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have been endeavouring to establish, viz., that the "poβύτεροι ” and “ ἐπίσκοποι,” of whom mention is made in the 1st chapter of St. Paul's epistle to Titus, and in the 14th chapter of the Acts, were not bishops, but priests,—the primitive governors of the churches first established, and the possessors of extensive and probably of parochial powers.

There are reasons for believing that the priests of the primitive church were not curates holding a temporary jurisdiction at the will of the bishop. From examining the mode of their ordination and the position they occupied, we must incline to the opinion that their authority resembled that of parish priests. In the first place, they were ordained by the apostles or by their immediate representatives, by Paul or Barnabas, or Timothy or Titus. Then there is not a word said of their dependence upon the bishop; they were placed over towns, with their adjacent country districts at a distance from the apostle who ordained them. If they had been simple curates, we might expect to hear of a general ordination of them in some town or city, and of their subsequent location at the will of the ordinary; but no, the instructions of St. Paul are, "to ordain priests in every city, as I also appointed thee." The tenor of the words would lead us to think that they were fixed and immovable, and permanently attached to the congregations over which they were placed. There was another class of priests in the episcopal towns towards the end of the first century, who appear to have been dependent entirely upon the bishops; but for the priests of the remote towns and villages, there is no evidence to prove that they were bishops-vicars, or curates.

§. 4. Jurisdiction of Bishops.-We will take it for granted, that the primitive churches founded by the apostles were presided over immediately by priests. They were, in all probability, a series of quasi-parishes spread over the countries where the three continents meet each

1 Epistle to Titus i. 3.

with its town or city in the centre, to which the Christians resident in the adjacent country flocked to partake of the sacraments, and to be present at public worship on the first day of the week.

We want to ask a most important question touching these parishes or quasi-parishes-that is, what was their position in the universal church? They were not a series of independent ecclesiastical governments, such as in the civil order were the free towns or the petty principalities of Germany before the French revolution. We want to know what was their dependence upon each other, or upon a governing power outside themselves? What were the bonds which bound them into one community, and rendered them dependent members of that mystic body to which St. Paul so often refers, of which the Saviour himself is the head?

If we glance over the Acts of the Apostles, especially those chapters in which allusion is made to the journeys of St. Paul, or if we read attentively the epistles of the apostle of the Gentiles, we cannot fail to be struck by the extraordinary care bestowed upon the early converts, and the laborious assiduity with which all their spiritual wants were supplied. When converts were made, and a church assembled in a town, it was not abandoned to the care of the "presbyter" placed over it, so as to be withdrawn from apostolic inspection. The apostles visited it again and again; it was the object of their fostering care. They kept near them, and took about with them on their journeys a number of young men selected from the different congregations, whom they sent about from city to city, or despatched with messages from church to church. Such were Sosthenes, Luke, Apollo, and many others.

They did not lose sight of the Christian congregation. They governed it from a distance sometimes, and anon they inspected it personally, and its presbyter and faithful were dependent upon them alike, and obliged to receive their commands and be subject to their authority.

The primary bond of union in the Christian Church was the plenitude of jurisdiction resident in its founders. The

source of the union of its parts was the foundation on which it was built- "Built upon the foundation of the apostles." There were, however, within the wide circle of apostolic influence and authority, other combining influences, links and chains which bound together certain numbers of parochial churches, and made them radiate about particular centres of authority before they fell into the common revolution. There were steps in ecclesiastical government. The apostles were the heads of the Church. There were under them those whom we now properly designate by the name "Bishops." Between them and the parochial churches which they founded, there were soon to be seen, though not at the beginning, men few in number at first but possessed of extraordinary powers, to whom, with certain reservations, the plenitude of apostolic authority was communicated.

How soon, or at what precise period the apostles ordained the first bishops of the Church,-those who were to govern conjointly with them, and to transmit their authority to succeeding ages, we cannot with accuracy determine. Timothy and Titus were certainly bishopsthe former in Asia Minor, the latter in the island of Crete, about the year sixty-six of the Christian era. This much is apparent from the epistles directed to them by St. Paul.

They were at first the companions of the apostle. They were not ordained bishops until they had travelled some years with the apostle, and laboured much, and until they were well acquainted with the position of Christianity and the circumstances of the Christian congregations.

There is frequent mention of them both in the epistles of St. Paul. Their missions and occupations are referred to, but there is not a single passage which could lead us to think that they were bishops,—placed over certain districts and churches, before the middle of the first century. The erection of their episcopal sees, was not coeval with the appointment of the first presbyters of the churches of Asia; and yet Titus and Timothy appear to have been the first bishops of Crete and Asia Minor, outside the apostolic

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college. Timothy, for example, was not known to St. Paul until the period of his second journey through the churches of Asia; 1 whereas, he with Barnabas had ordained priests in every church, at the time of their first preaching there.?

I remarked before, that in a church essentially one and uniform, it is not too much to suppose that the system of ecclesiastical polity established by the apostles was the same in all parts of the world. The mode of ecclesiastical dependence and government was not different in Africa, in Syria, and in Eastern Europe. We may then assume without danger of error, that the erection of sees, and transmission of the episcopacy in Asia Minor, are a fair illustration of the same events in the different countries in which Christianity was first diffused.

Now what was the system in Asia Minor? From the 14th of the Acts of the Apostles, we have the fact that parishes, or at least churches, presided over by priests, were constituted in Asia Minor, by Paul and Barnabas, about the year of the Christian era 43. The first bishop appointed to govern these churches, outside the college of the apostles, was Timothy, the beloved disciple of St. Paul. If there was a bishop in Asia Minor before Timothy's ordination, it is probable we would have some record of the fact in the writings of the New Testament.

Timothy was bishop in Ephesus, the capital of Lesser Asia, about the year 65. He was stationed in Ephesus. His jurisdiction appears to have extended over all the churches of the country. His powers with respect to the ordination of priests and the promotion of the clergy generally, were very extensive; and we have no mention of a second bishop, contemporary with him, outside the apostolic body enjoying or dividing with him the jurisdiction of the Asiatic churches.

Lesser Asia was originally one bishopric. There were seven bishoprics in Asia Minor, when St. John wrote the Apocalypse; that is to say, sometime after the year 90. The seven angels of the churches referred to in the

2nd and 3rd chapters of that inspired book, were no others than the seven bishops of the cities associated with their names. From the style and tenor in which they are addressed, they are evidently the superiors and governors of their respective churches. They are responsible for the existence of scandals. It is for them to eradicate heresies. They are the pastors of their respective flocks; and yet it is quite clear from the Sacred Scriptures that they were not the only clergy of the superior orders in the cities that they governed. Ephesus, for instance, had several επισκοποι οι πρεσβύτεροι as we learn from the Acts of the Apostles. It had a body of presbyters, but one "Angel;" several clergy, who were appointed by the Holy Ghost to govern the flock, but one only who was the responsible representative of the entire church.

Smyrna, too, had its body of clergy, but only one angel, presiding over priests and people. But could this angel of the church of Ephesus or Smyrna have been a simple priest, but enjoying parochial jurisdiction? No! For St. Ignatius designates him by an entirely different name from the others. He was, properly, the ETIOкоTос, the others were simply TрEσBUTEрol. If he was not a bishop, it would follow that there was no bishop in Asia Minor; for certainly the admonitions in the Apocalypse are addressed to the heads of the churches of Asia Minor. If they were not bishops, there were no bishops there; which in the hypothesis of ordination, in which we consider the question, no one will venture to affirm. The seven churches of Asia Minor mentioned in the Apocalypse, were therefore episcopal churches.

As the churches increased in extent and number, it became absolutely necessary to multiply the episcopal authority numerically. There were seven centres of unity in the year 93, on which depended the parish churches surrounding them respectively. If it be asked who remodelled the ecclesiastical face of the country, we answer the authority which erected the see of Ephesus,-apostolic authority; for St. John was still living," the light of the churches of the east." As time goes on, we find the