, of the same method of Church polity having been constantly and universally introduced and received: speaking of no form of government but by bishops; affirming, that without bishops there is no Church; proving the original of their Churches by the succession of their bishops; recounting, as Dr. Barrow says, "long catalogues and rows of bishops succeeding in this and that city; bishops contesting for the faith against pagan idolaters, and heretical corruptors of Chris