óvóμarı, saith St. Chrysostom: "Thus far the names were common," viz. in the sense above explicated, 2017òv dè rò idíaŝov ἑκάστῳ ἀπονενέμηται ὄνομα, ἐπισκόπου ἐπισκόπῳ, πρεσβυτέρου πρεσβυτέρῳ. "But immediately the names were made proper and distinct, and to every order its own name is left, of a bishop to a bishop, of a presbyter to a presbyter." This could not be supposed at first; for when they were to borrow words from the titles of secular honour, or offices, and to transplant them to an artificial and imposed sense, use, which is the master of language, must rule us in this affair, and use is not contracted but in some process and descent of time. For at first, Christendom itself wanted a name, and the disciples of the glorious Nazarene were christened first in Antioch, for they had their baptism some years before they had their name. It had been no wonder then, if 'per omnia' it had so happened in the compellation of all the offices and orders of the church.

SECTION XXIV.

Appropriating the word Episcopus,' or Bishop, to the Supreme Church-officer.

BUT immediately after the apostles, and still more in descending ages, 'episcopus' signified only the superintendent of the church, the 'bishop' in the present and vulgar conception. Some few examples I shall give instead of myriads. In the canons of the apostles, the word iníonoños, or bishop, is used thirty-six times in appropriation to him that is the ordinary, ruler, and president of the church above the clergy and the laity, being twenty-four times expressly distinguished from presbyter, and in the other fourteen having particular care for government, jurisdiction, censures, and ordinations committed to him, as I shall show hereafter, and all this is within the verge of the first fifty, which are received as authentic, by the council of Nicea; of Antioch", twenty-five canons whereof are taken out of the canons of the apostles; the council of Gangra calling them canones ecclesiasticos,'

and 'apostolicas traditiones;' by the epistle of the first council of Constantinople to Damascus, which Theodoret hath inserted into his story; by the council of Ephesus; by Tertullian; by Constantine the Great; and are sometimes, by way of eminency, called 'the canons,' sometimes 'the ecclesiastical canons;' sometimes the ancient and received canons of our fathers;' sometimes the apostolical canons, τοὺς ἀπὸ τῶν πρὸ ἡμῶν ἁγίων καὶ μακαρίων πατέρων δεχθέντες, καὶ κυρωθέντες, ἀλλὰ μὲν καὶ παραδοθέντες ἡμῖν ὀνόματι τῶν ἁγίων, καὶ ἐνδόξων ἀποστόλων, said the fathers of the council in Trullo; and Damascen puts them in order next to the canon of holy Scripture: so in effect does Isidore, in his preface to the work of the councils, for he sets those canons in front, because" Sancti patres eorum sententias auctoritate synodali roborarunt, et inter canonicas posuerunt constitutiones:" "The holy fathers have established these canons by the authority of councils, and have put them amongst the canonical constitutions." And great reason; for, in pope Stephen's time, they were translated into Latin by one Dionysius, at the entreaty of Laurentius, because then the old Latin copies were rude and barbarous %. Now, then, this second translation of them being made in pope Stephen's time, who was contemporary with St. Irenæus and St. Cyprian, the old copy, older than this, and yet after the original to be sure, shows them to be of prime antiquity; and they are mentioned by St. Stephen in an epistle of his to bishop Hilarius, where he is severe in censure of them who do prevaricate these

canons.

But, for further satisfaction, I refer the reader to the epistle of Gregory Holloander to the moderators of the city of Norimberg. I deny not but they are called apocryphal by Gratian, and some others, viz. in the sense of the church, just as the Wisdom of Solomon, or Ecclesiasticus, but yet by most believed to be written by St. Clement, from the dictate of the apostles, and, without all question, are so far canonical, as to be of undoubted ecclesiastical authority, and of the first antiquity.

Ignatius's testimony is next in time and in authority".

e Post. adven. Epis. Cypri.

e Lib. iii. c. 59. de Vita Const. Anno Dom. 257.

d Advers. Praxeam.

f Can. iv. cap. 18. de Orthod. Fide. h Epist. ad Trall.

Ἐπίσκοπος τοῦ πατρὸς ὅλων τύπος ὑπάρχει. « The bishop bears the image and representment of the Father of all." And a little after, τί γάρ ἐστιν ἐπίσκοπος, ἀλλ ̓ ἡ πάσης ἀρχῆς καὶ ἐξουσίας ἐπέκεινα πάντων κρατῶν ; τί δὲ πρεσβυτέριον, ἀλλ ̓ ἢ σύστημα ἱερὸν, σύμβουλοι καὶ συνέδρευται τοῦ ἐπισκόπου ; τί δὲ διάκονοι, &c. "What is the bishop, but he that hath all authority and rule? What is the presbytery, but a sacred college, counsellors and helpers, or assessors, to the bishop? What are deacons," &c. So that here is the real and exact distinction of dignity, the appropriate of name, and intimation of office. The bishop is above all; the presbyters, his helpers; the deacons, his ministers ; μιμηταὶ τῶν ἀγγελικῶν δυνάμεων, “ Imitators of the angels, who are ministering spirits." But this is of so known, so evident a truth, that it were but impertinent to insist longer upon it. Himself, in three of his epistles, uses it nine times in distinct enumeration, viz. to the Trallians, to the Philadelphians, to the Philippians. And now I shall insert these considerations.

1. Although it was so that 'episcopus' and 'presbyter' were distinct in the beginning after the apostles' death, yet sometimes the names are used promiscuously; which is an evidence, that confusion of names is no intimation, much less an argument, for the parity of offices, since themselves, who sometimes, though indeed very seldom, confound the names, yet distinguish the offices frequently, and dogmatically. Μηδὲν ἄνευ τῶν ἐπισκόπων πράττε· ἱερεῖς γάρ εἰσι, σὺ δὲ διάκονος τῶν ἱερέων. Where, by ἐπισκόπων, he means the presbyters of the church of Antioch; so indeed some say, and though there be no necessity of admitting this meaning, because by inσnów he may mean the suffragan bishops of Syria, yet the other may be fairly admitted; for himself their bishop was absent from his church, and had delegated to the presbytery episcopal jurisdiction to rule the church, till he being dead, another bishop should be chosen; so that they were ' episcopi vicarii, and, by representment of the person of the bishop, and execution of the bishop's power by delegation, were called iníonoo, and this was done lest the church should not be only without a father, but without a guardian too; and yet what a bishop was, and of what authority, no man

'Epist. ad Heron.

more confident and frequent than Ignatius. Another example of this is in Eusebius, speaking of the youth whom St. John had converted and commended to a bishop. Clemens, whose story this was, proceeding in the relation, says, ὃ δὲ πρεσβύτερος, &c. "But the presbyter;" unless by πрeσßúTepos here St. Clement means not the order,' but age,' of the man; as it is like enough he did, for a little after he calls

him ὁ πρεσβύτης, "The old man;" "Tum verò presbyter in domum suam suscipit adolescentem. Redde depositum, O episcope," saith St. John to him. "Tunc graviter suspirans senior," &c. So St. Clement. But this, as it is very unusual, so it is just as in Scripture, viz. in descent and comprehension; for this bishop also was a presbyter as well as bishop, or else in the delegation of episcopal power, for so it is in the allegation of Ignatius.

2. That this name episcopus,' or 'bishop,' was chosen to be appropriate to the supreme order of the clergy, was done with fair reason and design. For this is no fastuous or pompous title, the word is of no dignity, and implies none but what is consequent to the just and fair execution of its offices. But presbyter is a name of dignity and veneration, "Rise up to the grey head;" and it transplants the honour and reverence of age to the office of the presbyterate. And yet this the bishops left, and took that which signifies a mere supravision, and overlooking of his charge; so that, if we take estimate from the names, 'presbyter' is a name of dignity, and 'episcopus' of office and burden. "He that desires the office of bishop, desires a good work," gooτavías vàg yag gyóv ori, saith St. Chrysostom. "Nec dicit si quis episcopatum desiderat, bonum desiderat gradum, sed bonum opus desiderat, quod in majore ordine constitutus possit, si velit, occasionem habere exercendarum virtutum;" so St. Jerome: "It is not an honourable title, but a good office, and a great opportunity of the exercise of excellent virtues." But for this we need no better testimony than of St. Isidore: "Episcopatus autem vocabulum inde dictum, quòd ille qui superefficitur, superintendat, curam scil. gerens subditorum." But, "presbyter Græcè Latinè senior' interpretatur, non pro ætate, vel decrepitâ senectute, sed propter honorem et digni

* Lib. vii. Etymolog. c. 12.

tatem quam acceperunt.” Οὐδέν ἐστι πρεσβύτερον, ἄντι τοῦ οὐδέν ἐστι τιμιώτερον, καὶ πρεσβεύειν τὸ τιμᾷν, παρὰ Πλάτωνι, saith Julius Pollux.

3. Supposing that episcopus and presbyter had been often confounded in Scripture and antiquity, and that both in ascension and descension, yet as priests may be called angels, and yet the bishop be the angel of the church; the angel,' for his excellency; ' of the church,' for his appropriate pre-eminence and singularity; so, though presbyters had been called bishops in Scripture, (of which there is not one example but in the senses above explicated, to wit, in conjunction and comprehension;) yet the bishop is ò iníonomos, by way of eminence, the bishop:' and, in descent of time, it came to pass, that the compellation, which was always his, by way of eminence, was made his by appropriation. And a fair precedent of it we have from the compellation given to our blessed Saviour, ὁ μέγας ποίμην καὶ ἐπίσκοπος ψυχῶν, “ the great Shepherd, and Bishop of our souls." The name 'bishop' was made sacred by being the appellative of his person, and by fair intimation it does more immediately descend upon them, who had from Christ more immediate mission, and more ample power, and therefore' episcopatus' and 'pastor,' by way of eminence, are the most fit appellatives for them who in the church have the greatest power, office, and dignity, as participating of the fulness of that power and authority, for which Christ was called the Bishop of our souls.' And besides this so fair a copy; besides the using of the word in the prophesy of the apostolate of Matthias, and in the prophet Isaiah, and often in Scripture, as I have shown before; any one whereof is abundantly enough, for the fixing an appellative upon a church-officer; this name may also be intimated as a distinctive compellation of a bishop over a priest; because σow is indeed often used for the office of bishops, as in the instances above, but σxожε is used for the office of the inferiors; for St. Paul writing to the Romans', who then had no bishop fixed in the chair of Rome, does command them σκοπεῖν τοὺς τὰς διχοστασίας ποιοῦντας: σκοπεῖν, not ἐπισκοπεῖν, this for the bishop, that for the

1 Rom. xvi. 17.