ministrations upon the church at Rome, is the same as that of the Corinthian dissentients, "strife and envy." Now it is impossible, that the sin of the one, should not be much greater than the sin of the other. At Corinth they only rebelled against presbyters whose highest honour it would be, to have received ordination at the hand of an apostle; while at Rome they set at nought the spiritual jurisdiction of an apostle himself. Surely if St. Clement had scriptural authority at all, for the heinous and aggravated character he assigned to the sin of the Corinthian church, and for the severe reproof he administered to the schismatics, he must have found it in this passage. And yet a more perfect contrast is scarcely conceivable. The whole thunder of St. Clement's rebuke is aimed at their intrusion into the office of the successors of the apostles; St. Paul, in the same circumstances, rebukes nothing but the contentious and envious spirit, and insincerity of the schismatics. All the fervours of St. Clement's eloquence are directed against the ministrations of the rebellious; his avowed object is to silence them, and reduce them to the most abject submission to the regular clergy: but St. Paul rejoices in their ministrations:-"What then! notwithstanding every way, whether in pretence or in truth, Christ is preached; and I therein do rejoice, yea and will rejoice."

The conclusion is inevitable: the objects which these eminent servants of God had in view were totally different. The apostle regarded, with a single eye, the edification of the mystical body of Christ, or, in other words, the diffusion of the Gospel among men; and in whatever promoted that he rejoiced. His successor, on the other hand, scarcely looked beyond the maintenance and enlargement of the pastoral authority of the ministry, in order to the founda

66 Idem v. 18.

tion and building up of the visible church on earth, as a political incorporation.

It now becomes my painful duty to state, that the whole of Christian antiquity is leavened with this wretched error. When the miraculous gifts of the Holy Ghost departed from the earth, with the apostles and primitive disciples, it was a natural and inevitable consequence that the power and influence of the Christian ministry would be materially diminished; and instead of resting their claims upon the apostolic writings, this was the figment which was raised by their successors to uphold the authority of their order.

Its dimensions are more perfectly developed in the next author to whom our attention is to be directed. Ignatius soars with a bolder wing, and exalts the authority of the clergy to a still more perilous elevation, than even Clement.

We can have no stronger proof of the overwhelming importance which was attached to this question by the primitive church than the circumstance, that out of the seven extant epistles which this blessed martyr wrote during his forced journey to Rome, the place of his martyrdom, six of them are so pervaded with incessant and vehement exhortations to a submission to the bishops and clergy, as unlimited and universal as words can express, as to render it perfectly evident that this was really the only purpose of the writer in sending them. So entirely absorbed is his whole soul in the accomplishment of this purpose, that no consideration, either from reason or Scripture, seems to have power, for a moment, to check the mad career of his turgid and bloated, but often eloquent, declamation; or to deter him from working up his exhortations to the highest pitch of hyperbole.

In the following extract from the epistle to the Ephesians, it will be observed that he follows the preceding writer in loudly commending unity in the church,—an object perfectly scriptural and highly desirable; but, nevertheless, we take leave to doubt that the mode in which Clement and Ignatius propose to accomplish it is either the one or the other: the New Testament no where enjoins the entire submission of the faculties of body and soul, to the absolute and uncontrolled domination of the clergy, as the means whereby the laity are to promote the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. But such was the doctrine of Clement, and it is still more broadly and unequivocally laid down by Ignatius. "As love suffers me not to be silent concerning you, I have taken upon me to exhort you, that ye would all run together according to the mind of God. For even Jesus Christ, our inseparable life, is the mind of the Father, even as the bishops appointed unto the utmost bounds of the earth, are according to the mind of Christ. Wherefore it will become you to run together according to the mind of your bishop, as also ye do. For your celebrated presbytery, worthy of God,68 is fitted as exactly to the bishop as the strings are to the harp: therefore, in your like-mindedness and concordant love, Jesus Christ is sung, and every single person among you makes up the chorus: that so being all consonant in love, and taking up the song of God, ye may in a perfect unity, with one voice, sing to the Father by Jesus Christ; to the end that he may both hear you, and perceive, by your works, that ye are indeed the members of his Son. Wherefore it is profitable for you to live in a spotless unity, that ye may always have fellowship with God. For if I in this little time have had such a familiarity with your bishop, 68 τὸ θεῖ ἄξιον.

67 ἀξιονόματον.

now much more must I think you happy who are so united69 to him as the church is to Jesus Christ and Jesus Christ to the Father; that so all things may agree in the same unity! Let no man deceive himself; if a man be not within the altar, he is deprived of the bread of God. He, then, that does not come together in the same place with the church is proud, and has already condemned himself for it is written God resisteth the proud.' Let us take heed, therefore, that we do not set ourselves against the bishop, that we may be subject to God. Whomsoever the master of the house sets to be over his own household, we ought, in like manner, to receive him as we would do him that sent him.-It is, therefore, evident, that we ought to look upon the bishop even as we would do upon the Lord himself.”70 He states the same strange doctrine, and, if possible, in language still more unequivocal, in the epistle to the Magnesians. —“ It behoves you with all sincerity to obey your bishop, in honour of Him whose pleasure it is that you should do so. -He that obeys him with hypocrisy, deceives not the bishop, but affronts God." Unity is likewise enjoined, and on the same principle:-" I exhort you, that ye study to do all things in a divine concord, your bishop presiding in the place of God; your presbyters in the place of the council of the apostles: and your deacons most sweet unto me, being entrusted with the ministry of Jesus Christ."72 Again, "As, therefore, the Lord did nothing without the Father being united to him-neither by himself nor yet by his apostles-so neither do ye any thing without your bishops and presbyters: neither endeavour to let any thing seem reasonable to yourselves apart:" that is, do not 70 Ign. ad Ephes., cc. 4-6.

69 Mixed.

72 C. 6.

71 C. 3.

think for yourselves, without the sanction of the clergy.73 He repeats his call to subjection at the conclusion, thus:— "Be subject to your bishop and to one another as Jesus Christ to the Father, according to the flesh."

74יי

The epistle to Tralles only differs from that which precedes it, in stating the same doctrine still more objectionably:-" Whereas ye are subject to your bishop as to Jesus Christ, ye appear to me to live not after the manner of men, but according to Jesus Christ. It is, therefore, necessary that without your bishop ye should do nothing: also be ye subject to your presbyters as to the apostles of Jesus Christ; in whom if ye walk ye shall be found in him.75 Again, "let all reverence the deacons as Jesus Christ, and the bishop as the Father; and the presbyters as the Sanhedrim of the apostles. Without these there is no church.76 He that is within the altar is pure; but he that is without, that is, that does any thing without the bishop, and presbyters, and deacons, is not pure in his conscience."77

The epistle to the Philadelphians is addressed to those especially of that church who are "at unity with the bishop and presbyters who are with him, and the deacons appointed according to the mind of Jesus Christ; whom he has settled according to his own will, in all firmness by his Holy Spirit." After commending the holiness of the bishop of Philadelphia in a strain which is somewhat high wrought, to say the least, and vehemently exhorted them to follow him implicitly,78 he proceeds :-" As many as are of God and of Jesus Christ, are also with their bishop.Be not deceived, brethren: if any one follows him that makes a schism in the church, he shall not inherit the 75 Ign. ad Trall., c. 2. 78 Cc. 1, 2.

73 C. 7.

74 C. 13.

77 C. 7.

76 C. 3.