tion, of a plurality of bishops.† 'In the island of Crete,' says Campbell, Lecture V., 'there were no fewer, according to the earliest accounts and catalogues extant, than eleven bishops.' And had the hundred cities for which it was famous been the seats of Christian churches, the apostle's instructions would have required the ordination of at least one hundred bishops. The subdivision of Crete-one hundred and eighty miles long and eighteen to thirty broad-into a hundred dioceses would scarcely satisfy the ambition of modern prelacy.

The famous Commentary of Jerome on one of the passages we have just examined deserves to be still better known than it is. The original is before us, but it is enough to quote Dr. Mason's translation as given by Coleman. That thou shouldest ordain presbyters in every city, as I have appointed thee.' Titus i. 5.

'What sort of Presbyters,' says Jerome, ought to be ordained he shows afterwards. If any be blameless, the husband of one wife,' &c., and then adds, for a bishop must be blameless, as the steward of God,' &c. A Presbyter, therefore, is the same as a bishop; and before there were, by the instigation of the devil, parties in religion; and it was said among different people, I am of Paul, and I of Apollos, and I of Cephas,' the churches were governed by the joint counsel of the Presbyters. But afterwards, when every one accounted those whom he baptised as belonging to himself and not to Christ, it was decreed throughout the whole world that one chosen from among the Presbyters, should be put over the rest, and that the whole care of the church should be committed to him, and the seeds of schism taken away.

Should any one think that this is only my own private opinion, and not the doctrine of the Scriptures, let him read the words of the apostle in his epistle to the Philippians; Paul and Timotheus the servants of Jesus Christ, to all the saints in Christ Jesus which are at Philippi with the bishops and deacons.' Philippi is a single city of Macedonia, and certainly in one city there could not be several bishops as they are now styled; but as they at that time called the very same persons bishops whom they called presbyters, the apostle has spoken without distinction of bishops as presbyters.

'Should this matter yet appear doubtful to any one, unless it be proved by an additional testimony, it is written in the Acts of the Apostles, that when Paul had come to Miletum he sent to Ephesus and called the presbyters of that church, and among other things said to them, 'Take heed to yourselves and to all the flock in which the Holy Spirit hath made you bishops.' Take particular notice

As every city is mentioned, the plurality of bishops may refer to the plurality of churches.'-Bennett's Theology of the Early Christian Church,' p. 223.

that, calling the presbyters of the single city of Ephesus, he afterwards names the same persons bishops.'

After further quotations from the Epistle to the Hebrews and from Peter, he proceeds :

'Our intention in these remarks is to show that among the ancients, presbyters and bishops were the very same. But that, by little and little, that the plants of dissension might be plucked up, the whole concern was devolved on an individual. As the presbyters, therefore, know that they are subjected by the custom of the church to Him who is set over them, so let the bishops know that they are greater than presbyters more by custom than by any real appointment of Christ.'

This passage deserves examination. We remark upon it-1. Jerome bears express testimony to the original identity of the office of bishop and presbyter. 2. He distinctly denies the Divine right of the hyper-presbyterial episcopacy which prevailed in his day, the fourth century-it was the product of custom, not of a Divine appointment. 3. According to this father, the growth of diocesan episcopacy was gradual. The first paragraph of the passage we have quoted, would leave the impression that the creation of a hyper-presbyterial episcopate was the result of a universal decree or decision by the churches. But Jerome speaks more carefully afterwards of its having been by degrees by little and little'-paulatim. The new order was the growth of circumstances and that very gradually. Long after some churches were ruled by a bishop superior to the presbyters, other churches retained the primitive order of equality. 4. The statement of Jerome as to the cause and design of the new order of things, is, to say the least of it, defective. That its origin was connected with dissensions in many cases we readily grant, but we question the nature of the connection. So far from there being any such benevolent and far-seeing design as the prevention, or cure, of the evils which our author specifies, the new episcopate was the fruit of these evils. While the virtues of some men might contribute to their undue exaltation above their equals, ambition had more to do with it in general than virtue, and ambition found its convenient opportunities in seasons of dissension. Instead of being fitted to check the ambition of ecclesiastics, the new order erected a throne for them to climb to; it has been throughout many ages a stimulus to the worst passions of rivalship, and the very end of ecclesiastical being. 5. We cannot sympathise with the complacency with which Jerome speaks of the new order. True, he admonishes the bishops of his time that their status was not of Divine appointment. But he looks on it with complacency as the grand

correction of division and dissension. The rod of iron, we allow at once, produces peace where reason, and justice, and gentleness, fail. But, to use the words of Milton in reference to another matter, with as good a plea might the dead palsy boast to a man, 'It is I that free you from stitches and pains, and the troublesome feeling of cold and heat, of wounds and strokes: if I were gone all these would molest you.'' Paul, it is evident, was lacking in the better wisdom of the fourth century. He lived in the inexperienced infancy of Christianity. There were dissensions in his time-some said even then, I am of Paul, and I of Apollos, and I of Cephas;' but he had not the prudence to forge a rod of iron, and put it into the hand of a bishop to lord it over God's heritage. His remedies were of another kind. Clement, pastor, or one of the pastors of the church in Rome, was so short-sighted as to follow Paul's example in his mode of quelling the turbulence of the church in Corinth, seventy years after Paul had written to them. The discovery of the sovereign remedy of the episcopate was reserved for later and wiser men. While we cannot sympathise with the feelings with which Jerome regarded hyper-presbyterial episcopacy, we fall back on his testimony to the facts that the original bishop and presbyter were identical, and that the subsequent superiority of the one to the other was destitute of Divine sanction. His witness is true.

We proceed to inquire whether diocesan episcopacy, or even hyper-presbyterial congregational episcopacy, derives any support from the designation angel of the church,' employed in the letters to the seven churches in Asia. According to the high episcopal theory, the angels of these churches were the bishops to whom alone were entrusted the control and regulation of their affairs.' 'On this it is enough to remark,-First, that as the whole evidence of the rest of the New Testament goes to show that no such officer as a bishop, in the modern sense of the term, existed in the early churches, it is altogether incompetent for us to assume the existence of such an office in order to explain an obscure and difficult expression in this one instance; and secondly, it is clear both from the tenor of the epistles themselves, and especially from the command of Christ, that they were to be sent to the churches, the EKKλnσiaι, or assemblies of the brethren (Rev. i. 11), a fact which is quite incompatible with the high episcopal theory; for where the jurisdiction of a diocesan is supposed, all popular influence in the management of affairs is put out of the question.'* We add a third remark :-Even should we allow that the angel of the

• Alexander's 'Anglo-Catholicism,' Appendix, p. 410.

church' was the designation of an office superior to that of the elders or ordinary pastors, that office, call it the episcopate or aught else you please, was not diocesan, but congregational. In each of the seven cities named in the Apocalypse, there was an ekkλŋσia, and over each ecclesia there was an angel. The jurisdiction of that angel, then, be its nature what it might, was limited to a single congregation, not extended over a province. It remains to be determined who or what was the angel of the church. We cannot accept the interpretation which makes it to mean the consistory of elders in each congregation, viewed as one body and so personified. Nor can we maintain that at the time John wrote the Apocalypse, a plurality of pastors had ceased in the churches, that there was now in each of these societies only one pastor, and that to him the letter intended for his church was addressed, that he might lay it before them, and as in duty bound urge its contents on their notice.' We are still more opposed to the theory which supposes that the word 'angel' is used as a symbolical expression for the whole church. This theory, though called the ultra-congregationalist, is revived by Neander. In his introduction to Coleman's work, an essay in which the defects of the German mind are more conspicuous than its excellencies, Neander says, 'In this phraseology I recognise a symbolical application of the idea of guardian angels, similar to that of the Ferver of the Parsees, as a symbolical representation and image of the whole church. Such a figurative representation corresponds well with the poetical and symbolical character of the book throughout. It is also expressly said, that the address is to the whole body of the churches.' The theory which explains the angel of the church' by a reference to the known office-bearer who bore that title in the Jewish synagogue, is regarded by Neander as 'arbitrary,' but we venture, notwithstanding the great authority of his name, to call his own rather arbitrary' and fanciful.

Let us inquire. In the Old Testament we find prophets and priests sometimes called messengers or 'angels.' See Haggai, i. 13, and Malachi, ii. 7. In the Jewish synagogue there was an officer designated which means the representative or delegate of the church, and might be rendered without impropriety the angel of the church.' 'The office of the individual thus named was to superintend and conduct the worship of the synagogue.' He was a pоeσrós (superintendent), or an ἐπίσκοπος (bishop or overseer), and also a διδάσκαλος (a teacher in a greater or less degree'). Now Neander not only admits, but

As an interpretation of this Hebrew phrase,' says Coleman, 'the English reader may read, as often as it occurs, the ruler of the synagogue.'-p. 38, note.

argues that the earliest constitution of the church was modelled, for the most part, after that religious community with which it stood in closest connection and to which it was most assimilated, the Jewish synagogue.' It is not maintained that the resemblance was in all points exact, but that the one was formed on the general platform of the other. The titlesbishop, pastor, presbyter, &c. (says Coleman) were all familiar to them (the Christians) as synonymous terms, denoting the same class of officers in the synagogue. Their duties and prerogatives remained, in substance, the same in the Christian church as in that of the Jews.' What then could be more natural (and not 'arbitrary') than to designate the superintend ent of the worship in the Christian synagogue by a title already familiarly used to designate the superintendent of the worship in the Jewish synagogue? The interpretation which would treat this application of the term 'angel of the church' as 'arbitrary,' must itself be reckoned arbitrary, and an act of violence to the strongest probability.

But was there an office-bearer in the primitive Christian church, distinct from its bishops or presbyters, whose function it was to superintend and lead the Christian worship? There is no evidence that there was. On the contrary, all the evidence we have on the subject proves that the bishop or presbyter was the only office-bearer whose functions were concerned with the spiritual affairs of the community. The result is,' says Coleman (and we agree with him), that the angel of the churches, whatever view we take of the origin of the term, was not the representative of an order or grade superior to presbyters, but himself merely a presbyter, or, if you please, a bishop, provided you mean by it simply what the scriptures always mean,- -a pastor of a church, the ordinary and only minister divinely constituted to be the shepherd and bishop of their souls.' (p. 39.) We have only to add that where there was a plurality of bishops, order required that one should preside to conduct the deliberations and worship of the assembly. And he whose 'turn' it was to preside on any occasion, would be 'the angel of the church,' pro tempore. Any communications intended for the whole body would be laid before it naturally by the president of the day.

We cannot dismiss this subject without adverting to gratuitous concessions which are sometimes made in connexion with the point which we have just considered, as to the state of the primitive episcopacy at the end of the apostolic period. 'At the close of the apostolic period,' says Dr. Alexander, whose well reasoned objections to the high episcopal theory we have already quoted, i.e., at the commencement of the second cen