the same place over Presbyters that Bishops had in succeeding times. So that, according to him, there were always prelates since the days of CHRIST, differing indeed in name and circumstances, in the first ages, but not in authority." Such is the testimony of an adversary.

If you consult writers of the greatest note amongst the advocates of presbyterian parity, you will find them conceding that Epaphroditus, whom St. Paul calls an Apostle, was more than a messenger. Blondel reckons him amongst the chief governors of Churches; and for this he quotes Pacianus, Jerome, and Theodoret; and he might have added Hilary. Walo Messalinus approves of this; for, he says, "Epaphroditus was called the Apostle of the Philippians, as St. Paul was of the Gentiles, and Peter the Apostle of the circumcision." He mentions the contrary opinion, but then adds, "To me it seems to have no appearance of truth, since I know that the word Apostle is never used by St. Paul, nor by other Apostles and Evangelists, but for a sacred ministry."

It has always, Sir, appeared to me an unwarrantable liberty in our opponents, to assert, directly in the face of Scriptural evidence, that the apostolic office was not designed for perpetuity. In what did that office consist? It consisted in preaching the Gospel, administering the sacraments, ordaining ministers, and exercising supreme authority in the Church. This was the whole of their commission, as we have it in Scripture; although, no doubt, afterwards, they had much instruction given them upon that head. One part of this commission we find in John xx. 21, 22, 23, and the other in Matthew xxviii. 19, 20, and in Mark xvi. 15. This sacerdotal commission was to be conveyed by the Apostles to others, and so on to the end of the world; for CHRIST had assured his Apostles that he would be with them, that is, with the authority he had just given them, to the end of the world. This secures the apostolic office in the Church as long as there shall be a Church upon earth. One would suppose, that there could be no dispute among Christians upon this point. But here lies the fallacy. The miraculous powers of the Apostles are confounded with their authority, when they are as different things as the qualifications for an office and the office itself. The propagation of the Gospel, at first, required that its ministers should be endowed with extraordinary gifts; otherwise, the powers of the world would, in all probability, have been too mighty for them. These extraordinary powers were then the means vouchsafed to the Apostles to ensure success to their ministry; but they made no part of the commission with which the Apostles were entrusted. Their commission was complete the moment it was given to them, but their extraordinary qualifications were not vouchsafed till some time after: and

k BLONDEL'S Apology, sect. ii. p. 85.

1 WALO MESSALIN. c. i. 57-60, as quoted by BURSCough.

if those qualifications had never been given, they would have been as much CHRIST'S Apostles as with them. They would indeed have had much greater difficulties to contend with; but this has no kind of connexion with the idea of a commission; no more than the qualifications you possess for the office you bear, enter into the idea of the authority implied in that office. What can be more evident than this? Besides, miraculous powers were not peculiar to the Apostles. Inferior ministers, and even laymen possessed them. It was an age of wonders.-' But the Apostles spoke with tongues.' So did many others, as appears from the epistles to the Corinthians. They delivered to men the mind of CHRIST, and were, in so doing, infallible.' So did St. Luke, who, so far as we know, was nothing but a layman: So did St. Mark, who was the first Bishop of Alexandria, but not one of the twelve. 'The Apostles saw CHRIST in the flesh.' So did others; about five hundred brethren at once. The Apostles were not confined to a particular district, as diocesan Bishops are.' This is not true; as appears from the case of St. James, if he was one of the twelve. But supposing it to be so, it is nothing to the purpose; for a Bishop at large is as much a Bishop as one confined to a diocese. Would you be less a Presbyter than you are, were you to be employed all your life in preaching the Gospel to the numerous tribes of Indians on this continent? It is astonishing that men of sense can descend so low as to make such ridiculous objections to the transmission of the apostolic office. The office is essential to the existence of the Church of CHRIST; but the extraordinary qualifications to render that office effectual to the conversion of the world, have long since ceased. The continuance of the former was, therefore, promised by CHRIST himself, whose word cannot fail; but the continuance of the latter was not promised, because infinite wisdom did not think it necessary. This is the broad line of distinction established by the Scriptures, and by the very nature of the case.

Upon this head there seems to be something like an accommodation between us. In your third 'letter'm you divide the ministry of the Apostles into extraordinary and ordinary. The latter you say was transmitted; but the former ceased with the lives of the Apostles. Just so we say; but here lies the fallacy. You apply the word ministry both to the qualifications and to the commission; by which you mean to convey to your readers the idea of an extraordinary and ordinary commission; and as the extraordinary ceased with the lives of the Apostles, then it will follow that there could be no succession but to the ordinary part of the apostolic commission, and consequently, Barnabas, Epaphroditus, and others, could not have been invested with ministerial or sacerdotal powers equal to those of St. Paul, But the reasoning which I have offered does, to my mind, com

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pletely prove all this to be mere sophistry. For it was the commission that gave the Apostles their primacy in the Church, and not their qualifications. It was the commission which made them superior to Presbyters, Deacons, and laymen, and not their inspiration and power of working miracles, and speaking with tongues; for the very laity possessed these powers. Barnabas, then, if he were even destitute of some, or of all these extraordinary powers, by being invested with the same commission that St. Paul was, became thereby an Apostle, in the proper sense of the word; and not as you say, 'in a vague and general senseas a messenger, chosen either by the twelve or by the Churches themselves, to go to distant places, on special errands.' Let any one read the history of Paul and Barnabas' travels, and then point out in what respect the latter was inferior to the former, as a minister of CHRIST. Barnabas is always styled an Apostle. St. Paul always speaks of him as his colleague, as entitled to the same privileges with himself. He appears to have exercised precisely the same ministerial authority that Paul did. And in the contention which took place between them about Mark, Paul exercised no authority over Barnabas; they debated the matter upon equal terms, and parted from each other without any mark of superiority in Paul, or of inferiority in Barnabas. From these reasonings and Scripture proofs, I think we may fairly conclude, with all antiquity, that Barnabas held the rank of an Apostle in the Christian Church, and, consequently, that the ordinations which Paul and he performed, were episcopal, and not presbyterian.

Keeping these things in mind, and adverting to the proofs which I have given, that the transaction at Antioch was not an ordination, our readers will be able to appreciate the correctness of your concluding sentences.-The supposition that he [Barnabas] bore an ecclesiastical rank above that of Presbyter, is effectually refuted by the fact that he was himself ordained by the Presbyters of Antioch. As a Presbyter, therefore, he ordained others, and the only rational construction that can be given to the passage renders it a plain precedent for presbyterian ordination.'

In your third 'letter," you say, 'the whole argument for the superiority of Bishops, drawn from their being considered as the proper and exclusive successors of the Apostles in their official pre-eminence, has been pronounced invalid, and wholly abandoned by some of the most distinguished writers of the Church of England. In this list are found the names of Dr. Barrow, Mr. Dodwell, Bishop Hoadley, and others of equal eminence.' I shall begin my next letter with the consideration of this assertion.

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LETTER XI.

REV. SIR:

I AM now to consider your assertion, that Dr. Barrow, Mr. Dodwell, and Bishop Hoadly have given up the argument drawn from the succession of Bishops to the apostolical pre-eminence; or, in other words, that they deny that the apostolical commission was conveyed to others.

Now, Sir, from the very nature of the case, I cannot suppose this assertion is correct. For as in the first age there were in the Church, Apostles, Presbyters, or Overseers, and Deacons, there could not have been in the next age, Bishops, Presbyters, and Deacons, unless the Bishops succeeded to the apostolic preeminence, either in whole or in part. For an Episcopalian, therefore, to give up this point, is to give up the cause, or, at least, to be very inconsistent.

First, for Dr. Barrow. Here, Sir, as usual, you give us no reference. It is enough, it seems, for you to assert; we must implicitly receive your assertions. I am as willing to be patient as any man; but there is a point beyond which patience will not hold out. I will, however, do my best to bear with this unscholarlike management, and will turn over folio pages with all the calmness I am master of, to ascertain the correctness of your assertions. I have done this in respect of Barrow, and the result is in no degree in your favour.

This author, if I understand him, maintains the succession of Bishops to the pre-eminence of the Apostles, in what was permanent in their office, as much as any Episcopalian. In his Treatise of the Pope's Supremacy, he quotes several assertions of the fathers to that purpose, of which he approves. Thus, page 609: " They deem all Bishops to partake of the apostolical authority, according to that of St. Basil to St. Ambrose; 'the LORD himself hath translated thee from the judges of the earth to the prelacy of the Apostles." Again: "They took themselves all to be Vicars of CHRIST, and judges in his stead." And again: "The Bishops of any other Churches founded by the Apostles, in the fathers' style, are successors of the Apostles, in the same sense, and to the same intent, as the Bishop of Rome is by them considered the successor to St. Peter," &c. Once more: 'The Bishops of Jerusalem, successors of St. James, did not thence claim, I know not what kind of extensive jurisdiction, yea, notwithstanding their succession," &c. A number of other passages might be adduced, asserting the succession of the Bishops to the Apos tles, in that sense in which alone it can be asserted, viz. their succession to that superiority over all orders in the Church, which the Apostles possessed. To their singular gifts, indeed,

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Dr. Barrow maintains, as every other Episcopalian does, there was no succession. Their inspiration, their power of working miracles, their speaking a variety of tongues, were not, to be sure, communicated with their commission. But these are ever to be carefully distinguished; and then there will not be the least foundation for asserting that the commission of the Apostles ceased with their lives. There is the same necessity now, that there ever was, for every particular implied in the apostolic commission. The Church of CHRIST cannot exist without it; accordingly, you ascribe to your Presbytery the whole authority implied in the apostolic commission. We ascribe but a part of it to the Presbyters, and the whole of it to the Bishops. This is the jugulum cause; [the turning point of the cause ;] and when this shall be once settled, the dispute must come to an end.

It is one of the extraordinary circumstances that has always occurred in the discussion of this subject, that our opponents at one time assert that the apostolical commission was to be continued in the Church; and that, accordingly, it was actually conveyed to the Presbyters; but, when we say, No, it was not communicated to the Presbyters in toto, [entirely,] but to the Bishops; then they tell us, that the apostolical commission was to cease with the lives of the Apostles, and flourish away about their extraordinary powers, as if these made any part of their commission; making no distinction at all between the wonderful qualifications of the Apostles for executing their commission, and the commission itself. By this artful management, a mist is spread around a subject, that is in itself perfectly clear. In civil affairs, this confusion never takes place. No one ever confounded great qualifications for a civil office, with the office itself. Is not this perfectly obvious? Is there any room for mistake upon this point? Do we ever mistake in regard to civil affairs?-Never.

Conformably to this unfair procedure, our opponents, whenever they meet with an episcopal writer who denies a succession to the extraordinary qualifications of the Apostles, never fail to tell us that some of our own writers give up the pretence of Bishops succeeding to the apostolic commission, and their 'Christian brethren' have no difficulty whatever in believing it. But if you ask those persons to what their Presbyters succeed, they tell you at once, that they succeed to all that is contained in the commission given by CHRIST to his Apostles. And thus, what they deny to our Bishops, they ascribe to their own Presbyters. This, Sir, appears to me to be precisely your mode of reasoning. Barrow and others deny a succession to what was extraordinary in the apostolical character; and, therefore, you infer, that they deny a succession to the apostolic commission. This is a non sequitur; there is not the least connexion between the two propositions. Barrow, we have now seen, does not answer your purpose at all. Let us next see how it is with Dod well and Hoadly,