4. I say that there is not in any of the doctor's excerpta from these epistles, nor in any passage in them, any mention or the least intimation of any church whereunto any bishop was related, but such an one as whose members met all together in one place, and with their bishop disposed and ordered the affairs of the church. Such was that whereunto the holy martyr was related; such were those neighbouring cliurches that sent bishops or elders to that church ; and when the doctor proves the con- trary, " erit mihi magnus Apollo." From the churches, and their state and constitution, is the state and condition of their officers, and their relation to them, to be taken. Let that be manifested to be such, from the appoint- ment of Jesus Christ by his apostles, or de facto in the days of Ignatius, or before the contempcration of ecclesiastical aftairs, occasionally or by choice, to the civil constitution of cities and provinces in those days, as would, or possibly could, boar a rural, diocesan, mctropolitical hierarcliy, and this controversy will bo at an end. When this is by any attempted to be demonstrated, I desire it may not bo with such sentences as that urged by our doctor from Epist. ad Eph., ^lr\so\Jg XBiarog ro\J 'rarohg ri yvu),a7], uig -/cal 01 sTiffKOTOi o'l xara rcc rrhara o^iadsiTig 'iTjffoD Xe/CrnD ytwajj iislv the expression in it concerning Christ being unsound, unscriptural ; con-
A PREFACE TO THE READER. 49
cerning bishops, unintelligible or ridiculous. But it may be said, " What need we any more writing, what need we any truer proof or testimony ? the learned doctor, in his Dissertations, Dissert, iv. cap. v. hath abundantl}^ discharged this work, and proved the seven bishops of the seven churches mentioned Rev. ii., iii., to have been metropolitans or archbishops, so that no just cause remains why we should farther contend."
Let, then, the reader pardon this my utmost excursion in this digres- sion, to whose compass I had not the least thought of going forth at the entrance thereof, and I shall return thither whence I have turned aside.
Dissert, iv. cap. v., the doctor tells us that " Septem ecclesiarum angeli, non tantum episcopi sed et metropolitre, i. e., archiepiscopi statuendi sunt, i. e., principalium urbium '^^ot,^y^oi ad quos provincite integral et in iis mul- tarum inferiorum urbium ecclesia?, earumque episcopi tanquam ad archi- episcopum aut metropolitanum pertinebant."
The doctor in this chapter commences per saltitm, and taking it for granted that he hath jiroved diocesan bishops sufficiently before, though he hath scarce spoken any one word to that purpose in his whole book (for to prove one superintending in a church by the name of bishop, others acting in some kind of subordination to him by the name of ciders and presbyters, will, upon the account of what hath been oftered concerning the state of the churches in those days, no way reach to the maintenance of this presumption), he sacrifices his pains to the metropolitical archiepis- eopal dignity, which, as we must suppose, is so clearly founded in Scrip- ture and antiquity that they are as blind as bats and moles who cannot see the ground and foundation of it.
But, first, be it taken for granted that the angels of the seven churches are to be taken for the governors of those churches, then that each angel be an individual bishop of the church to which he did belong; secondly, be it also granted that they were bishops of the most eminent church or churches in that province, or Roman political distribution of those countries in the management of the government of them, I say bishops of such churches, not " urbium £§« J%0'," as the doctor terms them ; — what advance is made by all this to the assertion of a metropolitical archiepiscopacy I cannot as yet discover. That they were ordinary officers of Christ's institution, relating in tlieir office and ordinary discharge of it not only to the particular churches wherein they were placed, but to many churches also, no less committed to their charge than those wherein they did reside, the officers, rulers, governors of which churches depended on them, not only as to their advice and counsel, but as to their power and jurisdiction, holding their place and em):)loyment from them, is some part of that whicli, in this undertaking, is incumbent on our doctor to make good, if he will not be supposed to prevaricate in the cause in hand. To this end he informs us, sect, secunda, that in the New Testament there is in sundry places mention made of "churches" in the plural number, as Gal. i. 2, 22; 1 Thess. ii. 14:; Acts ix. 31, XV. 41 ; 1 Cor. xvi. 1 ; Rev. i. 11 ; — sometimes of "church" only in the singular number, as Acts viii. 1, xi. 26; xv. 3, 4, 22, Rom. xvi. 1; 1 Cor. i. 2; 2 Cor. i. 1; 1 Thess. i. 1; Rev. ii. 1, 8, 12, 18, iii. 1, 7, 14. Now, this is an observation, which as we are not at all beholden to the doctor for it, no more, I suppose, will there be found to be to it when the reason of it shall be a little weighed and considered. The sum is, that the name " church" in the singular number is never used but when it relates to the single congregation in, or of, one city or town; that of " churches" respecting the several churches or congregations that were gathered in any country or "j^rovince. Manifest, then, is it from hence that there is in