Digitized by'the Internet Archive in 2011 with funding from Princeton Theological Seminary Library http://www.archive.org/details/primitivegovernmOOwil • ••# A^\ »* *^#:^fc^/7? 'O- ;jris/ f ■ I'' ' f/} n ^//£^£&/t» PRIMITIVE GOVERNMENT OP CHRISTIAN CHURCHES. ALSO, LITURGICAL CONSIDERATIONS. BY JAMES P. WILSON, D. D., I-ate Pastor of the First Presbyterian Church, Philadelphia. " Nil nisi justum suadet, et lene." TO WHICH IS PREFIXED, THE SERMON, PREACHED ON THE OCCASION OF THE DEATH OF THE AUTHOR, BY REV. THOMAS H. SKINNER, D. D. P HILADELPHIA: FRENCH >»i a*. Entered according to the act of Congress, in the year one thousand eight hundred and thirty-two, by Matthew Wilson, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. WM. F. GEDDES, PRINTER, 9 LIBRARY ST. ADVERTISEMENT. This work is a defence against unfounded pretensions; and in- tended to exhibit, without wounding 1 any individual, the illiteracy of excluding from mercy or covenant favors, all but the subjects of the hierarchy; and of making mute presbyters a characteristic of the primitive church. The inquiry is first orderly pursued through the early testimonies, that innovations might be detected; and the Scriptures afterwards examined according to original ideas. This book has been printed in numbers in the Christian Specta- tor, but merely with the design to elicit objections, that it might be rectified, if found unjust, or in error on any point. Compensa- tion was offered by the publisher at New Haven, but refused, because the right was reserved. CONTENTS. SECTION I. Pag-e The ordinary officers at the demise of the apostles. Barnabas spurious. The Pastor of Hermas a forgery. The testimony of Clement of Rome, ------ 1 SECTION II. The evidence furnished by Polycarp. The fragment of Papias, - 7 SECTION III. The disinterested representations of Justin Martyr. The letter of the church of Smyrna. The fragment of Hegesippus, - 16 SECTION IV. Tatian. The letter of the churches of Vienne and Lyons. The fragment of Melito. The writings of Athenagoras. The tract of Hermias. The books of Theophilus of Antioch. The works of Irenes, ....... 25 SECTION V. The facts appearing in Clement of Alexandria. Novatian's writ- ings in Tertullian and Cyprian. The testimony of Tertullian, - 36 SECTION VI. The letters ascribed to Ignatius are evidence of the third century. A reply to Philo-Ignatius, - 45 SECTION VII. The dialogue of Minucius Felix. The writings of Hippolytus. The testimony of Origen, ..... Q\ SECTION VIII. The character and evidence of Cyprian, .... 69 1* VI CONTENTS. SECTION IX. The epistle of Firmilian. The writings of Gregory Thaumaturgus. The fragments of Methodius. The seven books of Arnobius. The writings of Laetantius, ..... 82 SECTION X. The character and writings of Eusebius, .... 89 SECTION XI. The origin and history of councils prior to A.D. 787, 99 SECTION XII. The writings of Hilary of Poictiers. The learned productions of Hilary the deacon, ...... 108 SECTION XIII. The important writings of Athanasius. The six books of Optatus. The testimony and sufferings of Aerius, - - - 118 SECTION XIV. The writings of Basil the Great. The life and writings of Gregory of Nazianzum. The works of Gregory of Nyssa, the brother of Basil, - - 127 SECTION XV. The ordination and writings of Cyril of Jerusalem. The writings of Ambrose, ------ 137 SECTION XVI. The works of Epiphanius the imbecile Metropolitan of Cyprus. His testimony of the Apostolical Constitutions, - - 144 SECTION XVII. The supposititious writings of Dionysius the Areopagite. The vol- uminous writings of John, since called Chrysostom. The frag- ments of letters of Isidore of Pelusium, ... 153 SECTION XVIII. The works of the learned Jerom, - 162 SECTION XIX. The ten tomes and supplement of Augustine of Numidia. The CONTENTS. Vll remaining writings of Synesius of Ptolemais. The history, epis- tles, dialogues, &c. of Sulpicius Severus. ... 177 SECTION XX. The writings of John Cassian of Marseilles. The history of So- crates of Constantinople. The nine books of Sozomen of Pal- estine. The writings of Theodoret of Antioch, - ■ 188 SECTION XXL The writings and ambitious efforts of Pope Leo the first, - 193 SECTION XXII. SEPARATISTS OF THE EIGHTH AND TWELFTH CENTURIES. The Piedmontese apart of the Latin church, A. D. 817. They were episcopal at the death of Claude. The history of the ori- gin and progress of the Bohemians. The Waldenses of France sprang from the followers of Claude, - 20S SECTION XXIII. THE HISTORY OF ORDINATIONS. The extraordinary offices of Apostle and evangelist were not by ordination. There were no ordinations but of presbyters and deacons. The first diocesan bishops were not constituted by im- position of hands. Canonical ordinations arose after the second century, --<■•»--•- 221 SECTION XXIV. LAY ELDERS EXCLUDED BY EPISCOPACY- The Syrian churches, Waldenses and Culdees were all episcopal. Lay elders were introduced at Geneva, by a compromise. Af- terwards adopted by other cantons; also in France, Nether- lands, Scotland, England, and America, ... 253 SECTION XXV. The primitive state of the church having been sought from credible witnesses of the facts, without regard to their opinions, or hear- says; and the changes marked from the commencement of the second to the termination of the fifth century, and having seen the successive introduction of parochial and diocesan episco- pacy, the canonical ordination and human authority of the latter, and the creation of quasi presbyters by Calvin, we are prepared better to understand the New Testament by the rejection of these novelties. But bishops are by some supposed to be the succes- Vlll CONTENTS. sors of the evangelists, and Timothy is made bisTiop of Ephesus. — How Timothy received authority and for what purpose. An evangelist before he came to Ephesus. He was left by Paul at Ephesus, the last time Paul was there, Timothy having returned thither after Paul's first letter to the Corinthians. Timothy left Ephesus after ordaining presbyters there, and came to Paul in Macedonia, before his return to Jerusalem and first imprison- ment. The first letter to Timothy was before he left Ephesus to go to Paul in Macedonia, and instructed him in choosing and or- daining the presbyters. He accompanied Paul to Jerusalem and Rome, where he was during the Apostle's first imprisonment. The second letter to Timothy was written during the second im- prisonment, and discovers that Timothy was not then at Ephe- sus; it calls him to Rome; and it no where appears that Timothy ever returned to Ephesus after ordaining the elders there, - 251 SECTION XXVI. TITUS WAS ALSO AN EXTRAORDINARY OFFICER, AND NOT A BISHOP OF CRETE. He was Paul's attendant or evangelist, before the Gospel was carried to Crete. — A polios is named in the epistle to Titus, but as they first saw Apollos on Paul's last visit to Ephesus, it was written after that visit. Every movement of Paul, from the riot at Ephesus unto his first imprisonment, is given, and events show he did not leave him in Crete before he went to Rome. — His let- ters from Rome discover that Titus was not with him during his first imprisonment, and of course he could not have left him in Crete on his return from Rome. — Titus had been with Paul at Je- rusalem, but after separating from Barnabas, he was no more with Paul till his second visit to Ephesus; probably he was sent with the letter to the Galatians,and met Paul at Ephesus on his last visit there, from whence Paul sent him to Corinth, and he came to Paul in Macedonia, and was sent back to Corinth. — At some period after his first imprisonment, they may have gone to Crete; and Titus being left there, received this letter as a discharge from thence, when a substitute arrived. He was at Nicopolis one win- ter with Paul; and the Scriptures leave him in Dalmatia, - 263 SECTION XXVII. THE FIXED STATE, AND ORDINARY OFFICERS OF THE PRIMI- TIVE CHURCHES. Under the spiritual dispensation of the gospel, the extraordinary I officers were the apostles, to confer gifts and teach by means of CONTENTS. IX the inspiration of suggestion; the evangelists, to plant and water churches; prophets, with occasional inspiration to explain the Scriptures. — The gifts are described, 1 Cor. xii. 28; Rom. xii. 6 — 8; Ephes. iv. 11, 12. — Officers qualified to administei ordi- nances, succeeded the extraordinary gifts, and churches, which were Christian societies, were substituted for the synagogues. But two orders or kinds were adopted — presbyters, who were called also pastors, to teach, ordain, administer baptism and the euchar- ist, and to govern, and deacons to serve. — Among the presbyters, a bench of which was at first in every church, and but one pres- bytery in a society or city,- there was one who presided, denomi- nated TTfioaluK, angel, and by other names; yet the ordination was not different from that of the rest. — The first change was by a gradual transition into pastoral or parochial episcopacy, after- wards into diocesan. — This was established by the Council of Nice, and at length produced papacy, - - - 270 Liturgical Considerations, - - - - - 289 SERMON.* Among the reasons, my brethren, which induced the speaker to undertake, at your request, the performance of the present service, he is unwilling any one should reckon, a sense of his competency to the task. If one's ability to speak justly of another, is at all proportional to their de- grees of mutual conformity in talents and virtues, there are not many persons among the acquaintance of your late pastor, of whatever experience and attainments, who ought to think themselves adequate to a complete description of him. An intimacy of nearly sixteen years, has made him who addresses you very conscious, that his inferiority in age, though a great disqualification, is probably the least considerable point in his unfitness to that undertaking. He was led, however, to hope, that he would receive so much assistance from the papers of his lamented friend, that he might almost make him his own biographer; but, to his great surprise, that peculiar man was found to have left not a sentence about himself, among all his manu- scripts; nor have many particulars in his history been ascertained, besides such as are of extensive notoriety. * Preached in the First Presbyterian Church of Philadelphia, January 16th, 1831. Hence it became necessary to make a discourse of a very different character from that which was first projected, and which perhaps would have better met your anticipa- tions. Micah vi. 9. — The Lord's voice crieth unto the city; and the man of wisdom shall see thy name. Hear ye the rod, and who hath ap- pointed it. It is one of the consequences of man's fallen state, that he is apt to misapprehend the design of God's gracious measures for his recovery. Shadows of good things he mistakes for the reality; ordinances of mercy become means of spiritual pride; grace is turned into licentious- ness; and Christ himself is made the minister of sin. The prophet had given, in the Jews of his day, an ex- emplification of this trait of human perverseness. He had represented that idolatrous generation as apparently sen- sible to the dangerous consequences of their idolatry, and desirous to discover some way in which they might avert the divine displeasure. ' ; Wherewith shall I come before the Lord; and bow myself before the high God? Shall T come before him with burnt-offe rings; with calves of a vear old? Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, or with ten thousands of rivers of oil? Shall I give my first-born for my transgression; the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?" These interrogatories betray a radical misconception of the purpose for which sacrifices were appointed. They make God vindictive; and ap- peasable, only by expensive oblations. So had the hea- then, amidst their guilty darkness and fear, reproached the divine nature; but that the Depositaries of revealed SERM0X. XlU truth should have fallen into this error, was scarcely to have been expected. An illustrious example in their own history should have made them wiser. The royal peni- tent's memorable declarations — " Thou desirest not sacri- fice, else would I give it; thou delightest not in burnt- offering; the sacrifices of God are a broken spirit — a bro- ken and a contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise," should have left them at no loss, as to the way of regaining the divine favor. But this people were strangers to the relentings of godly sorrow; they had formed no purpose of a genuine change of life; .but merely desiring to avert the consequences of their infidelity, and thinking this might be done by offering costly sacrifices, they declare themselves ready to go to any practicable length, in such a way of escaping the displeasure of God. The prophet answers rebukefully to their infatuated inquiries, " He hath showed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God." Sacrifice not your first-born, but your sins. Reform your dishonest, oppressive, profane practices. Humble yourselves before God with a penitent, sin-renouncing, obedient spirit. "Hath the Lord as great delight in burnt-offerings and sacrifices as in obeying the voice of the Lord? Behold to obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams." The madness which the prophet thus sharply repre- hends, in his own people, has not been limited to them. There are multitudes even now, who, to escape the pun- ishment of their sin, would do any thing which might be exacted, in the way of expense or penance — would fast and wear sackcloth, and give all their goods to feed the poor, and their own bodies to be burned, who yet most XIV SERMON. stubbornly withhold from God the acceptable sacrifice of a subdued and obedient heart. This, however, is God's great demand of the sons of men —the main end and argument of all his overtures, ordinan- ces, instructions, and commandments; and any ritual ob- servances which do not involve compliance with this de- mand, are a perversion of the right ways of the Lord, to which and its authors, as in the case of Cain, the beginner of this iniquity, God hath not, and, without being opposed to his own institutions, cannot have respect. Hence the remonstrant strain of our propbet, after exposing in the manner we have seen, the mistake of his countrymen— a most culpable mistake, which might well incur a divine rebuke. What was the pretext of that ignorance which caused the perplexity of this people? Had not their means of information been adequate? Had God winked at their iniquity? Had he called them to repentance with an in- distinct or feeble voice? His voice, said the prophet, " cri- eth" — not speaketh with a still small accent — but crieth, putteth on strength, calleth aloud, and reacheth afar- — not to one or another, but the chief place of concourse, "the city," where the multitudes of men dwell — to all, from the least to the greatest, doth the almighty voice extend: As said Solomon, speaking of the Lord's voice under the fit names of wisdom and understanding — "Doth not wis- dom cry? and understanding put forth her voice? She standeth in the top of high places, by the way, in the places of the paths. She crieth at the gates, at the entry of the city; at the coming in at the doors. Unto you, O men, I call, and my voice is unto the sons of men." And now, if we would know what had hindered this people from comprehending that voice, by attending to the SERMON. XV next words of the prophet, we shall learn that they had become so worldly-minded, so sensual, that in respect to the things of the Spirit of God they were as men without understanding. Into this deep fatuity does the prophet insinuate they had sunk, when to his announcement that the Lord lifteth up his voice, he upbraidingly subjoins, "the man of wisdom shall see thy name." This it is which makes graceless men contemptuous of God's calls, that they heed not these calls as coming from God; full of all that is awful in his nature and imperative in his sove- reignty. If they so regarded them, both their ears would tingle until they ceased to resist them; and that they should not so regard them, is almost enough, as the Scrip- ture in several places intimates, to provoke unconscious nature itself into outcries of wonder and sorrow. And shall this stupidity pass unrebuked? Shall not that divine majesty which is not acknowledged in God's calls to repentance, assert itself at length in inflictions of just displeasure? Why then the mention in our passage, of "the rod," along with "the voice of the Lord;" the one to punish the contempt of the other. If ye will not hear his voice, said the man of God, " hear ye the rod, and who hath appointed it." That awful rod which is al- ready stretched out, before your eyes, in the judgments which are abroad in your land, who think ye hath ap- pointed it, and for what purpose? You can despise calls to repentance, as though they were but the breath of a mor- tal like yourselves; shall the judgments which are upon you, be held in like contempt? Now what, brethren, was the manner and fashion of that crying voice of God, which it was so fearful a thing not to understand? Was it, do ye suppose, like that which poured through the open heavens at the baptism of Christ? XVI • SERMON. Did it sound forth from the clouds with the loudness and terribleness of thunder? It was the simple expression of his will by the ministry of his servants, the prophets. So it was that God anciently spake to the fathers of the Jewish people. The voice of the prophets — that was His voice of which it is said, the voice of the Lord is powerful, is full of majesty, breaketh the cedars of Lebanon, maketh Sinai to skip like a young unicorn, divideth the flames of fire, shaketh the wilderness, maketh the forest bare, by which the heavens and all their hosts were made, which spake and it was done, which commanded and it stood fast' — that same almighty voice proceeded forth from the mouth of holy men of old, when they spake in the prophetical cha- racter. I. And now, in shaping the tenor of our discourse to the occasion of the meeting, our first remark is, that the fact just asserted in respect to the ancient prophets, is true also, in respect to the Christian ministry, the prophets of the present dispensation. The official and veritable ut- terances of the evangelical ministry are as surely "the voice of the Lord" as were the testimonies of the holy men of old, who spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost. The outward rank and condition of that ministry ■ — theirbirth, breeding, civil standing, and connexions — for the most part confessedly low, make nothing against this high speecli concerning them. For the prophets and even the apostles, what were some of them in these unessential respects? Nay, what, in such respects as these, was the Incarnate AVord, the voice of the Lord embodied and speaking with its own and not another's mouth? — It shows the depth to which our nature is degraded, that al- most nothing seems of worth in the world's estimation, compared to outward distinctions and possessions: And, therefore, God, that he might employ the strongest mean possible for recovering us from this insanity, hath poured the full vials of his infinite contempt on these idols of mankind; in his choice and separation of persons, bot4i unto the honors of his heavenly kingdom, and unto the management and labors of his kingdom on earth: Not deigning, as his usual way has been, even to look on princes, and judges, and mighty commanders, while he puts his Holy Spirit in poor, unknown, uncultivated men; and from the mouth of such babes and sucklings, sounds out his own almighty voice, by which he hath shaken the earth, and not earth only, but also heaven; and will yet shake the deepest foundations of hell, and establish order and peace throughout his vast dominions, never to be dis- turbed again in all the ages of eternity. If any one still think, that the claim which we set up in behalf of the ministry of reconciliation, cannot be sustained, since these men, not being inspired, are fallible and may misinform their fellow men, which it were blas- phemy to say the voice of God might do — let such an one call to mind, that the present ministers of the word have this advantage over the Old Testament prophets, that whereas those prophets received the communications of the divine will, in sundry parts, here a little and there a little, unto us are committed at one and the same time, the whole mass of the inspired oracles, both of the old and the new dispensations; whereby we are far better fur- nished as organs of the counsel of God to mankind, than tliey were, although unto them the manifestation* of the Spirit were immediate and fresh. For all those manifes- tations, whenever and to whomsoever first made, havinjr been written down under infallible guidance, and the re- cord intrusted to an almighty guardianship, are at this moment as genuine, as excellent, and as directly from 2* XV 111 SEHMOX. the Spirit, as if they had just been given to the world: The only difference is, that while ancient prophets re- ceived them in visions, dreams, extasies, and trances, they are presented to our minds through the medium, and surely not less desirable medium, of letters. Though the Christian ministry, then, be not inspired men, they possess all the inspirations ever given — all that God has thought needful, for the benefit, whether of his ministers them- selves, or those to whom he sends them. What prophet was ever so thoroughly furnished to his work, as far as inspiration could furnish him, as the New Testament man of God? But it will doubtless not escape recollection, that the ministry may misinterpret inspired Scripture; to meet which seeming argument against their being considered as "the voice of the Lord," let me put you in mind, that nei- ther did the ancient prophets fully comprehend some of their own inspired deliverances, but were left to discover, in the free exercise of their own fallible understandings, what, and what manner of time, the Spirit which was in them did signify, in his deep revelations to them concerning things to come. Inspired prophets, then, commenting upon their own oracles, might perhaps err, as the Christian ministry may and do, in their commentaries on inspired Scripture. But the prophets, notwithstanding the possibility of their misinterpreting some things, were the mouth of the Lord to mankind; and so, notwithstanding a like imperfection in our case, may be the regular preachers of the everlast- ing gospel. Take a distinction between the pure dicta- tions of the Spirit, and our uninspired expositions and rea- sonings upon them, and understand us as extending the hio-h ministral communications, whether of prophets or preachers, not a hair-breadth beyond the former, and where is the arrogance or the ill-consequence in either case of pronouncing these communications " the voice of the Lord." If preachers speculate, and sometimes, per- haps, they may do even that to edification unless they seek to become wise above what is written, let them ap- prize the people that they are not then presuming to speak in the name of the Lord; as the prophet who told a dream, as a. dream should have let it pass — let but this needful precaution be used by preachers, and let the people care- fully make the foremen tioned distinction, and there will be no danger of their receiving as inspired doctrine the commandments and speculations of men. Still, perhaps, some cannot but stand in doubt of this view of the ministerial function, as attaching to it a sa- credness and a sanction unwarranted by observation. Among those who profess to exercise that function, there is a radical discordance both in doctrine and life: Some uncpuestionably are not the Lord's mouth, and what sure proof is there that such sacred honor belongs to any of them? Now freely do we grant, nay, loudly protest, that there are indeed false teachers, bearing the name of Christian ministers, who privily and otherwise bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord who bought them; but is it not forgotten that there were false prophets of old, who made the people of God to err through their "lies" and their "lightness?" And if in the presence of many hundreds of such deceivers, one solitary Elias or Micaiah could stand forth and sound out a voice as con- vincingly the Lord's, as if no counterfeit of that voice had ever been attempted, so may the regular ministry now on the stage, show credentials, no less clear, of a divine commission, in the midst of all the varieties of self-sent preachers on the face of the whole earth. Indeed, com- plaint on the ground now taken is as perverse, in this case, as it could be in any other, wherein genuine excellence XX SERMON. should be denied existence, merely because there are pre- tenders who say they have it, and have not. Real and apparent, genuine and spurious, are designations which men find occasions to use, in reference to almost every thing with which they have to do; and shall they, there- fore, become universal skeptics? All things in this world are such and so evidenced, as to suit a state of trial; and if this be proof of divine wisdom and goodness on the gene- ral scale, why should not these attributes be recognized as displayed, particularly, in the plan of Providence con- cerning the ministration of God's saving counsel and grace? But now while you yield to the conclusiveness of these observations, you are probably but the more solicitous to knOW THE MARKS OF THE TRUE MINISTRY, that VOU may be sure of not paying your personal attendance where "the voice" which "crieth" is not that of the Lord, but another. How, while one saith, lo here, and another lo there, is many a poor wayfaring man to know whither he must go? Is his rustic ear acute enough to try this confusion of exclamations, and distinguish the heavenly cry amidst all the imitations of it which the father of lies hath been able to invent? Men of corrupt minds are often in great fear, where no fear is, and surely there is none here, although the show of danger be not small. Scorners and sectarists have led heady and heedless people into the apprehension of an insurmountable difficulty, which is, in fact, no dif- ficulty at all. And who that is not utterly overpowered by the spirit of bigotry, can allow himself soberly to think, that God would give forth his compassionate voice for the guidance of benighted mortals in the way of life, and not make that voice intelligible even to the feeblest mind, in SERMON'. XXI defiance of all the great deceiver can do to drown or to mimic it? How can it be the opinion of any thoughtful mind, that unless a man be learned and logical enough to explore and sift the arguments for and against the claims of a certain denomination, to be considered as descending with its ministers in an unbroken succession, from the apostles; unless he can do all this, he cannot know, by sound conviction of his own understanding, but that he is the dupe of a false teacher, who, in the guise of a sheep, may be inwardly a ravenous wolf? In no such way did Christ instruct his disciples to satisfy themselves as to the true character of teachers professing to have been sent from God? He gave them a test, at once infalli- ble, and so easy of application, that any unlearned man or child may use it, as will as a master of Israel. Not by their having the apostles at the beginning of their ministerial line — no, said He, who was even higher than the apostles, but "by their fruits ye shall know them. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles?" Here — I would think it no boldness to affirm, in the midst of the whole multitude of strivers for exclusive apostolic counte- nance — here, is the true criterion of ministerial preten- sions. A minister exemplifying the heavenly spirit of Christ in his walk before the world, and in his doctrinal inculca- tions ever enforcing the pure and entire truth of the gospel, and thus striving to win souls and build up converts in their most holy faith — such a minister, of whatever Christian denomination, approved by his brethren and having a seal to his commission in the hearts, perhaps, of hundreds be- gotten, through his preaching, to holiness and heaven — is a minister of Christ, who hath entered by the door into the sheepfold, the porter having opened to him as a true shepherd of the sheep, however some may suspect that hands were laid upon him which wanted pure ordaining virtue. But, on the contrary, a minister who, by light- iiess of manners, or by lies in his preaching, causes God's people to err from the narrow way of the gospel; who, in the tendency of his life and ministrations, makes little distinction between the world and the saints, whether in present character or eternal destiny; who pleads against a strict, and in favor of an easy and fashionable religion; and who, instead of having a seal to his ministry in the hearts of the elect, has there a witness against him, whose complaining voice, day and night, enters into the ears of the Lord of Sabaoth — such a minister, though of a church unquestionably the most apostolical in Christendom, is one against whom all heaven, if it might speak, would protest, and whom every one who cares for his soul, ought to shun, as a kid should shun the den of a hungry lion. II. So evident it is that " the voice of the Lord" truly "crieth," in the testimony of the Christian ministry; and so easy is it, to distinguish that voice amidst all evil attempts to assume or imitate it: — Now, the next thing which the text and the occasion of this service lead us to set forth in our discourse, is the infatuation of mankind in not dis- covering the name and majesty of God, through the me- dium of his voice lifted up and crying in our humble tes- timony. That this discovery is not made, except by a very small remnant, it were preposterous to dispute, while almost the whole world as evidently lieth in wick- edness, at this day, as when the trumpet of the gospel was first sounded by the apostles. For such surely would not be the state of the world — they would not be slumbering so securely in the lethean arms of their sins, with the clouds of eternal wrath gathering and thundering about them, if they discerned in the simple cry of their preachers the presence of the almighty and uncontrollable will. No, they neither discern it, nor believe it to be there; but rather, in their deceived heart, if not with open clamor. SERMON. XXIU they scorn the very pretence that God is with his minis- ters, and speaks with their mouth — they supremely scorn it, as the consummation of arrogance or delusion. " Who," say they, "are these that speak as if they were God him- self, and were armed with celestial power? Do we not see that they are sinful mortals as well as we?" If any thing pertaining to the persons or circumstances of the ministry— their weakness, their poverty, their obscurity, their want of great learning and relinement, their having no connexion with courts, and no countenance from princes — if things like these seem appendages not likely to be found about the ministry of Him who covereth him- self with light as with a garment, and stretcheth out the heavens as a curtain, and layeth the beams of his chambers in waters, and hath his way in the whirlwind and the storm, and the clouds are the dust of his feet — if any one think such a being would be ashamed of a ministry so mean as are the preachers of the gospel, then let him deny that God spake by Elias, and Amos, and other prophets of like personal disadvantages: and let him also justify the Jews in rejecting their Messiah, on these same grounds; and let him hold, moreover, that the fishermen of Galilee were not the holy apostles of the Lamb, but emissaries of Satan. If God would have ministers great and dignified enough to be worthy of their office, where, among all the sons of men or even his holy angels, could they be found? Should we measure the divine majesty by any personal exhibitions of grandeur in the power of archangels to make, we should limit and degrade the Holy One even to the depriving Him of his essential glory. Why then do we not acknow- ledge the wisdom of God in choosing representatives of Himself, whose personal appearance and character could never be thought of, as the medium of judging concern- ing His nature? Other obvious reasons there are, why the meanness of the ministry should be their recommenda- XXIV SERMON. tion; but these need not be mentioned : No " man of wis- dom," none who is not smitten with the spirit of slumber, having eyes that he should not see, and ears that he should not hear, will fail to discern the excellency of the gospel, merely because we have that treasure in earthen vessels. No excuse for this insensibility to the majesty of God, can be derived from the manner in which that majesty reveals itself. If it should be revealed daily in voices directly from the skies, and amidst all the apparatus of terror which invested Mount Sinai at the giving of the law, while such a mode of disclosure would be wholly incon- gruous with God's good and wise purposes, and with the present state and circumstances of man, it needs no pene- tration to see that those ever-sounding voices would be as little likely to secure due acknowledgment, as the voice of nature ceaselessly proclaiming, in all her works and move- ments, the presence of her God. "The man of wisdom" will consider, not so much the medium by which "the Lord's voice crieth," as the evidences that the voice is truly that of the Lord; and when that is the fact, the evi- dences of it, most assuredly, cannot be justly weighed for a moment, without overwhelming the mind with conviction. For is it even supposable that God may speak and room be left to doubt as to the source of the utterance? Must there not be something in the very voice itself, marking it as impossible to have come, save from the mouth of the Lord? Can any creature speak like the Creator? A man is not so far above a brute as God is above the greatest of his crea- tures; and if a man's voice sound differently from a brute's, must God's be undistinguishable from a man's? Let all the voices in the whole creation cry, and after that the Lord's; shall He, before whom the whole creation itself is as the small dust of the balance, utter a voice so little wiser, greater, better, than every other, that it is hard to discern the difference? Compare God's workmanship to SERMON. XXV that of a creature's. What pencil can paint, what hand can build like His? How coarse and clumsy seem the cun- ningest copies of art in the presence of His originals? And if the difference be so vast in what He does, shall it be almost undiscernable in what He says? When the mind which contains the original conceptions of all the forms of beauty, and sublimity, and strength, and goodness, which are to be found in creation' — when the fountain of all in- telligence, opens His mouth, shall nothing be expressed be- yond the power of a breathing atom to utter? What else were to be expected but that what ever is truly divine, whether it be deed or word, will bear the impress of divinity so clearly in itself, that it need but be considered in order to be known as wholly unlike what might come from a creature. So all likelihood leads us to conclude; and if any man on the earth will now candidly hearken to the voice of which we speak, he will find in this instance our conclusion confirmed: that is such a voice, that no ear is so dull but must confess it divine, unless resolved against a fair and submissive hearing. Think ye that the Christian ministry, whether of the present or any past generation, could of themselves have uttered such a voice? Could their narrow and sinful hearts have con- ceived such thoughts as that voice reveals? could the tongue of men or angels, unless moved by the inspiration of God, have uttered, and uttered with an eloquence such as mortal ears never elsewhere heard, such high les- sons of virtue and righteousness, such sublime concep- tions of God and his works, such humiliating views of man and his state, such a scheme of grace, such histories, such proverbs, such parables, such psalms, such prophe- cies, as that marvellous voice repeats, of which ministers of the gospel are appointed to be the echo, from land to land, and age to age. But the height of human infatua- 3 XXVI SERMON. tion will not be fully discovered without considering also the effects and achievements of that testimony which men so dishonor. If a voice should be uttered which should break the cedars of Lebanon, make Sirion to skip like a young unicorn, dry up rivers, set the mountains on fire, and melt down the ancient rocks, almo?t as much amazement would seize you to hear a man question whether that voice came from God, as to witness the proof of its stupendous efficiency 5 yet it is certain that even such a voice would not; accomplish greater wonders than that hath done in which the world sees nothing to awaken their attention. It needs more than a mortal's tongue to tell, and more than a mortal's heart to under- stand, the number and excellency of the doings of this voice. It hath produced a new creation | a creation re- splendent with the Maker's glory, in a far higher sense than was the outward world in the freshness of its being. It hath dispersed a worse than the primeval darkness, with a better than the primeval light. It hath built for ruined man a far fairer than his first habitation, and new- made him in the likeness of God, that he might be fitted to dwell in it; and scattering the powers of darkness before him, subduing hell and death under his feet, it hath brought him triumphantly to his new Paradise, and opened its everlasting gates for his admission, and in that bright world it hath enthroned him a king and a priest unto God, to reign and shine for ever as the sun in the firma- ment. To use plainer speech, it hath in unnumbered in- stances illumined poor man's benighted mind, melted his stony heart into tenderness and love, conquered and re- newed his obstinate will, refined and sanctified his vile affections, broken him oft' from all manner of vicious habits, and established him in habits of the strictest pu- rity, given him immortal hope for the gloom of despair, spoken his storms of trouble into peace, made great tribu- sermon. xxvii lation the occasion to him of heavenly rejoicing, and changed for him the grave into the gate of heaven. Such have been and such are some of the actual and manifest effects of this voice: but what more might not be added? If there is any thing desirable in refinement of taste and manners, in learning and the arts, in liberty and peace, the praise of it will not be bestowed where it is most due, unless it be acknowledged as an incidental legitimate fruit of the same wondrous voice. How soon would our entire world be as a vast field of blood, where wickedness in every frightful form would raven without restraint, if the voice which speaks through the gospel ministry should be silent. And yet mankind see nothing of God in it, but for the most part hold it in less esteem, than many of the empty cries which they raise among themselves. III. Now this in itself is an evil more deplorable than every other in the present lot of man; a strange evil truly; at the same time, the greatest of calamities and the greatest of sins; and yet what we are in the next place briefly to declare is, that bad as it is in itself, it draws af- ter it worse consequences — consequences which it had been well for him who has to meet, that he never had been born. These consequences will teach the incorrigible despisers of our testimony what it is they hold in such contempt. It now appears to them as having nothing in it to be feared; they take liberties with it and find no hurt; they hear it or hear it not, as may suit their conve- nience or caprice: they mock at it; they gainsay it; they treat it in whatsoever manner they please, and yet it in- jures not a hair of their head. They sometimes do worse; seeking even to silence it, by stifling the breath that gives it expression. They lay their hands on the persons of the ministry, they scourge, they imprison, they kill them, they account them as sheep for the slaughter, and still what XXV111 SERMON* harm do they suffer? So dealt the Jews with the prophets, the apostles, and the Prince of Life himself; and thou- sands of God's faithful witnesses have fared in like man- ner in subsequent times. If this voice be the Lord's why- is it not proved to be his, by some instant stroke of divine anger on every one who offers it the least disrespect? The. patience of God which bears so long with the world's blasphemies and crimes; the spirit of Jesus which re- strained him from coming down from the cross to prove his Messiahship at the challenge of his murderers, is not less mysterious than that the miracle performed on. Lot's wife is not repeated upon every one who in any way dishonours the gospel ministry. Could the judgment, however, of these disdainful men be now realized, no one would com- plain that it seemed to linger. As the voice of civil law which is treated as if it were without strength by success- ful robbers and ruffians, appears sufficiently powerful at the terrible moment of their shameful execution ; so when the doom of these contemners of "the Lord's voice" has once overtaken them, that now unavenged voice, will con- vincingly show whose it is, by inflictions as demonstrative of an almighty hand, as the creation of the world. Time allows us not to enlarge here beyond one or two remarks. When the word of God came to the prophet Jeremiah, a man of like passions with ourselves, "See," it was said to him, "I have this day set thee over the nations, and over the kingdoms, to root out, and to pull down, and to destroy, and to throw down, and to plant and to build;" so tremen- dous was the strength that dwelt in a prophet's tongue: yet was it not equal to that with which Christ has armed the commissioned heralds of the gospel. "I give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven;" "Whatsoever ye shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatso- ever ye shall loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven;" "Whosesover sins ye remit, they shall be remitted unto SERMON. XXIX them, and whosesoever sins ye retain they are retained;" "Go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature, he that believeth and is baptized shall be saved, but he that helieveth not shall be damned." when the voice of the evangelical ministry shall be honoured by the full revelation of the power here given it by Christ, no creature will be left in doubt whether that voice be their own, or His who called the world out of nothing and it came. Then will be seen how truly Christ said, "He that heareth you, heareth me; and he that despiseth you, despis- eth me: and he that despiseth me, despiseth him that sent me." This also should be remembered ,that the penalty of these despisers though not immediate, does not slumber for a mo- ment; neither is it slack in its approach as some count slackness. It is coming, as directly as the arrow to its mark; and when arrived it will be thought that light itself is not so swift. Nor are there wanting tokens of its ter- ribleness and its haste. For God, still rich in mercy, gives much warning to rebellious men; bringing forth the cloud of his indignation as from afar, with his lightning playing gently before it, that they may be without no in- ducement to make their escape from the fury of the com- ing storm. Since they contemptuously turn away their ears from his "voice," he lifts up his menacing "rod," to alarm them if possible out of their desperate stoutness. He vis- its them with corrective stripes: they are stricken, smit- ten, and afflicted in their minds, in their persons, in their families, in their connexions, in all their outward circum- stances; others are struck with death for their admonition; child, lover, and friend, one, another, and then another, are known no more in the sphere of their social inter- course; and yet for all this his comminatory anger is not turned away, but his hand is stretched out still. Lo, all these things worketh God oftentimes with man, to briDg XXX SERMON'* back his soul from the pit, to be enlightened with the light of the living. But when these methods of correction have failed of their designed result, when men after proving their contempt on the voice of the Lord, refuse also to hear the rod, and who hath appointed it, God having en- dured these vessels of wrath, with so much long suffering will hasten to show his wrath and make his power known in their everlasting destruction. But there is one way whereby God sometimes reveals his admonitive indignation against the refusers of his mer- cy, which though seldom so esteemed by them, is of all others by far the most dreadful in the view of the man of wisdom; and the event which has this day convened us makes it specially proper to mention it. It is when God withdraws his voice and appoints silence to instruct them: when he smites not them but his own ambassador; and call- ing his rejected witness home, leaves them only his grave and his dust to remind them of eternity. This is a kind of warning which almost no one lays to heart; and yet, in the way of reproof, what could the Lord do more than this, to strike the rock of impenitency into contrition? It were most ungracious to insinuate that the recalof that very eminent man, who so long sounded out the "Lord's voice" from this place, should be regarded as a judgment upon the congregation; but this we may freely say, that every person, "man of wisdom," or otherwise, who was accus- tomed to hear the word at his mouth, should not be unex- ercised in deep thought and feeling, by that solemn act of a roost deep meaning Providence. Especially does it con- cern those of you who though his testimony is ended, re- main yet in your sins, to ponder this, to you surely, serious occurrence. How often have you heard from him as he was about closing a powerful argument against your unbe- lief, the tender premonition that his days were almost num- SERMON. XXXI berecl: what he then said has come to pass; and how so- berly does the fulfilment of his word in this instance warn you, that though heaven and earth may pass away, nothing that he ever spoke to you, "as the voice of the Lord," shall fail to be accomplished. He is not more certainly gone the way of all the earth, nor was it at all more cer- tain that he would go, than that what he has often told you out of the Scriptures respecting the final doom of the wicked, will be fulfilled in yourselves, if you do not re- pent. But, however his removal should be interpreted in respect to the flock of which he was specially the shep- herd, it reads a lesson to the church and the community at large, which nothing but the stupidity reprehended in this discourse can misunderstand. When one of the first luminaries in our heaven disappears, shall the inhabi- tants of the land have no concern at the event? When Elias is taken up, shall the cry be nowhere heard, "My Father, my Father, the chariot of Israel and the horse- men thereof." We shall not now venture to present a character of this great man; which, whoever attempts, should aim at an exactness of resemblance, such as when in water face answereth to face, lest, by being confronted with the very precise image which he has left of himself in your hearts, and in his works, it should be reproved as untrue to so rare a specimen of God's handiwork. Our remarks concerning him, will be such only as may be prompted by an endeavor to enforce the instruction af- forded us by the Providence which has removed him.* * It may be well to record in this place, the following biographi- cal particulars concerning - this distinguished man. He was born February 21st, 1769, at Lewes, in the. state of Delaware. He was graduated in the University of Pennsylvania, in 1788. He was admitted to the bar, in Susses county, Delaware, in 1790. He XXXU SERMON. While ministers of a certain class, possessing little in- tellectual furniture, besides a bare knowledge of the es- sential truths of the gospel, are, with warm spirits, with a most exemplary zeal, and with much success, constantly employed in applying those truths to the hearts of their fellow men, they are sometimes disposed to hold in too little esteem, the labors of those of their brethren, whose taste, learning, and sense of duty, incline them to deep research into the principles of things, to careful analysis of complex subjects, to critical investigation, and minute exegesis of the sacred text, to elaborate inquiry into ec- clesiastical antiquities and the opinions and productions of early days, and to the knowledge and solution of all the most subtile objections that have at any time been urged by heretics and unbelievers, against the true Chris- tian faith; as if without such vast labors at the fountains of wisdom, these less curious divines could have been supplied with some of those sweet streams, of which they are content to drink, without considering to whom next to God they are most indebted for the privilege. When our was licensed to preach the gospel in 1804, and, in the same year, was ordained and installed as pastor over the united congrega- tions of Lewes, Coolspring, and Indian river. In 1806, he was advised by the Presbytery of Lewes to accept the call of the First Presbyterian church in Philadelphia, to which he removed in the same year. In May, 1828, he removed to his farm, about 20 miles from Philadelphia, on account of the infirm state of his health; preaching, nevertheless, to his congregation frequently as his health permitted. His resignation of his pastoral charge was ac- cepted in the spring of 1830. In the same season, he visited the city, and preached for the last time to his people. He triumphant- ly departed to heavenly rest, December 9th, 1830, at nine o'clock in the evening, and was buried on the following Monday (Dec. 13th) in a spot, selected by himself, in the grave-yard of the Nesha- mony church. friend fell asleep, in what pulpit of this land, was a man to be found so enriched as himself, with the fruits of this patient, and, at this clay, too unusual researches of mind ? Our ears never listened to a preacher whose common dis- courses discovered as rich treasures of recondite learning. And what more surprised us than the extent and variety of his acquisitions, was the ease and simplicity, and nice exactness, with which, on all occasions, he used them. In proportion to the depth and difficulty of his subjects, his tongue was loosed and moved nimbly and trippingly, as in its favorite sphere, expressing the most subtle dis- tinctions and discriminations of thought; pursuing the most refined and complicate argumentations; collating, criticising, paraphrasing, Scriptures hard to be under- stood; reciting out of ancient and uncommon books, his- torical testimonies, and statements of doctrine; without the assistance of notes, and yet with a fluent precision and perspicuity of language which no such assistance could have improved. Another recollection of him, which deepens exceeding- ly our sense of the loss we sustain by his departure, is, that with his great elevation in other respects he united in a rare degree what transcends all other excellence, and is the highest proof of true greatness, a catholic and chari- table spirit. We never knew one who scrutinized more severely the evidences of doctrine; and he was, conse- quently, when convinced, not liable to be soon shaken in mind; nor did he lightly esteem the truth which with so much diligence and honesty he had acquired, or think it unimportant that others should be ignorant of it, much less that they should pervert or falsify it. But his reading was too various, his observation too wide, his acquaintance with the history of theological strifes too ample, his persuasion too lively, that the differences among religious parties are XXXIV SERMON. rather referable to a sectarian than a truth-seeking spirit, and while they anathematize one another, may be consis- tent with the existence, in some degree, of real piety in both, and their ultimate reconciliation in heaven — he was, in a word, too sound -minded and enlightened a man to be a fierce champion of an ecclesiastical shibboleth, or to elimi- nate those whom he might suspect of having no readiness in framing to pronounce it right. He was among the wor- thiest of those ministers in our own denomination, who, espousing no side in our debates about orthodoxy, are will- ing to let those debates proceed as long as they threaten no schism, but when that danger is seen, throw in their influence, as a balance wheel in a vast machine, whose movement, without .such a regulator, would presently stop with a terrific crash and damage. Such was the spirit of this high-soul ed man; and who of us can consider the present state, might we not almost say, crisis, of af- fairs in our church, without sighing deeply in his spirit, that the voice which he could raise, were he now in the midst of us, is not to be heard again till time shall be no longer. Nor was it merely in his high place as a minister of Christ that he singularly honored his Master: he was dis- tinguished by simplicity as his disciple, not less than by gifts as his representative; and it is when these two exist in union, that they become worthy of admiration. What a charm is there in gifts when simplicity exercises them; and how venerable is simplicity when it invests illustrious gifts. Never have we seen the person, in whom sim- plicity dwelt in an equal degree. "Whether in his public ministrations, or in private life, this great man was unas- suming as a little child, claiming no distinctions above the plainest individuals, and appearing to be conscious of no superiority to them in understanding and knowledge. And such exemplifications of the Spirit of Christ are not so common amongst us that we shall suffer little by this privation: How often does the church, not to say the world, concede reputation for greatness, where it is no sooner received than it becomes manifest there was a mis- take, by the immediate taking on of stateliness which it occasions? Such a transcendent instance of the reverse of this weakness was'not to be lowly rated by true judges of excellence, and by them at least the loss of it will not be unlamented. With such rare simplicity in such a man, it was unavoidable that other great virtues should be united: in two of which especially, he was almost exces- sive. How did justice, as beaming from his example, re- buke those inconsistent religionists, who, by their pious, would fain make atonement for their dishonest deeds; and how did his generosity, a kindred principle, put to shame those covetous professors who uphoard treasure for themselves, as if orphans and widows, and the children of want, had ceased from among men. Time fails us to speak of his other high excellencies; the strength and calmness of his feeling, his gravity and cheerfulness; his ease, pleasantness, and exhaustless resources in conver- sation; and his most exemplary manner of life in his fami- ly. We shall leave his defects to be reported by those who would remind us that human nature is imperfect; only begging them, if they censure his excitability, and his too great confinement at home, to imitate his noble- bleness in retraction; and to remember what an invalid he was for the last twenty years, how open his door ever stood to visiters, and what a good use he made of re- tirement.* It being our purpose by these remarks to * Dr. Wilson's self-seclusion from company and society-meet- ings should not be imitated, at least to the extent to which he prac- XXXVI SERMON. stir and strengthen in our minds a just sense of the dis- pensation which has taken him from us for ever, we choose rather to remember, to what a height of excellence he at- tained, than that he did not rise beyond it. It does not alleviate the sadness of the event we deplore, that it occurred not unexpectedly, but by means tised it, by the generality of ministers of the gospel: he had rea- sons for retirement peculiar to himself; but the best and most available kind of influence which a minister may exert, especially in a large city, is, for the most part, we think, that which prayer and intense study, rather than free intercourse with mankind, and abundant parochial visiting, are adapted to supply. With few exceptions, it may be questioned, whether ministers who are much abroad in the families of a city congregation, not to say in other social circles, do not receive more injury to themselves, in the loss of time, in discomposure of spirit, in dissipation of thought and feel- ing, than is compensated by any benefit, obtained or imparted, in such discursive modes of pastoral activity. Where, indeed, the private conversation of ministers with their people, is like Paul's preaching "from house to house," — a succession of sermons ad- dressed to individuals or families, unspeakable good may be both communicated and received, and ministerial usefulness and in- fluence, and even power in the pulpit, be greatly promoted: But the gifts of ministers must be very peculiar, or there must be an extraordinary state of religious feeling in their congregations, to admit of regular parochial visitation being so conducted in such a city, for instance, as Philadelphia. At least, if much of this sort of work is indispensable to the success of the gospel, in our cities, there should be more than one minister to a church; for certain it is, that the character and frequency of public preaching, the at- tention to benevolent societies, the attendance on funerals, and the visitation of the sick, demanded of the ministers of city congrega- tions, in this day of unusual excitement and action, make full re- quisition on all their time, and form a burden of effort which few men can long endure, without exhaustion and perhaps irreparable loss of health. SERMON. XXXVU of a very lingering illness which slowly enfeebled his frame, until it could no longer perform the least function of life. On his own account indeed we rejoice that the clays of his patient suffering are ended, but he had not yet numbered three-score years and ten, and the force of his mind was never greater than at the moment of his expi- ration. He departed prematurely in the full strength of all his intellectual powers, and that disease should have so long interfered with the use of those powers before his hour came, only gave cause in a less degree for the same grief which his death more loudly calls for. But let us now cease from recollections of what we have lost, whether by the in- firmity of his years, or the too soon completion of them, to secure in our breasts, if possible, an indelible stamp of the precious lesson of his dying conduct. Having protracted his pastoral labors until his breath became almost too short for the purpose of continuous ut- terance, he reluctantly concluded, as he was wont to say to his friends, that his work for the church and his God was done, and all that remained for him now was to pre- pare for his change. And how seriously did he set him- self to that most momentous of all the undertakings that mortal men are concerned with; choosing as the scene of it, a country retreat, and there amid the quiet, for which he always pined, ordering his conversation and reading, his prayers and meditations, with constant reference to the great event — whereby, while he established his own heart in the faith of the gospel, the hope of immortality, and confidence in the fullness of God's forgiving mercy, he became so instinct with these divine themes, that with the pen of a ready writer he indited for the edification of mankind a treatise on each of them. His favorite books 4 XXXVUl SERMON. now were those of the most spiritual and heavenly strain? whereof the Saint's Rest of Baxter was almost always found with the Bible upon the stand beside him. Of that work especially he would speak in strong terms of com- mendation, at the same time remarking, "there is no book to be compared with the Bible, and if I might prefer one part of that blessed book before others, I would say, I love the Psalms the best; I can always find in them some- thing more expressive of my feelings than my own lan- guage." At the last communion-service of the church within whose bounds he resided, which was but a little while before his death, he took part in the distribution of the sacred symbols, and in a manner which revealed his consciousness that he should never so officiate again — solemn from a sense of a near eternity and with a heart enlarged with the love of Christ and the hope of soon be- ing with him — he addressed his fellow worshippers on the great things of their common faith, far beyond his strength. His soul henceforth spread her wings for the world of rest. He said to a friend, "I have a strange difficulty, and you will perhaps think strangely of it, I am at loss what to pray for" — and added, in a most solemn tone and with his eyes lifted to heaven, " God knows I am willing that whatever he pleases shall be done." His triumph too over the fear of death was complete. " I have," said he, "been looking the case between God and myself, over and over and over again; and though I see enough to jus- tify God in casting me off a thousand times and more, my conviction of my interest in Christ is so firm, that I can- not make myself afraid; the only thing I fear is, that I have not fears enough." He remarked on the last Sab- bath evening of his life, "I am almost home, and I thank God that I am— -I went astray from him, but in his rich mercy he brought me back. I am unworthy of the least SERMON. XXXIX of his mercies, and if I may lie down beside his footstool, or if he will even put me under it — I will take the very lowest place in heaven." He needed some refreshment, and when the cup was handed to him, he took it and said, "O God bless this cup — I think I have a covenant right to it." A few hours before he died, he asked a brother in the ministry to pray for him, and specified this peti- tion, "Pray that God will do with me just as he pleases." Mark the perfect man, and behold the upright; for the end of that man is peace! We mourn for him, but not on his own behalf. Such a life, and such a death, to those who believe the Scriptures, are equivalent to an assurance from heaven, that he now shares the beatitude of that holy world. We sorrow that he has left us, but not as those who have no hope. "For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also who sleep in Jesus will God bring with him. For this we say unto you, by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive and remain to the coming of the Lord, shall not prevent them who are asleep: For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the arch-angel, and with the trump of God; and the dead in Christ shall rise first. Then we who are alive and remain, shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so shall we be ever with the Lord." PRIMITIVE GOVERNMENT CHRISTIAN CHURCHES, FROM THE EARLIEST TESTIMONY OF FACTS ; IN THE ORIGINAL "WORDS OF THE ANCIENT "WHITINGS, AND ESTAB- LISHED ET THE SACRED RECORDS. SECTION I. The ordinances and officers of the Gospel neither conventional, nor subsequent to inspiration- — Presbyter meant not different offices; but presbyter and bishop the same commission — The fathers credible for facts, their opinions unim- portant, their silence presumptive proof — Barnabas and Hermas rejected. The testimony of Clement of Rome weighed. Forms of civil government are conventional, except where the social compact has been excluded by the dictation of power, or perverted by the stratagems of fraud. But in the kingdom of Christ, laws, ordinances, and offices are all prescribed and adjusted with pre- cision; innovation is disobedience; an unauthorised office is insubordination and rebellion. The commis- sion and duties of the gospel-herald are spread upon the same pages of that word which he is to preach ; that he may know his own obligations, and the people, how he is to be regarded. Offices erected in the church, after the removal of inspired men, are unlaw- ful, whether in ancient or modern times. If such B 2 THE PRIMITIVE GOVERNMENT offices can be justified on the conjectural ground of convenience, so may ordinances, and we may " teach for doctrines the commandments of men." Unity of design and operation, and especially the prevention of sinful competitions and disorder, justified presbyteries, in determining that one of their number should pre- side in their sessions, and in public worship. But for the ordination of a presbyter, or the ordination of any as lay presbyters, without apostolical precept or ex- ample, neither right nor power existed ; and every such unscriptural office was and is merely Void. That no such commission under that dispensation whereof Christ was a minister, belongs to gospel times, will be conceded by those for whom I write ; and that the commissions of apostle and evangelist, given by him after his resurrection, for the planting of the churches, being obviously temporary, have ex- pired, may be at present also assumed. Our purpose is to show from facts, what permanent offices at first existed in every regularly constituted church ; that we may ascertain whether the term presbyter, rtpsafivlspos, was, among the first Christians, understood to desig- nate two offices, a preaching and ruling elder, or one only, — whether the epithet ruling, Ttpotolus, was so far from importing subordination, that it was adopted to signify a presiding authority, — and whether becoming permanent at the close of the second century, this office, founded on mere expediency, was more usually expressed by the word sjtiaxoHog, bishop, common be- fore that period to all elders. If these things shall be made clear, the assumption of the existence of two offices, couched under the same term, and constituted by ordination, but deemed to be distinct merely be- cause presbyters exercised a diversity of duties in their episcopal character." will be evinced to be mere- ly gratuitous and unsupported. Although the opinions and practice of the fathers a Phil, i, 1. Acts xx. 17— 28. Heb. xiii. 17. IPet. v. 1. OF CHR1STIAX CHURCHES. 3 can have not the least authority to establish any office or doctrine, any prerogative or duty, not taught or exemplified in the Sacred Scriptures, yet their under- standing of the Scriptures, without superseding the duty of thinking for ourselves, is entitled to our re- spectful attention; and their testimony, where unper- verted, may prove that an office or order was in use in their times; or their silence may, under circum- stances, establish, as far as a negative is capable of proof, that none such was then in existence. Where the genuine work of a pious father represents a doc- trine, 01 an office to have been common, when he wrote, his lestimony is credible, that the thing, which he asserts, was at least the fact as far as he knew. But if the opinion of such father, or the piactice of the church in his day, must be admitted as authora- tively obligatory, though not founded on the word of God, then indulgences can remove sin, and a wafer become the body of Christ ! The utility of their testi- mony is compatible with the admission that most of the Christian fathers, of whose writings we have any more than fragments, have left melancholy proofs of weakness and error ; the conflicting opinions also of councils, equally disprove their infallibility. The meaning of a law is often discoverable from the first practice, which obtained under it. If the ruling elders, of which some modern divines have dreamed, were a grade of officers in every church, between preachers and deacons, such fact ought to appear in the early uninspired Christian writers. If it should not be discovered upon a fair investigation, the silence of antiquity will be conclusive against the existence of such an office. Those who inveigh against clerical aggrandizement, as a modern substi- tute for original simplicity, and denounce episcopal power as an unscriptural invasion of the privileges of the pastoral office, ought never to plead expediency, when they degrade the presbyterial, which is the only episcopal order, by reducing presbyters to the stand- 4 THE PRIMITIVE GOVERNMENT ing of deacons. The present appeal shall be to facts supported by undeniable testimony. The ancient miserable production, by many ascribed to Barnabas, but deemed spurious by Eusebius, has not touched our subject. "The Pastor," supposed to have been written by Hermas, whom Paul mentions, was certainly not earlier than the middle of the second century. A translation only has survived ; from this the non-existence of the intermediate order might be easily argued; but our proofs shall be drawn only from books of indisputable genuineness. The excellent Clement, whose name Paul pronounc- ed to be in the book of life, is by the voice of anti- quity the author of a letter, which is the most, if not the only credible uninspired Christian production of the first century. Its caption purports a letter from the church at Rome to the church at Corinth; the contents are a persuasive and pious address, well de- signed to produce submission to the government of their elders, whom they had rejected. There is not a hint in the letter, either of an individual bishop, or of subordinate presbyters at Rome, Corinth, or else- where. Had there existed a superior officer at Co- rinth, this letter in defence of the presbyters must have recognized his authority; had there been lay elders, the total silence of the letter on that point is wholly unaccountable. That the elders, mentioned in this epistle, are of the same order, appears continually : " Let the flock of Christ enjoy peace, with its elders, 7tpssj3vlipuv, appointed over it:" b It is a shame that " the church of the Co- rinthians, on account of one or two individuals, should rise against their elders, rtpssfivlepovs :" c " Our apostles knew from our Lord Jesus Christ, that contention would arise about the honor of the oversight, irtiaxoftyf. On this account, having perfect foreknowledge, they constituted those before mentioned; and they appoint- t> Chap. 54. c Chap. 47. OF CHRISTIAN CHURCHES. 5 cd in succession, that when they should die, other ap- proved men should accept that sacred office. That those should be ejected from their public ministrations, who were ordained by them, or afterwards by other excellent men with the consent of the whole church, and who have ministered blamelessly to the flock of Christ with humility, peacefulness, and intelligence, and with universal approbation for a long time, we think to be unjust. For it would be a great sin in us, if we should cast off those who have performed the functions of the episcopate, sfnaxoftr^, blamelessly and holily. Blessed are those elders, Tt^afivl^oi, who have finished their course, who have obtained their com- plete and happy discharge, for they have no fears, lest any shall remove them from the place assigned as a mansion to them." d These elders held the episcopate ; were the bishops, presbyters, or leaders e of that church ; were in every instance named in the plural, and, beyond all question, ranked in the highest order of the ordinary officers of a Christian church. The original organization of churches is particularly shown/ The apostles, "preaching through regions and cities, xapu$ »<*' rto%eif, set apart their first fruits, having proved them by the Spirit, to be bishops and deacons m$ iftt,axoHov$ xcu Siaxovovf of those who should believe." Had the word presbyters been here substi- tuted for bishops, lay-elders might have been alleged to have been comprehended ; but the word is not here generic ; nor can it be appellatively taken. The word set-apart, xo.9sa1a.vov, fixes upon it an official sense. Also the expression *a7a x<*?<*s xo.v rtoxcig evince that the pres- byters in the region of country, and in the cities, the chorepiscopi and episcopi; were at the first of one grade, and the individuals of equal authority. The supposition that either a superior, or an intermediate grade of officers, is omitted in this enumeration, is not d Chap. 44. e Chap. 1. "vTrilcto-iro/xivot roit nyou/mtyotc v/u.a>v." f Chap. 42. B2 6 THE PRIMITIVE GOVERNMENT merely to charge the writer with a careless inattention to an important fact, but to impeach his veracity ; for if the first converts, were set apart to three orders, they were not to two, for a portion of them constituted a third. That his language was designedly exclusive, appears also from his justification of this apostolical two-fold distribution, by a passage in Isaiah ; " I will constitute their bishops in righteousness, and their deacons in faith." ff Thus does this letter positively affirm to the church at Corinth, that their presbyters, whose government they had renounced, were all bishops, srtitfxortou?, both by apostolic ordination, and prophetic authority. Should any allege, that this prophecy was misunderstood, our argument is still safe, because the opinion of the writer is clear, and he must have given the officers of a Christian church, as they then existed. Thus nothing can be more evi- dent than that this letter, which, above all other unin- spired productions, is of the highest authority, and at the earliest period, being prior to the Revelation of John, does use rtptofivlspof and S7ti,oxo7tog for the same order and office, and allows them but one ordination only ; and, as it is in the face of those lordly powers, which bishops afterwards claimed, jure divino, over presbyters ; so it is a standing and perpetual testimo- ny against those, who would degrade the office of the presbyter, to the mute ministrations of a modern ruling elder ; which is but another name for a deacon, and in a large proportion of the American Presbyterian churches, (whose opinion on this point has been pro- tected by all their successive forms of government, — his ordination, charge, authority, and duties being the same,) no- other deacon exists. £ Isaiah lx. 17. nips he renders utis-hottou;, and d^B'JJ fianovous. SECTION II. The testimony of the Scriptures being postponed, till the facts and primitive usage of the churches have been shown; the letter of Polycarp is examined. — According to Clement and Polycarp, at Rome, Corinth, Smyrna, and Phi- lippi, no officer ivas superior to the presbyter, and no presbyter a layman. — Papias accords with the same representation, that a presbyter, appcllatively an elder, was the only ordinary teacher, and without a superior. After the credible uninspired evidence of the first century, the testimonies of the second, may be con- densed into three periods. In the first period are dis- covered, except forgeries, but two witnesses, Polycarp and Papias. The venerable "apostolical presbyter" Polycarp, whose letter is common, derived his first religious knowledge from the apostles: and was "in the church at Smyrna," probably, the presiding aposaluf, presbyter, "bishop," or angel. a This epistle, unquestionably genuine, was written to the church at Philippi, near the commencement of the second century, we suppose about A. D. 116, and more than fifty years before his martyrdom. Read publicly in the churches in Asia, so late as the fourth century , b it was too generally known, to be removed, or successfully interpolated; its simplicity too undisguised and evangelical, to en- courage imitation. A single letter from each of those apostolical men, Clement and Polycarp has rescued their testimonies from the frauds of designing ecclesiastics. The for- mer was saved by a single copy. Had a genuine let- ter of the pious Ignatius, in like manner escaped, it would have confounded those Arian and Athanasian a "ttTar'loKiy.o; Trpitrfiulep©'-'''' — "a — "it tii ~S.fj.vgvH iKK\n) v,ua( to GrvtvfAu. to ayuv =3-=7o sTr/rxowx?. Ac. xx. 17, 28. — nyovutv.t. Heb. xii. 7. 12 THE PRIMITIVE GOVERNMENT their hands, no virtue proceeded from them; they pray- ed, that his spirit might rest upon the person, and gave in charge to the people the relation they should stand in to him, and the Holy Spirit confirmed by his gifts, the office thus derived from the head of the church. The ordainer could neither enlarge, nor abridge the power incident to the office. Whatever misconstruc- tions of the presbyterial office, have obtained ; it is, and always will be, the highest ordinary office in a Christian church; and no presbyter, who is officially such, can be less than a bishop and authorised to in- struct, govern, administer ordinances, and ordain, at least, conjunctly with his co-presbyters of the same presbytery, or council. Not a single word, fact, or even circumstance has occurred in the testimony, prior to the year one hundred and sixteen, adverse to these po- sitions. From all that can be collected from the letter of Polycarp, and also from that of Clement, there exist- ed not at Rome, Corinth, Smyrna, Philippi or elsewhere, any office superior to that of presbyter, nor a presbyter inferior to the clerical office. No canonical, or re-or- dination is heard of till long after this period. Thus far not a tittle of proof has appeared to justify either the opinion of those, who would elevate the ■xpoeoldlsg, ruling elders, to a superior order; or of those, who would depress them to a grade inferior to that of the elders who laboured in woi'd and doctrine. The practice of the four churches, concerned in the two letters mentioned, may be supposed to have afforded at that time, a fair sample of all others. What errors sprang up in the Christian societies after the period of this letter, and within the protracted life of this holy man, in relation to officers and government, must be defer- red at present. The successful discrimination of changes forbids all anticipations, except what are in support of the genuineness and credibility of the evi- dence adduced. The account given of Polycarp by his church, if credible, is therefore of future consideration; and the testimonies of him by Irenceus, though deemed OF CHRISTIAN CHURCHES. 13 a cotemporary, are at the distance of almost a cen- tury from the time, towards which our inquiries have been directed, and may peitiaps appear, when exam- ined, somewhat accommodated to later views and cir- cumstances. Papias, who flourished about the period of Polycarp's letter, has been called his companion; but resided at Hierapolis. 1 * He wrote several books, which have perished: except a fragment, which maybe translated thus: " I shall esteem it no labour to set in order be- fore you, the things I have rightly learned from the elders, («apa *v;) what Andrew and what Peter might have said, or what Philip or what Thomas or James; or what John or Matthew, or what any other of the disciples, /xaerjl^v of the Lord; and what things Aris- tion, and John the presbyter (npsajSvlfpo^) and the dis- ciples (pascal,, ) of the Lord are teaching (teyovai). For the things which I received from books, did not so much profit me, as those from a voice living and pre- sent." 1 Irenaeus says, he was a hearer, (axovalrj^,) of John the apostle : which appears doubtful from the frag- ment. Nicephorus accounts him to have lived an apostolic life. Eusebius deemed him a man of cre- dulity, but of veracit}-; he has not only given the above quotation, but confirmed it, by asserting the existence, in his day, of two monuments at Ephesus, of John the b Col. iv. 13. • Euseb. lib. iii. c. S9. Nicephor. lib. iil. c. 20. c 14 THE PRIMITIVE GOVERNMENT apostle and John the presbyter. He styles him the bishop of Hierapolis, sv iipartofot, — irtiaxofto;. k The title of bishop given to men of the first and second centu- ries, by those of later times, is no argument of clerical disparity at the former period, when the word bore a different sense. This sophism is often played off, by presenting catalogues of ancient bishops made for a different purpose; its seeming force springing wholly from modern associations. That Papias was a bishop in the sense of Eusebius and Nicephorus is destitute of proof; he has discovered no regard to clerical ti- tles, desirous only of the truth, and with a simplicity almost peculiar' to the days of primitive purity, he de- nominates the apostles themselvesbut seniors «p£cj3u7fpot, in the gospel. That this word was intended by him appellatively and that the apostles were consequently named without a title, appears from his attributing c*p£(j|3t;7fpos' to the younger John in its official sense to distinguish him from the beloved disciple. Eusebius, enforcing the same discrimination, denominates the apostle an evangelist tva^ytxiat^ , the younger John a presbyter; the one being a preacher unto the world, the other a presbyter of a particular church, not a layman, for he was a teacher of Papias whom Euse- bius styles bishop of Hierapolis. Thus does it appear, that apostle, evangelist, presby- ter, and for the same reason, bishop, were anciently used according to the forces of the terms, and also predicated respectively in their official senses. John was an apostle by commission, in his labours an evan- gelist, and an elder by age. The younger John was an elder, not, at least comparatively, in age, but by office. James was an apostle by his commission, ap- pellatively an elder and bishop; it being expedient, that he should maintain a continued oversight in the church at Jerusalem. Timothy was by office an evan- gelist, yet was occupied for a time in the oversight of the church at Ephcsus. Every officer in advanced !c Valesius, the annotitor, supposes this to be an interpolation. OF CHRISTIAN CHURCHES. 15 age was an elder; and every one, but the deacon, was a bishop. In the fragment of Papias, nothing appears contrary to the simplicity of the Scriptures; but what- ever can be elicited from it, accords with the condition of the primitive churches in the first part of the se- cond century. Clement in the first has decided in lan- guage, affirmative and exclusive, for two offices in a par- ticular church; according to Polycarp and Papias, who are the only witnesses known to us, in the first part of the second century, the offices were the same. Every thing, therefore, hitherto, exhibits the office of elder, in a particular church, as the only ordinary teacher^ equally without superiority and inferiority. SECTION III. The representations of Justin Martyr not only respectable for his learning and character, but disinterested. — The ruling elder 7rpotc or primus presbyter, was at an early period distinguished by the name t7rt(TK07roe at first common to all presbyters. Dm there exist in the middle of the second century, more than two kinds of officers 1 or were elders then of different kinds? These must be our inquiries in this section. Polycarp was now in extreme old age ; Irenseus, a youth ; Athenagoras, Mclito, and Theophi- lus of Antioch, commencing public life; and Justin Martyr, a Gentile, but Christian philosopher, standing but to fall in the front of the battle. He, our almost solitary witness for this period, received his Greek education at Alexandria, in Egypt, and was succes- sively a Stoic, Peripatetic, and Platonist. Occupied in contemplation in a place of retirement near the shore of the sea, he was abruptly encountered, and effectually vanquished by an aged Christian. The in- teresting and ingenious arguments are detailed in his dialogue with Trypho. Left to his own reflections, favored with no other interview, wounded by the ar- row of conviction, he sought and found his cure in Christianity, the only true philosophy. Mingling his old attachments with evangelic charity, he indulged the hope, that Socrates and others had also imbibed, at least, the spirit of the Gospel, in a humble degree. Retaining the habit, he exhibited a singular specta- cle, a philosopher bleeding in the cause of Christ. a » «v pwjuH qi\oi/u.a.Ti. — Photius, 303. OF CHRISTIAN - CHURCHES. 17 The opinions of one, never an ecclesiastic, must have been viewed with less prejudice. Familiar with men of science, the influence of his character on those in power, rendered him important to the suffering cause. His conversion we place at A. D. 132, and his martyrdom at 163, without danger of material error. In his dialogue he mentions his apology. The pas- sage is found in that, which has been placed last, but was the first. This appeal to the understanding, and feelings of the discreet, but mistaken, Antoninus Pius, A. D. 140, whilst the blood of those, whom it defended, was flowing under a merciless persecution, procured a temporary respite. In his description of public worship, b after men- tioning prayers and the fraternal salutation, he says — " There is brought to him who presides over the brethren, *a rtpos&tcon ?w aS&fcov, bread and a cup of water, and wine, and he, taking them offers up praise and glory to the Father of the universe, through the name of the Son and the Holy Ghost, and renders thanks for these, his gifts. At the close of his petition and thanksgivings, all the people present say Amen ; which, in the Hebrew language, signifies may it be so. And he who presides, having given thanks, svxapt,savtog Ss -fov 7tpo£HTuto^, and the whole assembly having ex- pressed their assent, they who are called among us deacons, Siaxovoi, distribute the bread, and the wine and water, to each of those who are present, to par- take of that which has been blessed. Also they carry to those who are not present." His birth in Samaria, the natural acumen of his un- derstanding, his philosophical education at Alexan- dria, Christian instruction, through eight years, in provincial Asia, and religious associations at Rome, are pledges, that Justin knew the forms of Clmstian worship. His piety, character, and death, secure to his testimony the claim of indefectible veracity. The high ground which he assumed, as the advocate of b 2 Apolog. 97. Oxford edition. 1 Apol. 127. 18 THE PRIMITIVE GOVERNMENT the whole proscribed church, before the Emperor and Senate of the civilized world, rendered every word a matter of life and death, and required absolute verity. Under all these appalling circumstances he testifies that two orders only officiated, a president, Ttpoiotug, who taught, prayed, and administered the eucharist, and deacons, who distributed the symbolical elements. Lay-elders are not named, but there is an express assignation to deacons of the work now thought by some to belong peculiarly and exclusively to them ; a violent presumption that there were no such officers. The same word Ttpoe itgoEstuti, zvith the president. Had error obtained in the former description of worship, Justin would probably have discovered it in his second effort. If a martyr for the truth, which he records, is not worthy of credit, sincerity can offer no higher pledge. He has a second time described the officers of a Christian church, employed in the most solemn act of public worship, the euchar- ist, and again he has said they were the ^potato*? scil. rtgtojvtepof, presiding elder, and the Siaxovoi,, deacons. It were weakness to expect him to deny the exist- d 2 Apolog. 99, Oxford edit. 1 Apol. 1.3, J 2. 20 THE PRIMITIVE GOVERNMENT ence of lay presbyters, an order which had then never been named, or, as we suppose, thought of. The reader of the lessons may have been a copresbyter, or any well taught member of the Church. The pre- siding presbyter expounded and applied the lesson orally ; his prayers were also unwritten, because " ac- cording to his ability ;" and he alone administered the eucharist, the deacons distributing the symbols to the people. The word 7tpos6fa$ being a participle, and written without its noun, determines only an order, of which this person stood first. Every Christian knew ttpssfivtipof, elder, was intended; and other readers from the force of the term, must have understood, from its application to Archons and Ephori, that an order, ecclesiastic and peculiar to a single worshipping as- sembly was meant. This history establishes the fact, that the elder, zvho ruled, rtpsoftvtipof ^posa-tv?, was the same who laboured in word xortcov sv -koyu e and that ruling should be understood not of inferior duties, but of the presi- dency. In the writings of Clement, and Polycarp, it has appeared, that a plurality of presbyters, or bishops, existed at Ephesus, Philippi, Corinth, and Rome ; and that these, with the deacons, were their only officers. In every regularly constituted church, the same or- ders appear, by the New Testament, to have been ordained. No instance has hitherto occurred of the erection of an office, or order, of higher authority, than that of presbyters, or bishops ; nor does there as yet, appear among them any disparity. One only in every church was the ripo^t^, either designated by his copresbyters, or by the society. It would have been improper for Justin, in his description of the pub- lic eucharistic service, to have mentioned those pres- e 1 Tim. v. 17. Thus the Apostle Paul, also in 1 Thesal. v. 12, by the word labouring rcvc x.VTct.s in the ivord, and set over, x.u.1 7rpo;Ta.{Aivove, the church at Thessalonica, and admonishing them, x.zi vouQiTovTic, evidently means the same persons and pres- byters, as appears by the omission of the article after the conjunc- tion, before the latter epithets. OF CHRISTIAN CHURCHES. 21 byters, who, for the time present, acted no other part, than merely to partake with the people. Neither did the distinctive name describe, nor the work of him who presided, prove him to be of a superior order. Although Ttgosatuf was used among the Lacedoemo- nians, for one of the Ephori, yet they possessed an equality of power and grade. Annually elected by the people, they held the supreme authority, could summon before them, charge and pass judgment upon the king himself. The rtpotot^ of the presbyters or bishops of a church, worshipping at the same time, in different places, in a city, was the nearest approach to diocesan episcopacy. Yet the term, by which he was distinguished from the other presbyters, being the very same that was used for the president of the moral censors of Sparta, who were of equal degree; and the term rtpoeat^, by its own force, implying no more than the first place or station, and not a diversity in the kind of office, it was discovered by rising ambi- tion, to be necessary to abandon the word, and adopt, as we shall soon find, the word irciaxonog when a fur- ther distinction was intended. Neither was the Ttpoiotaf of the Ephori clothed with the power of a dictator ; nor his colleagues in office reduced to the condition of subordinate, and merely dependent counsellors. In like manner the npossr^s of presbyters was by no means vested with the sole power of ordaining and deciding, nor were his copresbyters in any church selected, merely to advise, or execute. The letter of the church at Smyrna, descriptive of the death of Polycarp, if genuine, falls into the middle part of this century. Pionius, as appears by its post- script, obtained it by a revelation made to him by Polycarp, long after his death. It represents that the martyr had a vision, by which he was preadmonished of his martyrdom by fire ; that he was apprehended on Friday, brought on an ass to the city ; that he was accosted when coming to the place of suffering by a voice from heaven ; that, by a wonderful miracle, the flame encompassed him in a hollow circle and his 22 THE PRIMITIVE GOVERNMENT body could not be burned, but afterwards was wound- ed, and was, when dead, consumed by fire ; that an odour ascended like frankincense and rich spices; that being pierced with a lance, a dove escaped, and the blood extinguished the fire. The pious and venerable Polycarp, in extreme old age, suffered martyrdom about the middle of the second century. Of this no one doubts ; and that many of the sorrowful circum- stances of it, may have been embodied in this won- drous letter, is possible ; but how much of it is true, must be submitted to every reader. Those who will compare that which is supposed to be the letter itself, with Eusebius, will see that even where he professes to give the words, he omits, interpolates, changes and mangles the letter, in a manner suited to destroy all confidence in the representations of Constantine's favored historian. The letter we believe, never mentions either the word presbyter or deacon. It purports to have been written by one church unto another, omitting the officers of both. In it the word bishop Once OCCUrS yevopevo? srtiSxortof *g ty tv Xpvpvfl xaOouxr;^ txxXqGia$. " Being a bishop of the Catholic church in Smyrna." That Polycarp was a presbyter, that every presbyter was a bishop, and that a plurali- ty of this order existed in every church, have been shown. We have also already ventured the supposi- tion that he was a itposg-tog, presiding presbyter. For president, the term bishop was soon after this, substi- tuted. If trtioxortof be so taken in this letter, against which we confess the omission of the article to be no argument, the anticipation is fatal to the genuineness of that sentence, and thrown into the scale, renders still lighter the credibility of the whole letter. The character of Hegesippus, a Jewish convert, who wrote five historical books, which have, except fragments, perished, has been doubted by many wri- ters, catholic and protestant. Also the circumstance that these fragments, except an irrelevant sentence preserved by Photius, have been derived from Euse- bius, and no doubt accommodated to the language of OF CHRISTIAN CHURCHES. 23 his own times, renders his evidence of little weight. This historian introduces his quotation by e* Sia S^o t f in which he discovers; and then, proceeding in his own words, he says, " going to Rome he," Hegesippus, " fell in company with many bishops" — " and found them to hold the same doctrine." That the church of Corinth remained orthodox, sv tuiopecp xoya, until the time of Primus' acting as bishop, traaxonowto^ in Co- rinth." — " Being in Rome I abode until the succession of Anicetus, whose deacon Eleutherus was; Soter succeeded Anicetus, and Eleutherus, Soter." "After James, the just, died, as his Lord had done, for the same word, Simon the son of Cleopas, his uncle, was chosen bishop, whom all preferred, be- cause he was the Lord's next kinsman. " s The denominating presbyters, bishops, is unexcep- tionable, for such they were. That one of them pre- sided in every church from' the apostles' days is equally certain. To reckon up the succession by these, was in no wise improper. But all these things fall far short of proving a diversity of office among presbyters, or a difference of order. An apostle, as such, possessed powers and had duties to accomplish beyond those of a presiding pres- byter. We ought not therefore to conclude, that, be- cause the Scriptures have not mentioned the travels of James, all his labours were confined to Jerusalem. The numbers sometimes mentioned to be there, pro- bably include visitants coming up to the feasts. There is no evidence of an extension of his authority over Judea, though the thing is possible; or that there were then different places of worship of Christians in Jeru- salem. And if there had been, and he had exercised a general authority, it was that of an apostle. That the apostles should have successors in their ordinary powers, to teach, baptize, ordain, censure, &c, may be fairly inferred from the promise of Christ's pre- sence, which could only be divine, annexed to their f Euseb. Eccl. Hist. lib. iy, cb. 22. S Ibid, and Nicephor. Cal. lib. iy. c. 7. 24 THE PRIMITIVE GOVERNMENT commission. That these duties were to be performed by the presbyters, or bishops of every particular church, is capable of positive proof. That in every presbytery there came to be a president, is undeniable. But it remains to be proved that such officer received a second ordination ; either by scriptural authority, or in the apostles' days ; h or that the presbyters of a church were so ordained, as that one species of them was authorized to preach, and another restrained from the exercise of such power. Having now passed the middle of the second cen- tury and found one kind only of elders, and these the only ministers of the word, we may infer that such is the fair construction of the JVezv Testament, on the ordi- nary officers of the church. The innovations which we are soon to witness in their gradual progress, were unauthorized and consequently mere nullities. Though every denomination has on some point erred, and the original names of the officers have been often changed the providence of God has in every age preserved the two orders, and a legitimate administration. But if the outward forms had all perished, being only means to an end, and consequently of minor importance, the characteristics of his true church have remained, " righteousness and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost" h The Apostolical constitutions need no refutation. The Apos- tolical traditions, referred to by Hippolitus, we design to consider, when he arrives, in the first part of the third century. SECTION IV. Christianity was taught as philosophy by Tatian and his preceptor Justin, both laymen- — The letter of Vienne and Lyons, differently represented; Pothimts a presbyter, 7rponr]a>;, and Iren&us the same. — Melito and Athenagoras professed the neu> philosophy, and Hermias wrote "The Discordance of Phi- losophers." — Iheophilus of Antioch speaks of no officer in the church- — Irenceus was a presbyter, at Lyons, hitherto there is no other higher ordina- tion, or office — The evidence given by Irenmus makes presbyter and bishop the same office, and that the succession from, the apostles was by presbyters. t That "destructive superstition" which Tacitus had pronounced almost repressed by the Neronian perse- cution, surviving also the edicts of his successors, ob- tained some respite in the last thirty years of the se- cond century, the period assigned to this section. The philosophic Pliny had expressed a sentiment, too pre- valent in the second century, that Christianity was a crime fit to be expiated by death. Entitled to no legal toleration, though sometimes screened by the ignor- ance or caprice of a Galleo, the profession could be avowed only at the hazard of life. The only possible motive to accept or exercise an office in the church, under such chxumstances, must have been duty, not dignity; conscience, not interest. Paul had saved his life, by claiming to teach the Athenians the knowledge of their own God. Many, with more success than Socrates, taught, bearing no office among Christians, a philosophy deemed to have originated among bar- barians. An appetite for saving knowledge values offices, as means subordinate to a higher end, the ac- quisition of truth. Every Christian applauds Justin, receiving, in the habit of a philosopher, the crown of martyrdom. D 26 THE PRIMITIVE GOVERNMENT Tatian was his disciple, axporprjg hearer, says Irenseus, ■who charges him with apostacy a after the death of his patron. "An oration to the Greeks," is the only surviving production of Tatian. Written with ele- gance and point, and not far distant from orthodoxy, it pleases, but contains nothing that bears upon the present inquiry. He calls himself, in a philosophic sense, a preacher of the truth, x^vxa tqg ca^ata? (p. 64.) certainly neither as Noah nor Paul, of whom the same expression is used. After representing himself born among the Assyrians, and educated among the Greeks, he again says, that he preached xrjpvlltw, professing to know God and his works. The good sense of the " Ora- tion" is justly commended by Clement of Alexandria, and by Origen. Justin was a philosopher, not a pres- byter; yet he taught : and Tatian, a hearer of Justin, preached, but as a layman. If laymen did, at this pe- riod, preach without censure, 5 it is not probable that there were presbyters restricted from a privilege so common. Large fragments of a letter, purporting to have been written by the churches of Vienne, and Lyons, in Gaul, have been preserved by Eusebius and Nicepho- rus. It describes some most affecting scenes of suffer- ings, in the persecution which took place, it is said, in the 17th year of Mark Antonine, A. D. 177. There has been nothing found in the letter concerning our subject, except the mention of the offices of two of the martyrs. The first is of Sanctus, who is styled a deacon from Vienne, Siaxovo? a7toBifW7jg: the other of the venerable Pothinus, who died in his ninetieth year, in prison, from the abuse he received at his trial. He is said in the letter, according to Eusebius, to have been " intrusted with the ministry of the. episcopate in Lyons," ° Siaxonav •trii trti6xo7tr[$ iv Tivy&vva 7t£7ti$liv[isvof. Nicephoi'US has given the same portion of the letter, with more sim- plicity in those words: " Pothinus, a minister of the ft Iren. lib. i. Ch. 30. 31. — attcstac tch; iicKK)i tftuv rt^t^vtt^oi, and who were the followers of the apostles, never delivered unto thee. If that blessed and apostolic presbyter Polycarp, had heard anv such thing, &c. he would d2 30 THE PRIMITIVE GOVERNMENT have said," &c. In the fragment of a letter to Victor at Rome, who had attempted to cause the Asiatic churches, on account of a diversity in the observance of Easter, to be excommunicated, Irenasus possessing equal authority and more prudence, says, " Those presbyters who, before Soter presided over that church which you now govern, h te,o Xal^og jt^taj3v?tgoi, h rtzoslavlsf tut txxXri6ia$ i$ vvv afyrjyr;, &C. I Speak of Ani- cetus, and Pius, and Hyginus, with Telesphorus and _ Sixtus, they neither observed it themselves, nor did they require those who were under them. Those who were presbyters before you, who did not observe the custom of the Asiatic churches, h ^ tqpowTsg U srgo aov TTgto-fivttgoi sent the eucharist to those from other churches, who did observe it. Neither did Polycarp persuade Anicetus to observe it, who alleged that he ought to maintain the custom of the presbyters, who had 2*01ie before YlilTl, ^»v a-vvnQnuv tuv 7rgo Avrivprgar/iuligasv." By these letters it is clear that Polycarp, and the predecessors of Victor, who are in modern times in the catalogue of popes, were presbyters ; and conse- quently other Christian churches could have had no higher officers than the Trgsa-^ultgoi vgoa-lavlH, presiding presbyters. To these were attributed the continuance of the succession from the apostles. To them resort was had for the tradition of the custom in relation to Easter. That these presbyters were bishops, no one will deny ; they were consequently not laymen. The Papal predecessor, neither possessed infallibility, nor even superiority over Irenasus, who in this letter writ- ten in presence of his brethren, ah&fav, in Gaul, thus arraigned his conduct. The term presbyter, so often repeated in these letters, may be taken sometimes ap- pellatively, but then the persons so denominated have received no official. designation. Its connexion also with the epithet. 7rgc