and powers of such officers, we have sufficient information in the Epistles to Timothy and Titus.

Let me remind the Tractators of what Hooker has said on this point. "To the Apostles in the beginning, and to the bishops always since, we find plainly both in Scripture and in all ecclesiastical records, other ministers of the word and sacraments have been subordinate;"1 and respecting our Church polity generally, he hesitates not to say against the Nonconformists, "If we did seek to maintain that which most advantageth our own cause, the very best way for us, and the strongest against them, were to hold, even as they do, that in Scripture there must needs be found some particular form of Church polity which God hath instituted, and which for that very cause belongeth to all Churches to all times." 2

I must add further, however, that when we find that the presbyters were, at Jerusalem, joined with even the Apostles themselves in the Conciliar meetings by which the weightier matters relating to the Church were determined, and that the decrees issued were spoken of as the decrees of "the Apostles and presbyters," (Acts xv. 6. xvi. 4. xxi. 18, 25,) we seem to have in this very sufficient Scripture testimony to the doctrine, abundantly recognized in primitive antiquity, and by the constitution of the Diocesan and Provincial Synods in our own Church, that in such matters the bishops or presidents of the various Churches were not to act alone, but with the advice and consent of the presbytery of their Church. As the presbyters," says Dean Field, " may do nothing without the bishop, so he may do nothing in matters of greatest moment and consequence without their presence and advice. Whereupon the Council of Carthage (Conc. iv. Can. 23,) voideth all sentences of bishops which the presence of their clergy confirmeth not." 3 "With

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1 Eccl. Pol. iii. 11.

2 Ib. iii. 10. fin. The reason why he does not press this argument is, he tells us, because in such points laws ordained by God himself, and found in Scripture, are mutable.

Of the Church, bk. v. c. 27.

the bishop," says Archbishop Usher, speaking of the primitive Church, "who was the chief president, (and therefore stiled by Tertullian, in another place, De bapt. c. 17. Summus Sacerdos, for distinction sake,) the rest of the dispensers of the word and sacraments joined in the common government of the Church, and therefore where, in matters of ecclesiastical judicature, Cornelius, bishop of Rome, used the received form of gathering together the presbytery, (Cornel. ap. Cypr. ep. 46,) of what persons that did consist Cyprian sufficiently declareth, when he wisheth him to read his Letters to the flourishing clergy which there did preside, or rule, with him,' (Cyprian. ep. 55. ad Cornel.); the presence of the clergy being thought to be so requisite in matters of episcopal audience, that in the fourth Council of Carthage it was concluded, That the bishop might hear no man's cause without the presence of the clergy, and that otherwise the bishop's sentence should be void, unless it were confirmed by the presence of the clergy, (Conc. Carthag. iv. c. 23,) which we find also to be inserted into the canons of Egbert, (Excerpt. Egbert. c. 43,) who was Archbishop of York in the Saxon times, and afterwards into the body of the Canon law itself. (15. q. 7. cap. Nullus.)"1 Nay, even with respect to ordination, an act which peculiarly belongs to the office of bishop, as appears by the Epistles to Timothy and Titus, it is in confesso that some presbyters ought to join with the bishop in the act of imposition of hands; not, perhaps, as sharing in the very act itself of ordination, but as signifying their assent to the act performed by the bishop. All which shows that the

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1 The Reduction of Episcopacy, &c. ed. by Dr. Bernard, 1656. 8vo. pp. 4, 5. On this subject see also Bingham's Antiq. ii. 19. §§ 7, 8. It must be remembered that we are here speaking of the primitive Church. Circumstances may, as in our own Church, have placed a greater distinction between a bishop and a presbyter than what is here recognized, and the episcopate be graced, through the favour of Christian Powers, by a pre-eminence and authority in the State which have materially altered the relative positions of a bishop and presbyter of a Church in many respects, but we are here speaking of the constitution of the Church itself.

government by bishops is not of a strictly monarchical, but of a mixed and limited nature. Not but what their sentence, when accordant with the recognized laws of the Church, may be valid and sufficient in the case of individuals, but in the promulgation of laws for the observance of their Church, it will, I think, be found that the best testimony is in favour of the doctrine, that they are in such matters to act not ex suo motu alone, but with the advice and consent of the presbytery of their Church. This is not, however, the place to enlarge upon this topic, and therefore I will only add here, as a remark pertinent to our present subject, that upon this further question as to the kind and amount of power confided to bishops, Scripture is, as much as on the main question, our only certain guide; for the moment we get beyond the powers clearly conceded to Timothy and Titus, that moment we find antiquity itself divided in opinion.

Upon this point, then, of episcopal government, we conclude with the same remark as in the last case, that having found it clearly and distinctly recognized in Scripture as of Apostolic institution, we refer to the practice of the infant Church, as testified by eye-witnesses of it, to confirm the correctness of our interpretation of the (as it appears to us) plain testimony of Scripture, and to show also (if any still doubt its Apostolic origin) how agreeable such a mode of Church government was to the views of the earliest Christians; and might certainly adduce a mass of evidence sufficient, it might be supposed, to convince the most incredulous and reluctant reader. There are, indeed, some among the patristical testimonies to this point, which afford peculiarly strong evidence on the subject; as, for instance, the testimony of Irenæus to the appointment of Polycarp to be Bishop of Smyrna by the Apostles,1 a matter of fact coming under his own observation, in which his testimony is entitled to a very different degree of estimation to that which is due to his statement of doctrine orally delivered by the Apos1 Adv. hær. lib. 3. c. 3. Compare his Ep. ad Florin.

tles, as our opponents will themselves confess, when they recollect his statements of Apostolical teaching respecting the millennium.

I conclude, therefore, that we have Scripture proof, confirmed by the testimony of the primitive Church, that it was an Apostolical institution that the presbyters and deacons of each city or district, with the congregations belonging to them, such districts being larger or smaller according to circumstances, should have a president or bishop placed over them to superintend the affairs of that Church, and ordain ministers as their circumstances might require.

There remains, lastly, for our consideration, the doctrine of

The Apostolical succession.

On this point we must enter somewhat more fully, as under these words different doctrines may be maintained.

Some of those who are attached to the presbyterian form of Church-government contend for the Apostolical succession of the ministry, but think that it is sufficiently maintained by confining the right of ordination to presbyters; who maintain therefore that individual presbyters may ordain and introduce whom they please into the office of the ministry. This, however, is an extreme which no locally-established Church can practically admit, and accordingly we find various limitations placed upon the exercise of this right as we advance from the lowest presbyterian model of Church government to the Churches of Sweden and Norway, where, though the form of government is Episcopal, their bishops were originally consecrated by a presbyter.

The doctrine of the succession, as held by our Church, may be summed up in these two points, (1.) that as the power of ordination and general superintendence of the Church, including the clergy, was committed by the Apostles to the presidents of the Churches, such as Timothy and Titus, only, and was not entrusted to mere presbyters, so this power could only be properly exercised by

those who succeeded such presidents in their presidency, and that consequently all ordinations not performed by such a prelate of the Church are irregular and not according to the rule left with the Church by the Apostles, and therefore under ordinary circumstances inadmissible. And (2), that the only regular mode of admission to the episcopal office is by episcopal consecration.

With such a statement, however, of the doctrine of the Apostolical succession our opponents would be wholly dissatisfied. Running, as we submit, into the opposite extreme to those we have before mentioned, they hold (1) That the episcopal order is so wholly different from that of the presbyters, that the consecration of bishops by bishops is so essential by divine and Apostolical ordinance to render them capable of performing the duties of the episcopal function as to ordination and Church government, and by consequence to the succession of orders of any kind in the Church, that wherever the chain of successional episcopal consecration is lost, there are none duly qualified to preach the word or administer the sacraments, and that those who are not in communion with a ministry so constituted form no part of the Church.1 (2) That sacramental grace or the grace of the sacraments flows only through ministers who have received such episcopal ordination, and that through them only we can maintain communion with Christ; and they hold also "the exclusive virtue of the sacraments as ordinary means to their respective graces."3 (3) That by such episcopal ordination is conferred in all cases the gift of the Holy Spirit to abide in the person ordained, " as for all other parts of his office, so for the custody of the good deposit, the fundamentals of doctrine and practice," which is called "the

1 See Tracts 1, 4, 7, 10, 17, 24, 33, 52, 54, 57, 60, 74, and Keble's Serm. App. pp. 95, et seq., and Pref. to Hooker, pp. li, et seq.

2 See, among other passages, Keble's Pref. to Hooker, p. lxxvii, where he speaks of "the necessity of the Apostolical commission to the derivation of sacramental grace, and to our mystical communion with Christ."

3 Keble's Pref. to Hooker, p. lxxxiv.

4 Keble's Serm. App. p. 105.