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these titles were promiscuously used in the early days of the Apostles; and that therefore they are not always to be taken in the sense in which they are now understood in the church. Such was the opinion of ST. CHRYSOSTOм above produced; where, upon Phil. i. his obfervation is, that by the word bishops is there to be understood prefbyters, for the name was then common. The fame was also the observation of THEOPHYLACT on the text, and of THEODORET. The inference from this statement was, that an argument drawn from the indifferent ufe of two titles, at an age when the conftitution of the Chriftian church was not perfectly established, cannot apply to any future age, when in confequence of the 'ecclefiaftical government having acquired a more fettled form, they had received, from apoftolic authority, a more precife and discriminate fignification. An argument which appears to stand on firm ground.

But there is still another opinion upon this matter, which ought to be mentioned, because it is that of the learned HAMMOND, who paid most scrupulous attention to the investigation of this delicate fubject. On the authority of EPIPHANIUS he concludes, that by the term Ewionowo was literally meant bishops; referring it to all the bishops of the feveral cities be

longing to that metropolis. For fuch was PHILIPPI, both as the first-fruits of all Macedonia, firft converted to the faith, Acts xvi. 9, and a prime city of that province of Macedon, πρώτη της μερίδος Μακεδο ViaS TOXIS. V. 12-as PHOTIUS exprefsly calls itΗ φιλιππων πολις το Μακεδόνων επαρχίας, μετροπολις Woks 80α." Epift. 247. ST. PAUL'S Epiftle was inscribed to PHILIPPI, as to the metropolis of the province; with the intention that it should be communicated to the bishops of the different cities contained in it in like manner, as the Epiftle of the church at Jerufalem to the church of Antioch did belong and was communicated to all the churches of Syria and Cilicia; Acts xvi. 4. It is the obfervation of EPIPHANIUS, on the word deacons being immediately fubjoined to that of bishops in Phil. i. 1, that, when the churches were newly planted, there were not prefbyters as yet conftituted among them; only a bishop with one deacon or more in each city; as it was at Jerufalem, Acts vi.; where, after James's appointment to the bishoprick, the feven deacons are foon instituted; no prefbyters being created between those two orders, that either fcripture or any ancient records inform us of. With which original plan of providing for the miniftry of the infant church, the

testimony of CLEMENT above cited, perfectly cor refponds; that the Apoftles," preaching through regions and cities, conftituted their firft-fruits into bishops and deacons, of those which fhould come into the faith."

It was from the authority of the most ancient records, that EPIPHANIUS fays his conclufion was drawn, that at the beginning of the church,* before the government was complete in all its offices, the Apostles and Apoftolic perfons placed in the church (fuch as TIMOTHY and TITUS) created no more than one bishop, with deacons in each church; the prefent state of things not requiring more, in refpect of the paucity of the Chriftians to be governed or inftructed, but more particularly of thofe, who in those infant days of the church were fit to be made prefbyters. The bishops, thus created by the Apostles, were bishops in fingle cities, or confined districts, over whom the Apostles and Apoftolic men exercised a fupreme and visitatorial jurisdiction. And fuch was the character of thofe appointed by TIMOTHY, a$ the fupreme bishop or metropolitan of Ephefus, confidered as the capital of the province of Afia

ε. Τα πληρώματα της οικονομίας επω λάβασης.

Minor; and of thofe alfo appointed by TITUS, as the metropolitan of the ifie of Crete; which contained many cities, EUSEBIUS mentions an hundred, of which, faith he, TITUS was made bishop by ST. PAUL; that under him, faith THEODORET, he might ordain bishops. Such, from this account, appears to have been the primitive conftitution of the Christian church; agreeably to which, the words elders or bishops in the Apoftolic writings are to be confidered as words of promifcuous application, denoting fometimes the Apostles, and fometimes the fingular bishops in each church. In procefs of time fome alteration appears to have taken place in the original plan of church œconomy; when in confequence of the num ber of believers increafing, or with the view to remedy fome inconvenience that might have arifen from the former practice; prefbyters, in the fenfe in which that term is now understood, as a middle order be tween bishops and deacons, were ordained in the churches.

Now, whatever may have been the conclufion drawn by different readers from the Apoftolic wri tings, or however difficult it may be, at this distance of time, to afcertain the precife plan of government which the Apostles adopted for their infant church,

and at what exact period the alteration in that plan took place; yet certain it is, that, at the close of the Apoftolic age, the church had attained that settled form of government which it now poffeffes. ST. IGNATIUS, in his Epistle to the churches of Afia, having described the prefbyters as a fecond order in the church, inferior to that of bishops, and confequently not poffeffed of their peculiar prerogatives; from whence the probable conclufion is, that these prefbyters were inftituted by ST. JOHN in his life-time.

The teftimony of ST. JEROM, upon which so much has been built in favour of the Prefbyterian cause, will doubtless not be rejected, when brought on the oppofite fide. Speaking of these presbyters, as the fecond order in the church, he fays, they were of Apoftolic inftitution. "That we may know (fays he) that the Apostles' traditions are taken out of the Old Testament, we have this inftance, that what AARON and his fons, and the Levites, were in the temple; the fame the bishops, prefbyters, and dea cons, challenge to themfelves in the church:" the express allufion which had been made ufe of by Sr. CLEMENT in the Apoftolic age. By the testimony of the fame ST. JEROM, it has already been proved, that out of this fecond order of prefbyters the bishop

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