Derbe and Lyftra, not much above four years after the Gospel was first preached there; where a fettled confiftory of inferior prefbyters, and a form of ecclefiaftical difcipline, could fcarcely be expected to have been as yet regularly established. See Bishop PEARSON'S Annal. PAUL. ab A. D. 46, ad A. D. 50, inclufive.

The conclufion meant to be drawn from the objection now under confideration is fimilar to that which the prefbyterians are accustomed to draw from the other objections to the prefent epifcopal government, namely, that from the promifcuous ufe of the terms bishop and presbyter in the apostolic writings, the fame office, in the prefent difcriminating language of the church, is to be underftood: a conclufion which to me appears to ftand upon no reasonable ground whatever. In fact, it is begging the question, but not proving it.

It may be fomewhat difficult, perhaps, at this day to ascertain the precise meaning of thefe different titles, in every paffage in which they occur in the apoftolic writings; fince great authorities feem not to be perfectly agreed on the fubject. The argument already addreffed to your confideration was grounded upon the opinion of thofe writers, who confider that

these titles were promifcuously 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 observation is, that by the word bishops is there to be understood prefbyters, for the name was then common. The fame was alfo the obfervation of THEOPHYLACT on the text, and of THEOdoret. The inference from this statement was, that an argument drawn from the indifferent use of two titles, at an age when the constitution 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 difcriminate 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 moft fcrupulous attention to the investigation of this delicate subject. 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, first converted to the faith, Acts xvi. 9, and a prime city of that province of Macedon, πρωτη της μερίδος Μακεδο vias modis. V. 12-as PHOTIUS exprefsly calls itΗ φιλιππων πολις το Μακεδονων επαρχίας, μετροπολις εσα. Epift. 247. ST. PAUL'S Epiftle was infcribed to PHILIPPI, as to the metropolis of the province; with the intention that it fhould 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

..

teftimony of CLEMENT above cited, perfeâly correfponds; that the Apoftles, " preaching through regions and cities, conftituted their firft-fruits into bishops and deacons, of thofe 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 Apofles 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 those, 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 vifitatorial jurisdiction. And fuch was the character of thofe appointed by TIMOTHY, as the fupreme bifhop or metropolitan of Ephefus, confidered as the capital of the province of Afja

« Τα πληρώματα της οικονομίας επω λαβέσης.”

Minor; and of thofe alfo appointed by TITUS, as the metropolitan of the ifle 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 Chriftian church; agreeably to which, the words elders or bishops in the Apoftolic writings are to be confidered as words of promifcuous application, denoting fome times 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 number of believers increafing, or with the view to remedy fome inconvenience that might have arifen from the former practice; prefbyters, in the fense in which that term is now understood, as a middle order between bishops and deacons, were ordained in the churches.

Now, whatever may have been the conclufion drawn by different readers from the Apoftolic writings, 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,