is, unquestionably, no instance mentioned in Scripture of any person, with the title of bishop, performing an ordination; so it is equally certain that no such instance has yet been found in any Christian writer within the first two centuries. Nor can a single instance be produced of a person already ordained as a presbyter, receiving a new and second ordination as bishop. To find a precedent favourable to their doctrine, the advocates of Episcopacy have been under the necessity of wandering into periods when the simplicity of the gospel had, in a lamentable degree, given place to the devices of men; and when the "man of sin" had commenced that system of unhallowed usurpation, which for so many centuries corrupted and degraded the church of God.

I promised, in a preceding chapter, to produce some testimony from the fathers in regard to the deacon's office. The following extracts from early writers. plainly show, not only that the deacon was originally what we have stated in a former chapter, but that this continued to be the case for several centuries. Hermas, one of the apostolical fathers, in his Similitude, ix. 27, tells us, that "of such as believed, some were set over inferior functions, or services, being intrusted with the poor and widows." Origen (Tract. 16, in Matt.) says, "The deacons preside over the money-tables of the church." And again, "Those deacons who do not manage well the money of the church committed to their care, but act a fraudulent part, and dispense it, not according to justice, but for the purpose of enriching themselves; these act the part of money-changers, and keepers of those tables which our Lord overturned. For the deacons were

appointed to preside over the tables of the church, as we are taught in the Acts of the Apostles." Cyprian (Epist. 52) speaks of a certain deacon who had been deposed from his sacred deaconship on account of his fraudulent and sacrilegious misapplication of the church's money to his own private use, and for his denial of the widow's and orphan's pledges deposited with him. And, in another place, (Epist. ad Rogatianum) as a proof that his view of this office is not misapprehended, he refers the appointment of the first deacons to the choice and ordination at Jerusalem, as recited at large in the Acts of the Apostles. Ambrose, in speaking of the fourth century-the time in which he lived-(Comment. in Ephes. iv.) says, "The deacons do not publicly preach." Chrysostom, who lived in the same century, in his Commentary on Acts vi. remarks, that "The deacons had need of great wisdom, although the preaching of the gospel was not committed to them;" and observes further, that "it is absurd to suppose that they should have the offices of preaching and taking care of the poor committed to them, seeing it is impossible for them to discharge both functions adequately." Jerome, in his letter to Evagrius, calls deacons "ministers of tables and widows." And in the Apostolical Constitutions, which, though undoubtedly spurious as an apostolical work, may probably be referred to the fourth or fifth century, it is declared, (Lib. viii. cap. 28,) "It is not lawful for the deacons to baptize, or to administer the eucharist, or to pronounce the greater or smaller benediction." Other citations, to the same amount, might easily be produced. But it is unnecessary. The above furnish a

clear indication of the nature of the deacon's office, in the primitive church, and during the first three or four centuries.

I will therefore only add, that the learned Suicer, of Germany, in his "Thesaurus Ecclesiasticus," under the article Alaxovos, speaks thus: "In the apostolic church, deacons were those who distributed alms to the poor, and took care of them;" in other words, they were the treasurers of the church's charity. The original institution of this class of officers is set forth in the sixth chapter of the Acts of the Apostles. With respect to them, the sixteenth chapter of the council of Constantinople (in Trullo) says, "They are those to whom the common administering unto poverty is committed; not those who administer the sacraments." And Aristinus, in his Synopsis of the Canons of the same Council, Can. 18th, says, "Let him who alleges that the seven, of whom mention is made in the Acts of the Apostles, were deacons, know that the account there given is not of those who administer the sacraments, but of such as 'served tables."" Zonaras, ad Can. 16. Trullanum, p. 145, says, "Those who by the apostles were appointed to the deaconship, were not ministers of spiritual things, but ministers and dispensers of meats." Ecumenius, also, on the sixth chapter of the Acts of the Apostles, says, "They laid their hands on the deacons who had been elected, which office was by no means the same with that which obtains at the present day in the Church, (i. e. under the same name,) but that with the utmost care and diligence, they might distribute what was necessary to the sustenance of widows and orphans."

Such is the result of the appeal to the early fathers. They are so far from giving even a semblance of sup

port to the episcopal claim, that, like the Scriptures, they every where speak a language wholly inconsistent with it, and favourable only to the doctrine of ministerial parity. What then shall we say of the assertions so often and so confidently made, that the doctrine of a superior order to presbyters, styled bishops, has been maintained in the church, "from the earliest ages," in "the ages immediately succeeding the apostles," and by "all the fathers, from the beginning?" What shall we say of the assertion, that the Scriptures, interpreted by the writings of the early fathers, decidedly support the same doctrine? I will only say, that those who find themselves able to justify `such assertions, must have been much more successful in discovering early authorities in aid of their cause, than the most diligent, learned, and keen-sighted of their predecessors.

CHAPTER V.

TESTIMONY OF THE LATER FATHERS.

IN citing the fathers, it was necessary to draw a distinct line between those who are to be admitted as credible witnesses, and those whose testimony is to be suspected. I have accordingly drawn this line at the close of the second century. About this time, as will be afterwards shown, among many other corruptions, that of clerical imparity appeared in the church; and even the Papacy, as we have before seen, had begun to urge its antichristian claims. From the commencement of the third century, therefore, every witness on the subject of Episcopacy is to be received with caution. As it is granted, on all hands, that the mystery of iniquity had then begun to work; as great and good men are known, from this time to have countenanced important errors, errors acknowledged to be such by Episcopalians as well as ourselves; as uncommanded rites and forms, both of Jewish and pagan origin, began to be introduced into Christian worship, and to have a stress laid upon them as unreasonable as it was unwarranted; we are compelled to examine the writers from the commencement of the third century downwards, with the jealousy which we feel towards men who stand convicted of having departed from the simplicity of the gospel; and concerning some of whom it is perfectly well known, that many of their alleged facts are as false as their principles.