Unto the high-priest are assigned his own services, and to the priests their particular place is appointed; and upon the Levites are laid their special 'ministrations; the layman is subject to the ordinances respecting the laity. Now, the Apostles preached the Gospel unto us from the Lord Jesus Christ; the Lord Jesus Christ himself preached it from God. Therefore, Christ was sent from God, and the Apostles from Christ; and both (commissions) were given in regular order by the will of God. Having received his commands they (the Apostles) went forth, announcing the kingdom of God. And having then preached in the villages and in the towns, they set up the firstlings among themselves to be Bishops and deacons of those who should believe. Neither was this a new institution; for many ages back Bishops and deacons are written about; it is said in Scripture, "I will establish their Bishops in righteousness and their deacons in faith."

'Observe, moreover, that our Apostles knew from Jesus Christ that contentions should arise about the title of Bishop; and for this cause they, of their perfect knowledge, constituted Bishops and deacons, and after that banded down a series of future succession, in order that when they should depart, other tried persons should take their office. We deem it therefore unlawful that persons appointed by them, or afterwards by other excellent persons with the assent of the whole Church, and who have blamelessly ministered to the flock of Christ, walking humbly, peaceably, and not grudgingly, and have for a long time received a shining testimony from all persons, should be expelled from their ministry. For it will be no trivial sin, if we eject from the episcopate those who in holiness and blamelessness offer up holy gifts.'-Greenwood, p. 57.

But to these words, none plainer or more emphatic than which, we should think, could have been used, Mr. Greenwood objects that S. Clement is setting forth the Jewish Church merely as an illustration of

The principles of order and subordination indispensable to the existence of every human association, more especially of those formed for religious purposes, which have always been found liable to split into as many parties and factions as there are shades of opinion among the members.'-P. 58.

It does not occur to him that there has been, and is but one Church of God, and that that Church, which he purchased with His own blood, is a divine and not a human institution; consequently, he does not see that the Gospel is the development of the law; that the Christian is the ancient Jewish Church, with the addition of the gift of the Holy Ghost; and was in one sense fulfilled, not first founded by Christ in the days of his humanity. There was always to be a priesthood and sacrifices, though not those of Levi. The priesthood, the offerings, the ordinances, are done away as types, and where they are merely carnal; but are fulfilled and continued in spirit and essence. If there are no laws of Church polity in the New Testament, it is not that there is no polity; but that, having been already fully laid down in the Old Testament, there is no room for a repetition of laws on the same subject in the New. The Church is God's kingdom upon earth; a mighty, visible kingdom, not

indeed of things carnal, but of things spiritual; as the prophets ever foretold that the Church should be, when Christian and catholic, instead of Jewish and local. And kings 'shall be thy nursing fathers, and their queens thy nursing 'mothers; they shall bow down to thee with their face toward 'the earth, and lick up the dust of thy feet." Instead of 'thy fathers shall be thy children, whom thou mayest make 'princes in all the earth." In this kingdom the government is, and has from the first been given to some, and not to others. In fact our author sets out with a theory or assumption, that there was at one time, though, perhaps but for a moment, as it were-no Christian Church or priesthood at all; until it pleased the early converts by mutual union to form one: and whatever opposes this idea must be got rid of by him. S. Clement at the outset is greatly in the way; but since his existence and writings cannot historically be denied, his words must be explained away. The writings of S. Ignatius and S. Cyprian, who repeat S. Clement in substance, are assumed to be forgeries. The original cause of this peculiar treatment of history, and the great fault of Mr. Greenwood's whole work is, that in his view of the Church he omits to make due mention of the spiritual element: and finding this element, which is strange to his own mind, so largely developed in the early writers, the latter appear to him untrue, and present him with difficulties from which he can only escape by denying them in some manner or another. Thus when he calls the Church a strictly voluntary association,' he forgets its divine origin, and its hidden and mysterious operation-that it is not that men merely banded themselves together (for some purpose not ascertained, nor easily to be conceived according to our author's theory), but that the Lord added to the Church daily such as should be saved.' Again when he affirms that changes of views and opinions based on or supported by forged documents 'transformed a strictly voluntary association 'into a severely organized political corporation, armed with 'powers greatly transcending any of the objects contemplated 'by the first preachers of the gospel' (p. 63)—we must be allowed to reply that so far as the church of the Western Patriarchate did at any time pursue merely political ends, she did not exceed, but she perverted, the objects of her foundation by her divine. Author and Head. These objects were purely spiritual, and to 'transcend' them would have been impossible, being, as they were, nothing short of our final salvation, and inheritance of the celestial abode, and fruition of the Divine Presence.

But Mr. Greenwood would support his own theory of church

1 Isaiah xlix. 23.

2 Psalm xlv. 16.

government and constitution by telling us (like Blondel and Salmasius), that the idea of the Bishops having been the substitutes of the Apostles at all is a fallacy for that in many churches, not only were there at first no Bishops, but it is not even certain if there were (for whatever purpose) so much as any separation of clergy and laity. In his opinion, it is probable that in the times of S. Ignatius and S. Polycarp, many Churches, e. g. those of Corinth and Alexandria, were not yet episcopally 'constituted.' (P. 68.) At any rate he seems to say that neither 'our Saviour nor the Apostles themselves left any proper form of government,' and that the object of the association was 'the propagation of a religious opinion or faith,' which is exactly what we deny. The object was, by the laying on of hands of those duly qualified by Christ to bestow the Holy Ghost, to give men ability to receive, and grace to believe that which was not a religious opinion or faith,' but the one body of Divine truth revealed to the world by its Divine author.

We have said that such seems to be Mr. Greenwood's idea: for here again there is a want of consistency, which makes it at times difficult to ascertain what are his real and final opinions. He admits that S. Clement did contemplate a church in some degree resembling that of the Jews, and on the whole much what is described by S. Ignatius and S. Cyprian, and is found in history. Even while saying that S. Clement of Alexandria is the first to mention clergy and laity as separate constituents in the Christian body, he adds (p. 63, note u) that S. Clement expressly declared that S. John the Apostle went round the neighbourhood of Ephesus ordaining Bishops and clergy; and therefore, of course, both recognising and acting on such a distinction; as S. Paul had done in ordaining S. Timothy and S. Titus; and S. Peter in his advice to the Bishops of the Church, in the fifth chapter of his first Epistle. Having there called himself, who was an Apostle, peoẞúrepos, he exhorts the σvμжрeσẞúтepoi-i. e. those, we must conclude, who were not indeed apostles, but in the place of apostles, as rulers of the Church-not to oppress où kλnpot. Both in word and in fact, then, this distinction must have been known to S. Peter, for it is on the surface of his words; and to S. Paul, for he acted on it in the cases (two among many others surely) of S. Timothy and S. Titus. Thus, we think, from Mr. Greenwood's own pages, an answer is afforded to his question, when the first severance of the ministering from the non-ministering sections 'of the church, the great distinction between clergy and laity,

1 Page 68.

took place;' and the same distinction is seen to have continued in the days of S. Clement, S. Ignatius, S. Polycarp, S. Clement of Alexandria, S. Cyprian, and others downwards.

The writings of S. Ignatius meet with much the same treatment at Mr. Greenwood's hands as the words of S. Clement. He agrees with Mr. Cureton and Chevalier Bunsen in rejecting the Greek and upholding the Syriac version of the three Epistles. Here again, however, he is in some measure at variance with himself. He tells us at page 66, that the Syriac is 'probably the only authentic version." On the following page we are assured that it is established as such beyond contradiction.' In a word, because the Syriac is simply shorter than the Greek, it is assumed that the latter is interpolated; and having been so assumed, it is therefore treated as proved that the former is the only true version. In support of this opinion, we are merely reminded (at page 71) of the audacity of the forgers of the third and fourth centuries (at p. 248, it is those of the fourth and fifth); and are informed that Eusebius was in error when he mentioned the four rejected epistles (those to the Magnesians, Trallians, Philadelphians, and Smyrnæans) as genuine. Thus we are peremptorily required by Mr. Greenwood to believe that the four abovementioned Epistles were entirely forged during the fourth or fifth centuries (or, as they were in existence in Eusebius's time, we suppose we must say in the third or fourth), and that the other three are much enlarged and corrupted; so that we are to reject the four entirely, and all of the three which is not in the Syriac.

This question is continually being treated by the upholders of the Syriac version, as if it had been really and unanswerably, and by the consent of all parties, decided in their favour. But many of our readers will know, and others will believe us, that the Syriac version has not one recommendation of any kind, internal or external, of its genuineness over the Greek. They will remember that Eusebius, who lived scarcely two centuries after the martyrdom of S. Ignatius, expressly says that he wrote seven epistles, the addresses of which agree with the extant Greek; and that his statement is repeated by S. Jerome. Five of these seven (including two of those rejected by the champions of the Syriac) have been quoted by Origen, S. Athanasius, S. Chrysostom, and Theodoret. It is almost a moral impossibility that these writers, learned as they were, and men of deep research, should all have been mistaken and imposed upon by some nameless forger. This positive testimony, as has been already urged, ought, upon all principles of critical evidence, to be decisive against the negative argument for the exclusive authority of the Syriac text, for which there is no

external evidence whatever but that of the two individual copies from which the version is derived. The great probability is, that these are an epitome or abbreviated version of the original Greek, the work of some monophysite. This is the external evidence-putting the strongest construction upon it, it is that two copyists, transcribing in A.D. 700 and 600, wrote ' out three epistles and no more of S. Ignatius; therefore all the rest are spurious. But even that is an assumption. We 'do not know that either of the copyists did not write out more epistles; it might have been the compiler or collector 'who omitted, if any were omitted; or the rest might have been lost.' Such are the words of the late lamented Professor Hussey, who, in the preface to his Sermons, has given a most complete and crushing exposure of Mr. Cureton's arguments for the Syriac; showing, in truth, that they are no arguments at all, but the merest assumptions. The Professor's conclusion in favour of the Greek and in rejection of the Syriac is held also by Dr. Wordsworth, Archdeacon Churton, and other eminent scholars at home and abroad.

Mr. Hussey indeed offers good reasons from the text for believing that Mr. Cureton's three epistles are really four; and he shows from Dr. Petermann, the probability that the Syriac version originally contained thirteen epistles, and not three (or four) only; and, in consequence, that the assertors of the genuineness of the Syriac may at any moment be compelled either to give up their advocacy of that version, or to uphold against the rest of the world the genuineness of the whole thirteen. What the Syriac has really done, is to give as far as it goes, indirect evidence of the genuineness of the Greek, as received and cited by the ancient fathers before mentioned, and as made known to modern times from the Medicean and Colbert MSS.

In truth, the champions of the Syriac have not got the better of their opponents, but have been defeated by them. They have not answered the arguments of those who contend for the genuineness of the Greek, nor have they overturned the authenticity of any word or line of it. All they have done has been to offer a version which no effort of theirs can substantiate as genuine, and to which they have been unable to give even the appearance of authenticity.

Let Mr. Greenwood, if he can, prove his position, or at least offer some kind of argument for it; when this is done, we will gladly and readily become his pupils. If he succeed in establishing the Syriac to be what he asserts, we will be the first to admit that the victory is with him, and will abandon the Greek for ever. But till then, it is a mere assumption