pally, with respect to the character and powers of the scriptural bishop. On the one hand, they contend that bishops are an order of ministers superior to presbyters, having a different ordination, different powers, and a different sphere of duty; that while presbyters have a right, by virtue of their office, to preach the word, and administer sacraments, to bishops exclusively belong the powers of ordination, confirmation, and government. On the other hand, we maintain that there is but one order of ministers of the gospel in the Christian church; that every regular pastor of a congregation is a scriptural bishop; or, in other words, that every presbyter, who has been set apart, by the laying on of the hands of the presbytery, and who has the pastoral charge of a particular church, is, to all intents and purposes, in the sense of Scripture, and of the primitive church, a bishop; having a right, in company with others, his equals, to ordain, and to perform every service pertaining to the episcopal office. We can discover no warrant, either from the word of God, or from the early history of the church, for what is called diocesan episcopacy, or the pre-eminence and authority of one man, under the title of bishop, or any other title, over a number of presbyters and churches: on the contrary, we are persuaded and affirm, that Christ and his apostles expressly discountenanced such claims of pre-eminence; and that all those forms of ecclesiastical government which are built upon these claims, are corruptions of apostolic simplicity, and deviations from the primitive order of the church In a word, we believe that the office of the gospel ministry is one, and that the New Testament does not admit of grades and orders in that office; that he

who has received it, without being made the pastor of a particular church, is called a minister of the gospel, an ambassador of Christ, or an evangelist, according to circumstances; that when he becomes related, by installation, to a particular church, as its pastor or "overseer," he is then a scriptural bishop. We do not suppose that in thus becoming a pastor or bishop, he is invested with a new office; but that in his official character he is brought into connection with a particular flock. Thus, in the language of the Episcopal church, when a man is ordained a presbyter, he is said to be invested with priest's orders-when the same man is instituted the rector of a parish, he is not clothed with a new office, but is still only a presbyter, entrusted with a pastoral charge. So in the Presbyterian church, a presbyter without a pastoral charge, however excellent and venerated, is not a bishop. He is not the "overseer of a flock." But when he is called by a church to be its pastor, and is installed as such, he receives no new office; but is a presbyter placed in a pastoral charge, a scriptural bishop.

This being the case, the reader will readily perceive the necessity of clearly marking and keeping in view a distinction between the primitive and the modern sense of the word bishop. Accordingly, in the perusal of the following sheets, he is earnestly requested to recollect, at every step, that by a scriptural or primitive bishop, is always meant a presbyter, minister, pastor, or whatever else he may be called, who has the pastoral care of a particular congregation; and that by scriptural or primitive episcopacy, is meant that government of the church, by such bishops, which existed in pure apostolic times

and for near two hundred years afterwards. And, on the other hand, that by modern bishops, and modern episcopacy, is meant that government of the church by prelates, which took its rise from ecclesiastical ambition, long after the days of the apostles, and which, with other innovations on primitive order, has since claimed to rest on the authority of Christ.

It ought further to be understood, that among those who espouse the Episcopal side in this controversy, there are three classes.

The first consists of those who believe that neither Christ nor his apostles laid down any particular form of ecclesiastical government, to which the church is bound to adhere in all ages. That every church is free, consistently with the divine will, to frame her constitution agreeably to her own views, to. the state of society, and to the exigencies of particular times. These prefer the Episcopal government, and some of them believe that it was the primitive form; but they consider it as resting on the ground of human expediency alone, and not of divine appointment. This is well known to have been the opinion of Archbishop Cranmer, and Grindal; of Bishop Leighton, of Bishop Jewel, of Dr. Whitaker, of Bishop Reynolds, of Archbishop Tillotson, of Bishop Burnet, of Bishop Croft, of Dr. Stillingfleet, and of a long list of the most learned and pious divines of the Church of England, from the Reformation down to the present day. Dr. Jortin, a learned divine of that church, who also held this opinion, embodied it in one sentence-"Government, both in church and state, is of God; the forms of it are of men."

Another class of Episcopalians go further. They suppose that the government of the church by

bishops, as a superior order to presbyters, was sanctioned by apostolic example, and that it is the duty of all churches to imitate this example. But while they consider Episcopacy as necessary to the perfection of the church, they grant that it is by no means necessary to her existence; and accordingly, without hesitation, acknowledge as true churches of Christ, many in which the Episcopal doctrine is rejected, and Presbyterian principles made the basis of ecclesiastical government. The advocates of this opinion, also, have been numerous and respectable, both among the clerical and lay members of the Episcopal churches in England and the United States. In this list appear the venerable names of Bishop Hall, Bishop Downham, Bishop Bancroft, Bishop Andrews, Archbishop Usher, Bishop Forbes, the learned Chillingworth, Archbishop Wake, Bishop Hoadly, and many more, whose declarations on the subject will be more particularly detailed in another place.

A third class go much beyond either of the former. While they grant that God has left men at liberty to modify every other kind of government according to circumstances, they contend that one form of government for the church is unalterably fixed by divine appointment; that this form is Episcopal; that it is absolutely essential to the existence of the church; that, of course, wherever it is wanting, there is no church, no regular ministry, no valid ordinances; and that all who are united with religious societies, not conforming to this order, are "aliens from Christ," "out of the appointed road to heaven," and have no hope but in the "uncovenanted mercies of God."

It is confidently believed that the two former classes taken together, embrace a large majority of all the

Episcopalians in Great Britain and the United States; while, so far as can be learned from the most respectable writings, and other authentic sources of information, it is only the remaining proportion, and, as some think, a small minority, who hold the extravagant opinions assigned to the third and last of these classes.

It will be seen, from the foregoing statement, that Presbyterians are, in reality, Episcopalians, as well as their neighbours who popularly bear that name. Believing, as they do, that the Greek word which we translate bishop, simply means the "overseer" of a flock, they, of course, hold to a parochial episcopacy, in opposition to diocesan episcopacy; or, in other words, that every minister of the gospel, who has a pastoral charge, is a scriptural bishop. Yet, on the principles of courtesy and habit, they yield the title of Episcopal to those to whom it is commonly applied, without meaning to acknowledge that they alone hold to bishops; on the same principle that they yield the title of Baptist to their Antipedobaptist brethren, without intending thereby to concede, in the remotest manner, that they alone baptize.

A more exactly discriminating term, however, by which to distinguish between Presbyterians and Diocesan Episcopalians, would be to call the latter Prelatists, and their system Prelacy. This would be drawing the line by a single word, without the possibility of confusion or mistake.

The learned Beza, in an able and interesting treatise on this subject, divides episcopacy, for the sake of discrimination, into three sorts: (1,) divine episcopacy, meaning that parochial form of it in which Presbyterians believe, and which he considered as laid down in the New Testament; (2,) human episcopacy,