" Si Pergama dextra
Defend! possent, etiam hac defensa fuissent.'"— ^En. ii. 291, 292.
And this is the cause of naming many elders or presbyters in one church! For my part, I suppose the doctor might more probably have adhered to a former conjecture of his. Dissert, iv. cap. x. sect. 9. Concerning two sundry different churches, where were distinct officers, in the same city, " Prlmo," saith he, "respoudeo non usque quaque verum est, quod pro concesso sumi- tur, quamvis enim in una ecclesia aut cajtu plures simul episcopi nunquam fuerint" (pray except them mentioned Acts xx. 28, and those Acts xiv. 23), " nihil tamen obstare quin in eadem civitate duo aliquando ca3tus dister- minati fuerint." He might, I say, with more show of probability have abode by this observation than to have rambled over all Greece to relieve himself against his adversaries. But yet neither would this suffice. What use may or will be made of this concession shall elsewhere be manifested. But the doctor hath yet another answer to this multiplication of elders, and the mention of them with deacons, with the evident identity that is between them and bishops through the whole epistle, the same persons being unquestionably intended, in respect of the same office, by both these appellations. Now, this second answer is founded upon the suppo- sition of the former (a goodly foundation !) — namely, that the epistle under consideration was written and sent not to the church of Corinth only, but to all the churches of Achaia, of which Corinth was the metropolitan.
44 A niEFACE TO THE READER.
2. Now, this second answer is, that the elders or presbyters here men- tioned tcere properly those whom he calls bishops, diocesans, — men of a third rank and order, above deacons and presbyters in the church administra- tions and government; and for those wlio are properly called presbyters, there were then none in the church. To give colour to this miserable eva- sion, Dissert, iv. cap. x. sect. 11, he discourseth about the government and ordering of church affairs by bishops and deacons in some churches that were small, not yet formed or completed, nor come to perfection at the first planting of them. How well this is accommodated to the church of Corinth, which Clemens calls (3iQaiordT7iv y.ai u.^yjy.'ia.v , and which himself would have to be a metropolitical church, being confessedly great, numerous, furnished with great and large gifts and abilities, may be seen with half an eye. How ill, also, this shift is accommodated to help in the case for whose service it was first invented, is no less evident. It was to save the sword of Phil. i. 1 from the throat of the episcopacy he contendeth for. That epistle is directed to the saints or church at Philippi, Avith the bishops and deacons. Two things do here trouble our doctor: — (1.) The mention of more bishops than one at Philippi ; (2.) The knitting together of bishops and deacons, as the only two orders in the church, bringing down episco- pacy one degree at least from that height whereto he would exalt it. For the first of these, he tells you that Philippi was the metropolitan church of the province of Macedonia ; that the rest of the churches, wh.ich had every one their several bishops (diocesan we must suppose), were all com- ])rised in the mentioning of Philippi: so that though the epistle be pre- cisely directed rcuc uyioii to?'; oZeiv ii/ <&/X/'-c7o/j, yet the bishops that were with them must be supposed to be bishops of the whole province of Macedonia, because the church of Philippi was the metropolitan. The whole country must have been supposed to be converted, (and who that knows any thing of antiquity will dispute that!) and so divided with diocesans, as England of late was, the archbishop's see being at Philippi. But how came it then to pass that there is mention made of bishops and deacons only, without any one word of a third order, or rank of men distinct from them, called presbyters or elders? To this he answers, secondly, that when the church was first planted, before any great number Avas converted, or any fit to be made presbyters, there were only those two orders instituted, bishops and deacons: so that this church at Philippi seems to have been a metropoli- tical infiint! The truth is, if ever the doctor be put upon reconciling the contradictions of his answers one to another, not only in this, but almost in every particular he deals withal (an entanglement which he is thrown into by his bold and groundless conjectures), he will find it to be as end- less as fruitless; but it is not my present business to interpose in his quar- rels, either with himself or presbytery. As to the matter under consi- deration, I desire only to bo resolved in these few queries: —
1 . If there were in the times of Clemens no presbyters in the churches, not [even] in so great and flourishing a church as that of Corinth, and if all the places in the Scripture where there is mention of elders do precisely intend bishops, in a distinction from them who are only deacons and not bishojjs also, as he asserts, when, by whom, and by what authority, were elders who are only so, inferior to bishops peculiarly so termed, instituted and appointed in the churches? And how comes it to pass that there is such express mention made of the office of deacons, and the continuance of it, — none at all of ehlei-s, wlio are acknowledged to be superior to them, and on whose shoulders in all their own churches lies the great weight and burden of all ecclesiastical administrations? As we say of their bishops,