Further still. Supposing this chimerical plan of depriving the Presbyters of those powers to which they were entitled by the appointment of their LORD and Master, should have entered into the minds of a few ambitious Presbyters, how, in the name of common sense, was it to be effected? They had not the civil authority to aid them. Was it done by the power of eloquence? Did Cicero and Demosthenes ever persuade men out of their senses? Was it possible for the few usurpers to persuade the Presbyters, and Deacons, and people, that CHRIST left his Church under an episcopal government, but that by some legerdemain it was changed into a Presbyterian, and that, therefore, it was a duty to revive the primitive institution? I acknowledge that these are silly questions; but I shelter myself under the silliness of the hypothesis which obliges me to ask them. If you answer in the affirmative, they are silly to excess; but if in the negative, they are pertinent and conclusive.

We have now got a step farther. The first Bishops had no conceivable motives for usurping ecclesiastical superiority, and they were too virtuous and pious to attempt it; but, if they had attempted it, there was no possibility of effecting it.

The latter assertions will appear with still brighter evidence, if possible, from the following observations.

The clergy and people of the second century, when this extraordinary revolution is supposed to have taken place, knew as well under what government the Apostles left the Church, as you or I do what was the government of our respective Churches a hundred years ago. There was not any possibility of mistake, or of doubt, about the matter. Well, then, what could have induced the clergy and people to submit to an alteration? There must have been some reason for it. What was it? Were they bought by the first Bishops? Poor men! their office afforded them but a scanty income for themselves and their families. Were they over-reached by subtle arts, and outwitted by superior talents? So you seem to think. You inform us, ' that the nations over which the Christian religion was spread with so much rapidity, were sunk in deplorable ignorance. Grossly illiterate, very few were able to read; and even to these few, manuscripts were of difficult access. At that period, popular eloquence was the great engine of persuasion; and where the character of the mind is not fixed by reading, and a consequent habit of attentive and accurate thinking, it is impossible to say how deeply and suddenly it may be operated upon by such an engine. A people of this description, wholly unaccustomed to speculations and government; universally subjected to despotic rule in the state; having no just ideas of religious liberty; altogether unfurnished with the means of communicating and uniting with each other, which the art of printing has since afforded; torn with dissensions among themselves, and liable to be turned about with every wind of doctrine; such a people could offer

little resistance to those who were ambitious of ecclesiastical power..

This, Sir, is all very fine; and to those who know no better. I suppose very instructive and convincing. But, Sir, if it were even true, it would no more account for the revolution from presbytery to episcopacy, than for the revolution of the heavenly bodies. Does it require literature and science, to enable men to determine under what kind of government they have always lived? In the state, is it necessary for men to be philosophers and cultivators of the arts, in order to determine whether they live under a kingly or republican form of government? In the Church, cannot they tell whether they are governed by Bishops, or by Presbyters, acting with equal authority, unless they are learned? Ought they not to confide in what they every day see and hear, unless they are acquainted with philosophy, and mathematics, and political science? Surely, Sir, if the clergy and people were ignorant and unenlightened by literature, still they did not lose their senses, and their understandings! If they were unacquainted with books, still they must have been well acquainted with the official characters of those, who, in spirituals, ruled over them. Here there was no possibility of any mistake. A few learned men could never have made them believe, that the Church had not always been presbyterian, when thousands of them must have been born in the apostolic age, and have been children of the earliest converts of Christianity. If presbytery had been the institution of the Apostles, all the Christians of the second century knew it well, and no eloquence could ever have persuaded them to the contrary. Nay, Sir, if they were even as ignorant as you represent them, and much more so, this very circumstance would have made them more tenacious of what they deemed sacred institutions. The history of mankind evinces, that ignorance and obstinacy are generally united. The most illiterate and unpolished nations are the most inveterate in their resentment against those who attempt to deprive them of any thing connected with religion. And, on the other hand, the more learned and scientific a nation is, the more speculative and projecting it is. In the eyes of such a people, old institutions are less venerable than in the eyes of an unenlightened people. New things captivate because they are considered as proofs of genius; and old things tire and disgust, because they check genius, and circumscribe talents. ignorance, then, which you ascribe to the early ages of Christianity, were you even perfectly correct in what you say, instead of diminishing, would increase the difficulties which attend a supposition of a change of government.

The

But, Sir, whatever may become of this reasoning, whether it be thought conclusive or not, it is very certain that you have given your readers a very fanciful picture of the second and

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third centuries. Literature was not so low, nor ignorance so prevalent, as you represent it. Eloquence and poetry had indeed declined in Greece and Rome; but still literature and philosophy were far from being extinguished. The second and third centuries furnished several good writers in the Christian Church→ Tertullian, Arnobius, Irenæus, Clemens of Alexandria, Origen, Cyprian, and several others. We meet with no complaint of a want of knowledge in those ages, nor for several ages following. There was quite sufficient for every religious purpose, and for preserving the unity of the faith in the bond of peace.

Nor was the second century, in which your best writers fancy episcopacy was introduced, in any degree distinguished for contention and schism, as you assert. Perhaps there never was a more peaceable period of the Christian Church. I do not recollect a single controversy that produced any mischievous effects. The dispute about the time of keeping Easter was the only one of any moment; and that was conducted without violence, and without schism. Both parties retained their own custom till the council of Nice, which happily terminated the dispute.

And here let me make an observation, which, I think, ought to carry conviction to every mind. If the eastern and western Churches were so tenacious of such an unessential point as the time of keeping a festival, that neither would yield to the other, how is it possible to suppose, that all the clergy and people throughout the Christian world would have quietly submitted to an alteration of that sacred regimen, which CHRIST had established in his Church? And, further, how is it possible to suppose, that when we have so minute an account of this controversy, which in itself was of no material consequence, we should not have one single testimony in all antiquity, that the Church was changed from a presbyterian to an episcopal regimen? This is a wonderful circumstance. In the second and third centuries we have detailed accounts of the progress of heresies, of schisms, of disputes between Bishops, and between Presbyters and Bishops; but not the least hint of a change which deprived the Presbyters of their most sacred rights, and which, therefore, was calculated to produce the most violent convulsions throughout the Christian world. Sir, I could as easily believe all the fictions of the Arabian Night's Entertainments, of Don Quixotte, of Gulliver's Travels, of Amadis of Gaul, as believe this story. It is incredible it is unreasonable. Yet it seems any account of the matter will do, when a hypothesis is to be served; when those passions are to be consulted which always entwine themselves with principles once avowed, and with interests once established.

Let us now see how you surmount all these difficulties. The consideration of this point shall occupy the first part of my next letter.

VOL. I.-23

LETTER XIX.

REV. SIR:

YOUR manner of accounting for the silence of the primitive writers with respect to a revolution in the government of the Christian Church, is as follows: 'Nor is it wonderful that we find so little said concerning those usurpations in the early records of antiquity. There was probably but little written on the subject; since those who were most ambitious to shine as writers, were most likely to be forward in making unscriptural claims themselves; and, of course, would be little disposed to record their own shame. It is likewise probable, that the little that was written on such a subject, would be lost; because the art of printing being unknown, and the trouble and expense of multiplying copies being only incurred for the sake of possessing interesting and popular works, it was not to be expected that writings so hostile to the ambition and vices of the clergy would be much read, if it were possible to suppress them. And when to these circumstances we add, that literature, after the fourth century, was chiefly in the hands of ecclesiastics; that many important works written in the three first centuries, are known to be lost; and that of the few which remain, some are acknowledged on all hands to have been grossly corrupted, and radically mutilated, we cannot wonder that so little in explanation of the various steps of clerical usurpation has reached our times.'a

It seems, then, from this account, that we are not to look for any records of this wonderful usurpation; because those who were the most capable of writing, would be the very men who would most probably have usurped episcopal pre-eminence; and they would not, you think, record their own shame. But were there none who were capable of writing, but the comparatively small number of usurping Bishops? Was the eloquent Tertullian one of the usurpers? Has not he left various writings? Has he given any hint about this anti-christian usurpation ?· Would he have recorded his own shame' by so doing? Nay, Sir, has not this Presbyter, who had every motive to brand with infamy these usurpers, declared in the most explicit terms, that all spiritual power is derived from episcopal ordination? That neither Presbyter nor Deacon has a right to baptize without the Bishop's authority? Does not he challenge the heretics to produce a list of their Bishops from the Apostles, as the Catholics could? What could have induced Tertullian to be silent with respect to this usurpation, if it had ever existed? Or rather, what could have induced him to assert such a shameless falsehood, as that episcopacy was of apostolical institution, if it was not a notorious fact? What also could have induced the learned

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Clemens of Alexandria to be silent upon this point? Was he one of the usurping Bishops? Would he have recorded his own shame' by lifting up his voice against the usurpation? Or rather, would he not have been highly culpable, if he had been silent? But we hear no remonstrance from him. On the contrary, we find him declaring that the Apostles left three orders in the Church-Bishops, Priests, and Deacons. We have the same testimony from the profoundly learned Origen. He also was but a Presbyter; and therefore, one of the sufferers under this unchristian domination. He had, too, a peculiar motive for unmasking the imposition. He conceived himself to have been ill treated by his Bishop. Yet, irritated as he was, he declares episcopacy to be of divine appointment. Did he not know how the matter was? Was he an idiot, or a knave? Was he afraid to tell the truth, or had he any motive for telling a lie? Surely, Sir, we have got to a strange pass, when such monstrous fictions are imposed upon mankind!

But why are the Christian Bishops to be excluded from bearing their testimony to episcopacy? Oh!' they were the usurpers, and of course could not record their own shame.' Was Ignatius a usurper? Does the man who had been forty years Bishop of Antioch, who had been ordained to that office by apostolic imposition of hands, and who encountered for the sake of CHRIST, death in one of its most horrible forms, deserve that character? Did he, virtuous and pious as he was, go out of the world with a lie in his mouth? Did this martyr, who declares over and over again, that the office which he bore was of divine institution, record his own shame? Was Polycarp, the venerable and pious Bishop of Smyrna, one of those usurping Prelates? He must have had a principal hand in the business, if Blondel and the Westminster divines have guessed right; for he lived at the very time when, they say, this flagitious revolution was effected. Was this distinguished character, who recommended in strong terms the epistles of Ignatius, in which the divine right of episcopacy, is repeatedly asserted, and who, from recommending them, must have been of the same opinion; was, I say, Polycarp one of those 'usurpers'? Did he go out of the world, triumphing in the flames, and exulting in the hope of happiness, when he had upon his soul the guilt of destroying that sacred regimen which CHRIST left in his Church? Was he tenacious of the time of keeping Easter, which was of no material consequence; but regardless of the constitution of the Christian Church? If these questions will admit of an answer in the affirmative, then the nature of man is totally different from what it was in the early ages of the Church. At that time, great events were not recorded, while the most insignificant were. At that time, revolutions were effected by simple volition; but ever since, they have required vigorous action. Then the government of the Church was subverted without the least notice, noise, or contention; but now it would excite the great