bishop, but this they would seldom have, and never, but when their necessity drove them to it. But was this all the inconvenience of the want of bishops? No: " for every man," saith Nicephorus, "might do what he list, and if he had a mind to it, might put his fancy into the creed, and thence came innumerable troops of schismatics and heretics." So that this device was one simple heresy in the root, but it was forty heresies in the fruit and branches; clearly proving, that want of bishops is the cause of all schism and recreant opinions that are imaginable.

I sum this up with the saying of St. Clement, the disciple of St. Peter, "Si autem vobis episcopis non obedierint omnes presbyteri, &c. tribus, et linguæ non obtemperaverint, non solùm infames, sed extorres à regno Dei, et consortio fidelium, ac à limitibus sancti Dei ecclesiæ alieni erunt:" "All priests, and clergymen, and people, and nations, and languages, that do not obey their bishop, shall be shut forth of the communion of holy church here, and of heaven hereafter." It runs high, but I cannot help it; I do but translate Ruffinus, as he before translated St. Clement.

SECTION XLVIII.

And Bishops were always, in the Church, Men of great Honour. It seems, then, we must have bishops. But must we have lord bishops too? That is the question now, but such an one as the primitive piety could never have imagined. For, could they, to whom bishops were placed in a right and a true light, they who believed, and saw them to be the fathers. of their souls, the guardian of their life and manners, (as king Edgar called St. Dunstan) the guide of their consciences, the instruments and conveyances of all the blessings Heaven uses to pour upon us by the ministration of the holy Gospel'; would they, that thought their lives a cheap exchange for a free and open communion with a catholic bishop, would they have contested upon an airy title, and the imaginary privilege of an honour, which is far less than their spiritual dignity, but

h Epist. 3.

infinitely less than the burden and charge of the souls of all their diocese? Charity thinks nothing too much, and that love is but little, that grutches at the good words a bishoprick carries with it.

However, let us see whether titles of honour be either unfit, in themselves, to be given to bishops; or what the guise of Christendom hath been in her spiritual heraldry.

1. St. Ignatius, in his epistle to the church of Smyrna, gives them this command: " Honora episcopum ut principem sacerdotum, imaginem Dei referentem:""Honour the bishop as the image of God, as the prince of priests." Now since honour and excellency are terms of mutual relation, and all excellency that is in men and things, is but a ray of Divine excellency; so far as they participate of God, so far they are honourable. Since, then, the bishop carries the impress of God upon his forehead, and bears God's image, certainly this participation of such perfection makes him very honourable. And since honor est in honorante,' it is not enough that the bishop is honourable in himself, but it tells us our duty, we must honour him, we must do him honour; and, of all the honours in the world, that of words is the cheapest and the least.

St. Paul, speaking of the honour due to the prelates of the church, οἱ καλῶς προεστῶτες πρεσβύτεροι διπλῆς τιμῆς ἀξιώσθωσαν "Let them be accounted worthy of double honour." And one of the honours' that he there means, is a costly one, an honour of maintenance; the other must certainly be an honour of estimate, and that is cheapest. The council of Sardis, speaking of the several steps and capacities of promotion, to the height of episcopacy, uses this expression : Καὶ αὐτὸς ἄξιος τῆς θείας ἱεροσύνης νομισθεὶς, τῆς μεγίστης ἀπολαῦσαι τιμῆς Α. "He that shall be found worthy of so Divine a priesthood, let him be advanced to the highest honour." "Ego procidens ad pedes ejus rogabam, excusans me, et declinans honorem cathedræ et potestatem," saith St. Clement, when St. Peter would have advanced him to the honour and power of the bishop's chair. But in the third epistle, speaking of the dignity of Aaron, the high priest, and, then by analogy, of the bishop, who, although he be a minister in

a Can. 10. Græc.

Epist. 1. ad Jacobum.

the order of Melchisedech, yet he hath also the honour of Aaron; "Omnis enim pontifex sacro chrismate perunctus, et in civitate constitutus, et in Scripturis sacris conditus, carus et pretiosus hominibus oppidò esse debet:" "Every high priest ordained in the city (viz. a bishop), ought forthwith to be dear and precious in the eyes of men."-" Quem, quasi Christi locum tenentem, honorare omnes debent, eique servire, et obedientes ad salutem suam fideliter existere, scientes quòd sive honor, sive injuria quæ ei defertur, in Christum redundat, et à Christo in Deum:""The bishop is Christ's vicegerent, and therefore he is to be obeyed, knowing that whether it be honour or injury that is done to the bishop, it is done to Christ, and so to God." And, indeed, what is the saying of our blessed Saviour himself?" He that despiseth you, despiseth me." If bishops be God's ministers, and in higher order than the rest, then although all discountenance and disgrace done to the clergy reflect upon Christ, yet what is done to the bishop is far more, and then there is the same reason of the honour. And if so, then the question will prove but an odd one; even this, whether Christ be to be honoured or no, or depressed to the common estimate of vulgar people? for if the bishops be, then he is. This is the condition of the question.

2. Consider we, that all religions, and particularly all Christianity, did give titles of honour to their high-priests and bishops respectively. I shall not need to instance in the great honour of the priestly tribe among the Jews, and how highly honourable Aaron was in proportion. Prophets were called lords,' in holy Scripture." Art not thou my lord' Elijah?" said Obadiah, to the prophet. "Knowest thou not, that God will take thy lord' from thy head this day?" said the children in the prophet's schools. So it was then. And in the New Testament, we find a prophet honoured every where but in his own country. And to the apostles and presidents of churches, greater titles of honour given, than was ever given to man by secular complacency and insinuation:-Angels, and governors, and fathers of our faith, and stars, lights of the world, the crown of the church, apostles of Jesus Christ, nay, God's, viz. to whom the word.

of God came; and of the compellation of apostles, particularly St. Jerome saith, that when St. Paul called himself the "apostle of Jesus Christ," it was as magnifically spoken, as if he had said, "Præfectus prætorio Augusti Cæsaris, magister exercitus Tiberii Imperatoris ;" and yet bishops are apostles, and so called in Scripture. I have proved that already,

Indeed, our blessed Saviour in the case of the two sons of Zebedee, forbad them to expect by virtue of their apostolate, any princely titles, in order to a kingdom, and an earthly principality. For that was it which the ambitious woman sought for her sons, viz. fair honour and dignity in an earthly kingdom; for such a kingdom they expected with their Messias. To this their expectation, our Saviour's answer is a direct antithesis; and that made the apostles to be angry at the two petitioners, as if they had meant to supplant the rest, and get the best preferment from them, to wit, in a temporal kingdom. No,' saith our blessed Saviour, 'ye are all deceived.' "The kings of the nations, indeed, do exercise authority, and are called svegyira, benefactors:" so the word signifies, gracious lords' so we read it; “but it shall not be so with you." What shall not be so with them? shall not they exercise authority? "Who then is that faithful and wise steward, whom his Lord made ruler over his household?" Surely the apostles, or nobody. Had Christ authority? Most certainly. Then so had the apostles, for Christ gave them his, with a sicut misit me Pater,' &c. Well! the apostles might, and we know they did exercise authority. What then shall not be so with them?' Shall not they be called vegyéтa? Indeed, if St. Mark had taken that title upon him in Alexandria, the Ptolomies, whose honorary appellative that was, would have questioned him highly for it. But if we go to the sense of the word, the apostles might be benefactors,' and, therefore, might be called so. But what then? But what then? Might they not be called ' gracious lords? The word would have done no hurt, if it had not been an ensign of a secular principality.

For as for the word lord,' I know no more prohibition for that, than for being called rabbi, or master, or doctor, or

d In Titum.

e Matth. xx. 25. Mark, x. 42. Luke, xxii. 25.

ἐν

father. What shall we think now? May we not be called doctors?" God hath constituted in his church, pastors and doctors," saith St. Pauls. Therefore, we may be called so. But what of the other, the prohibition runs alike for all, as is evident in the several places of the Gospels; and may no man be called master, or father? Let an answer be thought on for these, and the same will serve for the other also without any sensible error. It is not the word, it is the ambitious seeking of a temporal principality, as the issue of Christianity, and an affix of the apostolate that Christ interdicted his apostles. And if we mark it, our blessed Saviour points it out himself. "The princes of the nations" natanupisÚouσiv, " exercise authority over them, and are called benefactors;" oux oÜTw; kotai Ev uv: "It shall not be so with you." Not so? how? Not as the princes of the Gentiles, for theirs is a temporal regiment, your apostolate must be spiritual. They rule as kings, you as fellow servants; καὶ ὃς ἐὰν θέλῃ ἐν ὑμῖν εἶναι πρῶτος, čoтw iμâv doûños "He that will be first amongst you, let him be your minister, or servant;" it seems then among Christ's disciples there may be a superiority, when there is a minister or servant? But it must be v T dianovεiv that this greatness doth consist, it must be in doing the greatest service and ministration that the superiority consists.' But more particularly, it must be ὥσπερ ὁ υἱὸς τοῦ ἀνθρώπου. It must not be as the princes of the Gentiles,' but it must be as the son of man;' so Christ says expressly h. And how was that? why, he came to minister and to serve,' and yet in the lowest act of his humility, the washing his disciples' feet, he told them, "Ye call me Lord, and Master, and ye say well, for so I am," It may be so with you.' Nay, it must be as the son of man;' but then, the being called rabbi, or lord, nay, the being lord in spirituali magisterio et regimine,' ' in a spiritual superintendency, and ὥσπερ ὁ υἱὸς τοῦ ἀνθρώπου, may stand with the humility of the Gospel, and office of

ministration.

So that now I shall not need to take advantage of the word * κατακυριεύουσιν, which signifies to rule with more than a political regiment, even with an absolute and despotic, and is

Matth. xxiii. 8, 9, 10. ¡ John, xiii.

Ephes. iv.

* In locis ubi suprà.

h Luke, xxii.