_But I maintain communion with the Church of England_, _because her
government is episcopal_, _i.e. by Bishops_; _this being the mode of
Church government which existed in the primitive Church_, _and was
founded by the Apostles of our Lord_.
IN stating reasons for conformity which are to be comprised within a few
pages, it is impossible to enter at large into the proof of the fact here
asserted, viz. that the primitive church as founded by the Apostles of
our Lord, was episcopal; or, in other words, that the power of ordination
and government in the church was vested by the Apostles in officers
superior to the order of Presbyters, and who are now called by the name
of Bishops. I must therefore only state a few circumstances, which are
capable of being clearly proved, without producing the evidence on which
my belief of them is built.
1. Episcopal government, as established in the Church of England, has
all the authority in its favour which prescription or long usage can give
it. The most learned of its adversaries have never been able to fix on
any period in the Christian Church, from the time of the Apostles to the
Reformation, in which the ordination of men to the ministry of the gospel
was considered to be vested in any other minister or ministers than a
Bishop.
2. All the instances of ordination, recorded in the New Testament, are
in favour of Episcopacy. For there is no single instance of ordination,
on record there, performed by presbyters, or at least without the
presence and co-operation of some officer superior to presbyters.
3. All the directions concerning ordination, given in the New Testament,
are addressed to persons superior to presbyters. Such, confessedly, were
Timothy and Titus; and to them only are any such directions given.
4. The Apostles, at their decease, left the government of the several
churches which they had planted, and the ordination of their ministers,
in the hands of fixed Bishops.
It may be granted that, during the life-time of the Apostles, the title
Bishops, was common to all presbyters, and that this name was not
confined to an officer superior to presbyters till after their decease.
For it is not the name but the office about which I am inquiring.—It
moreover appears that, during the life of the Apostles, some churches had
each its settled Bishop, as the seven churches of Asia, who are addressed
in their several epistles through the medium of an individual; (Rev. ii.
3.) and that of Crete, where Titus was left by St. Paul. (Titus i. 2.)
Other churches however had none as yet settled among them, being under
the immediate government of the Apostles, who frequently visited or sent
to them, and either themselves, or by other superior officers, ordained
ministers for them.
But immediately after the death of the Apostles there was, in every
church, an officer superior to presbyters, who was called by way of
distinction a Bishop. This we learn from express testimonies in the
remaining writings of men who lived in the time of the Apostles; such as
Clemens Romanus, mentioned in Phil. iv. 3.—Ignatius, Bishop of Antioch,
who suffered martyrdom in the year 107; and Polycarp, Bishop of Smyrna,
who was burned in the year 167, aged one hundred years or more. These
excellent apostolic men have expressly spoken in their epistles of
Bishops, Priests, and Deacons, as the stated officers of the Christian
Churches, assigning to the former the prerogatives or rights of
government and ordination in their several districts. Besides this,
ancient historians of the church have given lists of successive Bishops,
that is, of individual presidents, in several of the more important
churches, reaching up to the very time of the Apostles.
Now it is not to be supposed that, immediately after the death of the
Apostles, any innovation or change, so important and invidious as that of
episcopal government, would or could have been introduced; or that,
supposing it to be destitute of apostolic sanction, its introduction
should produce no opposition. Much less is it to be supposed that such
men as Clemens, Ignatius, and Polycarp, the disciples and friends of the
Apostles, would have suffered such an innovation to be introduced, and
have mentioned it in the highest terms of approbation. But the truth is,
that they speak of the three orders of Bishops, Priests, and Deacons, in
the Christian Church as conformed to the three ranks of ministers in the
Jewish Church, the High Priests, the common Priests, and the Levites,
{8}—as ordained by Christ himself, and as existing even during His own
ministry, He himself acting as the great Bishop, His Apostles as His
Presbyters, and the seventy disciples as His Deacons: and as at length
established in the universal Church by apostolic authority and usage.
On this ground then I justify my continuance in the Church of England,
viz. its conformity in this important branch of its constitution to the
primitive and apostolic church. But I wish it to be understood that I
assign my reasons for such a continuance, not with a view to the
conversion of those to my sentiments who are not members of our church;
but merely for the purpose of showing that I do not act without reason,
and of confirming those who are members of our own church, but have not
had an opportunity of obtaining information on the subject under
consideration,—of confirming them in their attachment to that church,
which I consider to be “built,” in its constitution as well as its
doctrines, “on the foundation of the Apostles and Prophets, Jesus Christ
Himself being the chief corner-stone.” From HIM all authority descends;
for in HIM, as “the head of His body the church,” it is all vested by
Divine appointment. “All power is given unto me in heaven and upon
earth.—Go ye _therefore_ and teach (or make disciples of) all nations,
baptising them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost.”
Thus He handed down the authority He had received to His Apostles; they
transmitted it to their immediate successors; and so it has descended to
the Bishops or chief pastors of the church in our own day. Without
wishing to interfere with the right of private judgment which belongs to
every man, and for the exercise of which he is accountable to God only; I
own that I cannot see how the Christian Church as a visible society,
could have been continued in the world without such a communication of
Divine authority.