in the New Testament styled Trptofivripoi, or presby- ters, at other times iirieKoiroi, or bishops; but the two appellations were indiscriminately applied to all the pas- tors who were the instructors of the different churches. Of this various examples may be given from the sacred writings. The apostle Paul, upon a very affecting oc- casion, when he was convinced that he could never again have an opportunity of addressing them, sent for the elders, or presbyters, of Ephesus. the persons to whom the ministry in that Church had been committed ; and after mentioning all that he had done, and intimat- ing to them the sufferings which awaited him, he ad- dressed to them what may be considered as his dying advice, and as comprehending in it all that he judged it most essential for them to do : " Take heed, there- fore, unto yourselves, and to all the flock over which the Holy Ghost hath made you bishops or overseers, to feed the Church of God" (Acts xx, 17, 28). Here they whose duty it was to feed the Church of God, as having been set apart through the Holy Spirit for that interesting work, are termed by the apostle presbyters and bishops, and there is not the slightest reference to the existence of any other tirimcoTrog, or bishop, superior to those iiriff- K07rot, or bishops, to whom he gives the moving charge now recorded. In his epistle to Titus, Paul thus writes : " For this purpose I left thee in Crete," where, as yet, it is probable that no teachers had been appointed, " that thou shouldest ordain elders, or presbyters, in every city." lie then points out the class of men from which the presbyters were to be selected, adding, as the reason of this, " for a bishop must be blameless as the steward of God" (Titus i, 5, 7). It is quite plain that the term bishop is here applicable to the same persons who were a little before styled elders, and both are declared to be the stewards of God, the guardians and instructors of his Church. The apostle Peter, in his lirst epistle ad- dressed to the Jewish converts, has these words : " The elders which are among you I exhort, who am also an elder, 6 <7tiinrptTj3iTipoc, and a witness of the sufferings of Christ: feed the flock of God which is among you, taking the oversight of it, tTnaKOTrovi'Ttg, being bishops of it, not by constraint, but willingly" (1 Pet. v, 1, 2). This passage is a very strong one. The apostle speaks of himself in his extraordinary capacity, a witness of the sufferings of Christ, and in his ordinary capacity as a teacher; showing, by the use of a very significant term, that as to it he was on a footing of equality with the other pastors or presbyters. He gives it in charge to them to feed the flock of God; the charge which, under most particular and affecting circumstances, he had received from the Lord after the Resurrection, and which includes in it the performance of everything req- uisite for the comfort and the edification of Christians; and he accordingly expresses this by the word tirtcnco- TrovvTtg, being bishops over them. It cannot, with any shadow of reason, be supposed that the apostle would exhort the elders, or presbyters, to take to themselves the office, and to perform the duties, of a bishop, if that term really marked out a distinct and higher order; or that he would have considered the presbyters as fitted for the discharge of the whole ministerial office, if there were parts of that office which he knew that it was not lawful for them to exercise. See Elder.
It seems, by the passages that have been quoted, to be placed beyond a doubt, that, in what the apostles said respecting the ministers of Christ's religion, they taught that the iiziaKoiToi and the TrptvfivTtpoi were the same class of instructors; and that there were, in fact, only two orders pointed out by them, bishops or presbyters, and deacons. This being the case, even although it should appear that there were bishops, in the common sense of that term, recognised in the apostolic age, all that could be deduced from the fact would be, that the equality at first instituted among the teachers had, for prudential reasons, or under peculiar circumstances, been interrupted; but it would not follow either that the positive and general declarations on the subject by the