What you say, Sir, with respect to the island of Grete, and a small district in Asia, wants to be supported by competent authority. What author says that there were a hundred Bishops in that island in early times? Till I saw your book I had never heard of it. I have consulted Eusebius in those parts of his history, in which one would naturally look for such an account. But I can find nothing like it. Bingham, who has given the most correct view of the primitive dioceses, speaks a language very different from your's. His words are, the isle of Crete, Carolus a Sancto Paulo names eleven dioceses. The Notitia of Leo Sapiens, in Leunclavius, makes them twelve; but Hierapetra is there, by mistake of some transcriber, divided into two, which being corrected, reduces them to the same number. Whence I conclude, this was pretty near the standing number for several ages."*

It now appears, I think, very evident, that you are at variance with yourself upon this point; but putting that out of the question, you are at variance with the best authorities we have upon the extent of dioceses, and the number of Bishops in the primitive ages. But if you were even correct, still your in-“ ference with respect to the origin of Episcopacy, has nothing to do with the position, that the num, ber of Bishops decreased after the third century That is easily accounted for, from the well known

Vol i. p. 426.

events which took place in the Eastern and Western` Empires, and from that constant mutability which attends all human affairs.

The last circumstance which you advance in favour of your hypothesis is, "that it is confirmed by the most learned and impartial historians;" and ́of these you mention three-Mosheim, Gibbon, and Haweis.

These three writers give us nothing more than their opinion; and I have already observed, that the value of an opinion depends upon the strength of the evidence by which it is supported. Mosheim gives no proofs; he merely asserts. Assertions are easily made; but proofs are not so easily given. Mosheim too had the system of his own church to maintain. The prejudice and errors arising from this source, every thinking mind must be aware of. Many great men have adopted opinions utterly inconsistent with facts, and have maintained principles from which common sense revolts.

Gibbon is another of your authorities, if the opinion of a man can be called authority. I wonder, Sir, that it did not strike you, that a man who denied the divine origin of the scriptures, could not, with the least consistency, allow the divine origin of Episcopacy. To have done this, would have been to renounce infidelity. If the scriptures have not the stamp of divinity, certainly the ministry which was instituted to preserve and expound them, cannot claim any character of that sort.

Your next historian is Dr. Haweis. Did you quote him, Sir, on account of the weight he derives from his learning, or profound knowledge of antiquity, or consistency of character? Do you think that a man who despises learning, can be very learned himself, and who abuses all the Fathers of the church, can know much about them? Do you think that man's testimony is of much weight, who always takes part with heretics and schismatics, and commends Novatians, Donatists, Meletians, and Luciferians, while Catholic confessors and martyrs are treated with contempt, because they did not think as he does upon the subjects of predestination and grace? Can you think that man's opinion of any consequence, who says, that he "thinks Episcopacy most correspondent to the Apostolic practice, and the general usage of the church in the first and generally esteemed purer ages," and yet can unite with those who have departed from Apostolical practice, and are the avowed enemies of primitive usage? Can he be a proper guide to those who wish to be acquainted with the constitution of Christ's Church, who says, that "most of the Apostles lived and died among their brethren in Palestine; that" all ecclesiastical officers for the first three hundred years were elected by the people;" and that "Matthias was thus chosen to fill up the tribular number of the Apostles," as he expresses himself? Is that man a diligent and accurate historian, who talks of the constitutions of

Ignatius, meaning, no doubt, the Apostolical Constitutions, which were pretended to have been written by Clement; who calls Polycarp the disciple of Ignatius, when all the primitive writers assert that he was the disciple of St. John; who' mistakes the name of an office for the name of a man, calling Pontius, the Deacon of St. Cyprian, Pontius Diaconus? Can, in short, that man, who is so spiritually minded, because he believes the doctrine of election and reprobation, be a sure guide to primitive truth and order, when he speaks contemptuously of the great lights of antiquity," the martyrs and confessors of the faith of Jesus; and when he rejects in a lump the testimony of the early writers of the Catholic Church? If such a man's opinion can be of any service to you, avail yourself of it, Sir; but we will be contented with the ancient Fathers, as historians of the facts which were accessible to their inquiries.*

I will close this letter with recommending as a counterpoise to your three historians, the Ecclesiastical histories of Eusebius, Sozomen, and Theodoret among the ancients; Echard's and Du Pin's among the moderns; and, with them, Bingham's Antiquities of the Christian Church.

See a Review of Haweis' Church History, annexed to Skinner's Answer to Campbell's Lectures, lately republished by T. & J. Swords.

2

LETTER XX.

REV. SIR,

I HAVE now considered, as briefly as I well could, your manner of obviating the difficulties attending the supposition of a change of government in the purest ages of the Christian church; and if I do not deceive myself, it has been demonstrated, that it was morally impossible, that such a change should have taken place before the Roman empire became Christian. The profound silence of ail antiquity upon the subject; the impracticability of a change, considering the circumstances of the church in the first three ages; the absurdity of the supposition, considering the nature of the human mind, which cannot act without motives; the extreme difficulty of perceiving any motive that could have actuated the breasts of the usurpers; the inconsistency of such a supposition, with the positive testimony of the Fathers to the Apostolic origin of Episcopacy; the well known purity of the church in the second century, when this change is supposed. to have taken place; all these accumulated considerations place Episcopacy upon high and impregnable ground. They afford what the great VOL. II.

T