Holy Spirit, by whom the Apostles were directed, and whose office it was to teach them all things necessary to the well-being of the Christian Church, would not lead them into error in one case more than in the other.

What that form of government was, we shall be at no loss to determine, if we are disposed to enquire fairly into the subject. Indeed, the constitution of the Christian Church, as established by the Apostles, may be considered to be sufficiently notorious from their writings, to render particular proof on the subject unnecessary.

But did the conclusion upon this matter stand upon less firm ground than it really does, or were the language of Scripture in this case less clear than it is, the practice of the primitive Church furnishes such a comment upon it as must, we should think, determine the judgment of every unprejudiced man.

It is a known axiom, that every law is best explained by the subsequent practice. Let this maxim be applied in the present case.

"Be ye followers of me, (says St. Paul, in his directions to the Church at Corinth) even as I also am of Christ. Now I pray you, brethren, that you remember me in all things, and keep the ordinances as I have delivered them to you."* To every careful reader of the New Testament, it will evidently appear, that the Apostles were the followers of Christ in the administration of his kingdom on earth; no act of power being done by our Lord in the flesh, which was not, at least

in some degree, exercised by the Apostles after his ascension. Their prescribing rules and ordinances for the Church, and enforcing them by suitable punishments; their judging and condemning transgressors, and their pardoning and absolving penitents; their ordaining ministers, and superintending the discharge of their ministerial duty; together with the obedience and attendance paid to the Apostles by the inferior ministers; are circumstances which prove, that the government of the infant Church was in their hands; and that it was managed by them on the plan now distinguished by the word Episcopal. From Apostolical authority descending to Catholic practice, which (as Bishop Taylor* has observed) "is the next basis of the power and order of Episcopacy," we are as well assured as we can be of any historical fact whatever, that Timothy, Titus, Ignatius, Polycarp, Clemens Romanus, and others, the immediate disciples of the Apostles, did exercise the Episcopal office, for substance the same as it is now exercised, in that branch of the ChristFrom ian Church established in this country. which circumstance we feel ourselves warranted in concluding, that such was the government originally settled in the church; because it is not to be supposed, that those who lived with the Apostles, who exercised the office they had received in the Church by virtue of their appointment, and in some measure under their superintendence, could deviate from the plan laid down by the Apostles, whom they considered as acting under the imme"Of the Sacred Order of Episcopacy," sect. 22.

diate direction of the Holy Spirit. For if it can be supposed that the immediate disciples of the Apostles did not know the minds of their teachers, or that their practice was not strictly conformable to it; or "if it is imaginable that the whole world should, immediately after the death of the Apostles, conspire together to seek themselves, and not the things that are of Jesus Christ, to erect a government of their own desiring, not ordained by Christ, not delivered by his Apostles; and to relinquish a divine foundation, and the Apostolical superstructure; which, if it was at all, was a part of our Master's will;' "* we may suppose and imagine any thing; and there is no ground left upon which any conclusive reasoning on this subject can be built.

But "what need we," said a judicious writer, who had paid particular attention to this subject, and whose writings have been frequently referred to as a standard of judgment in Church matters; "what need we," said he, "to seek for proofs, that the Apostles, who began their order of regiment by bishops, did it not but by Divine instinct; when, without such direction, things of far less weight and moment they attempted not? Paul and Barnabas did not open their mouths unto the Gentiles, till the Spirit had said, 'Separate me Paul and Barnabas for the work whereunto I have sent them.'t The eunuch, by Philip, was neither baptized nor instructed before the angel of God was sent to give him notice that it so pleased the

Taylor, "Of the sacred Order and Office of Episcopacy,"

section 22.

+ Acts xiii. 2.

Most High. In Asia, Paul and the rest were silent, because the Spirit forbad them to speak, When they intended to have seen, Bythinia, they stayed their journey, the Spirit not giving them leave to go. Before Timothy was employed in those Episcopal affairs of the Church, about which the Apostle Paul used him, the Holy Ghost gave special charge for his ordination; and prophetical intelligence, more than once, what success the same would have. And shall we think, that James was made bishop of Jerusalem, Evodius bishop, of the Church of Antioch, the angels in the Churches of Asia bishops; that bishops every where were appointed to take away factious contentions and schisms; without some like divine instigation and direction of the Holy Ghost? Wherefore let us not fear to be herein bold and peremptory; that if any thing in the Church's regiment, surely the first institution of bishops was from heaven, was even of God, the Holy Ghost was the author of it." If we say, then, that in every Church that was planted, the offices of bishop, priest, and deacon, answering to those of high-priest, priest, and Levite, under the law, were to be found; we shall say no more than the history of the primitive Church will warrant. It being certain that the economy of the Christian Church corresponded as nearly to that of her elder sister, the Jewish Church, as the different nature of their respective services would permit. Indeed, from the parallel subsisting between the law and the Gospel, the one being considered as the type or figure of the other,

Hooker's Ecc. Pol. book vii.

it was no "uncommon thing for the primitive fathers, in speaking of the government of the Christian Chur Church, to argue from the distinctive offices in the Levitical priesthood, to a similar distinction in the Christian. "Christ and his Apostles, (says the learned Hickes) who were the reformers of the Jewish economy into the Christian Church, did build with many of the old materials, and conformed their new house, as much as they could, after the platform of the old. This will appear from baptism itself, which was a ceremony by which proselytes, both men, women, and children, were initiated into the Jewish Church; which ceremony our Saviour consecrated in the place of that of circumcision, to be the sacrament of initiation into his Church, and a seal of the righteousness of faith. So, likewise, the other sacrament of the Lord's Supper was certainly of Jewish original, as hath been showed by many learned men;t and the correspondence of the bishops, presbyters, and deacons, to the high-priest, priests, and Levites, doth show that the subordination of the Christian hierarchy is taken from the Jewish Church; as St. Jerome observes, in his epistle to Evagrius, "what the high-priest, priests, and Levites were in the temple, that the bishops, presbyters, and deacons are in

Selden de jure, 1. ii. c. 2; de Synedr. l. i. c. 3. Lightfoot Hora Hebraica, p. 42. Hammond on Matth. iii. 1.

Altingius de Proselytis.

Mede, 1 book, disc. 51, 6, 11.

Jacob

Grot. Opusc. tom. iii. p.

510. Cudworth on the Lord's Supper. Thorndike, c. 10, Dr. Taylor's "Great Exemplar," p. 1; Discourse of Baptism.