are they. Human testimony on church officers ought to be discharged, and the determination be by scripture only. And here we shall find no distinction between bishop and presbyter, and no mention of archbishops, archdeacons, deans, chancellors, and the modern host of officials; but simply bishops and deacons.

I have already shewn that Timothy and Titus were evangelists, i. e. not fixed to one place, but travelling with the apostles, from one country to another, to plant churches. The account of their travels may be sketched from the Acts of the Apostles, and from the epistles of St. Paul. The apostles could no more part with their power of governing than they could with their apostleship. Had they set up bishops in all churches, they had no more parted with their power of governing than in setting up presbyters; presbyters being called rulers, governors, and bishops. Nor could the apostle be reasonably supposed to commit the government of the church of Ephesus to the presbyters, when he was taking his last farewell of them, and yet reserve the power of governing in ordinary to himself. It would be very unaccountable if there had been two sorts of bishops,—one over presbyters, and the other over the flock,-that there should be no mention, no mark or trace of difference, no distinct method of ordination by which they might be distinguished throughout the whole compass of the New Testament.

To assert, then, that the scriptures assign any particular work or duty to a bishop that is not common to a presbyter, is to affirm without evidence. There is, indeed, a succession in the work of teaching and governing; but none in commission or office by which the apostles performed them. A succession may be in the same work, but there is not to the commission; nor can any such scripture be produced to warrant the division of the office of teaching and governing to two persons it is solely an interested invention of men to obtain the power to themselves.

Let my countrymen remember that to add to the religion of Christ is sinful, and to enforce observance or respect to these additions by penalties, is to exercise a forbidden jurisdiction in the church. It is our duty, therefore, to make a bold and vigorous stand against all usurpation and arbitrary power; and he who is as tenacious of his religious, as he is of his civil liberty, will oppose both with equal spirit and equal firmness.

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CHAP. VIII.

THE UNINTERRUPTED SUCCESSION OF THE CLERGY REFUTED,

SINCE all the most idle and visionary pretences of the Roman and English high clergy have their ends, and their danger, and therefore should be narrowly watched and vigorously opposed, I shall inquire into the validity of a principal claim of their's; I mean that of uninterrupted succession. We will endeavour to find whether there is any foundation to support this corner-stone of their authority except in their own imaginations.

A man might reasonably imagine that a doctrine of so much importance to the temporal and eternal state of all mankind, should be expressly laid down, and fully explained in the holy Scriptures, to prevent all possibility of mistake about it. But instead of this, the thing, as far as I remember, is not once mentioned there, nor any thing equivalent to it; so that we are under a necessity of recurring to the clergy themselves for information. And here, too, we are as much bewildered as

before, for some of them boldly assert it, and others flatly deny it.

Besides, those who hate and damn one another, claim it equally to themselves, and deny it to all others. Those who are successors to the apostles in England, disown their brother successors beyond the Tweed and about the Lake; and they theirs at Greece and Armenia, as well as every where else. Now, all these who so confidently assume the successorship to themselves alone, are as opposite to each other in sentiments and worship as light is to darkness. They cannot, therefore, all have it; and if only one has it, how shall we know who he is? No man's testimony ought to be taken in his own case; and if we take that of other people, there are twenty to one against them all.

If the clergy of the church of England, as by law established, be, of all the reformed, supposed to enjoy this line of entail entire to themselves, pray how came they by it? Not from the Reformation, which began not till near fifteen centuries after the apostles were dead; and Cranmer owned ordination then to be no more than a civil appointment to an ecclesiastical office. It is certain, that at that time, this Utopian succession was not so much as thought of by any who embraced the Protestant religion. At present, indeed, and for a good while past, the high clergy contend for it with equal modesty and truth. But in order to adopt it, they are forced to pass over the Reformation.

This same succession is now deduced from Rome, and the pope has had the keeping of it, who is held, by all who adhere to the Reformation, to be Antichrist and the man of sin. This pope has frequently been an Atheist, often an adulterer, often a murderer, always an usurper, and his church has constantly lived in gross idolatry, and subsisted by ignorance, frauds, rapine, cruelty, and all the blackest vices. It is certain she was full of wickedness and abomination, and void of all goodness and virtue, but that of having kept the apostolic orders pure and undefiled for our modern high churchmen. However, I think they themselves appear to be sensible that it will be a difficult matter to make out, in this way', their kindred to the apostles, without being nearer akin to popery. These churchmen are, therefore, forced to own the church of Rome to be a true church. Nor ought we to be surprised if, in succeeding to the orders of that church, they also succeed to most of her good qualities. I confess it would look a little absurd if, among we laymen, any one should gravely assert, that, though Lais was so filthy a strumpet that no virtuous woman would converse with her, yet that she was, for all that, a true virgin, and that all chastity was derived from her!

But such absurdities as these go for nothing among some sort of ecclesiastics. We will, therefore, inquire what it is which the clergy would succeed to. The apostles had no ambition, juris