and the obedience which it enforces damps the ardour of speculation in respect of points where the prison or the sword effectually prevent the conclusions come to from being carried out into practice. But the institution of the church is not felt to be of this positive character, and is therefore more open to inquiry. Moreover the disposition to prosecute such researches derives a strong impulse from the peculiar manner in which the kingdom of Christ is announced and established in Scripture. It has often been observed, that the truths which Christianity introduced into the world were not set forth by those who first preached them in a regularly developed system. They are exhibited in practical operation as principles rather than precise laws; being referred to incidentally, or as bearing upon a practical case, but not expressed in the philosophical language of pure and abstract science. This is equally true of the societies which the apostles founded. The new relations in which men were placed toward God and each other are everywhere presented to us as the animating principles of the Christian converts. Everywhere do we see these relations embodied and realized in regular societies; but what were the positive and historical characteristics of those societies we are perfectly unable to determine with certainty. We cannot state, with any positive assurance whatever, the precise functions of the officers that governed those societies; what the degree and sphere of their authority, their relation to the governed, their number, their mode of election; in a word, it is impossible to describe historically those communities, as constituted bodies, in the same way that we should give an account of the constitution of any kingdom of Europe. We can find nothing like the statutes of the English law; much less a fixed and well-digested system of ordinances, such as the Code Napoléon. For a long time nothing was held to have been better established than the existence of three orders of ministers in the apostolical churches; yet even this has been successfully disputed, and Roman Catholic divines themselves are beginning to admit that bishop and presbyter were two different titles for the same officer. But even if all these points could be made out historically, if we could describe accurately the constitution of the apostolical churches, we should still be com

pletely in the dark as to the momentous question whether the institutions actually set up by the apostles were intended to be the one unalterable, eternal form of the Christian church, or whether they were only those arrangements which were judged to be best suited to the circumstances of that age. On this point we have absolutely no information at all. This is a most important fact, and one from which we shall have to draw weighty inferences hereafter. In this place we bring it forward to show, that if the apostles were silent as to a matter of such essential consequence, it cannot be a subject of wonder that speculation should have been active in seeking to determine questions so deeply affecting the most important interests of man.

And if we turn from Scripture to ecclesiastical history, we shall soon perceive that its course has been far from favourable to the obtaining of satisfactory conclusions on these points. In the days of the apostles the Christian communities could assume no other form but that of voluntary associations for religious worship, existing indeed in the state, but interfering little, if at all, with the usual course of secular affairs. As professors of a religion which was in its nature essentially exclusive, and pronounced every other to be guilty of idolatry and impiety, the Christians could not participate in rites which the pagan government prescribed; they could not hesitate to prefer the alternative of martyrdom. But so long as they were left to the undisturbed exercise of their religion, they did not interfere with the state. They were content with constituting their societies on a footing adapted to the circumstances they were placed in: they had not conceived the ambition of framing a political and religious constitution that was to triumph over all the world: they felt themselves to be in a temporary position; and looked forward to the coming of their Lord in a visible kingdom on earth as the period when they should reign with him in glory, and all the unbelieving nations should be judged and destroyed. Such men, with such feelings and such expectations, could never think of determining the true nature and form of the Christian church under all possible circumstances of the human race their hope and belief were, that ere long there should be none but saints on earth; the world and the state

would have disappeared. As therefore the Holy Spirit did not commission the inspired apostles to reveal a permanent and indispensible form of church government; so neither did the state of mind, or the outward situation, of the first Christians allow of their instituting the inquiry, whether such a form was necessarily to be derived from the essential nature of Christianity or the constituent elements of man's being.

Government, however, the Christian, as all other societies, must have, and gradually and universally it assumed the type of episcopacy. We need not discuss here the causes which brought about this general result. We state the fact; but it is most important to observe, that the writers of the first centuries after the Christian æra assert the divine right of episcopacy, not avowedly as the only mode of government which could possibly maintain itself de jure, but as that actually existing de facto. Every established government has a divine right, so long as it does not violate the laws of God; and, as such, episcopacy had an unquestionable title to authority. It is true that the early Christian writers frequently rest its authority on its derivation from the apostles: they were right in doing so; they could do no otherwise. The government that prevailed, of whatever kind it was, could have no other foundation than the institution of regular communities by Christ and his apostles. Historical descent, in an unbroken continuity of government from the apostles, was the same thing for the Christian churches that national identity is for a people. It was the conviction of this fact that held them together as societies; and an appeal to the continuous succession of rulers from the first founders of the church was as just and as valid as the appeal to hereditary descent would be in behalf of Her Majesty the Queen. In both cases it is a legitimate appeal to lawful government lawfully transmitted; in neither is it, in itself alone, a proof that the actual institution in whose behalf it is made, whether episcopacy or hereditary monarchy, shall alone, as long as the world lasts, have a legitimate right to command obedience. Whether the defenders of episcopacy conceived any other mode of rule to be possible in the church, or not, is immaterial. It is probable that they did not; the question never presented itself to their minds. But on either supposition they were justified in urging their perpetual de

scent from the apostles as a valid ground for the legitimacy of their authority. It proved them to belong historically to the same institution that Christ had founded, and to be the rightful heirs of all the powers and privileges justly appertaining to the governors of the church. But the mere fact of succession cannot of itself alone prove the immutability of the form; nor can any argument be built on it against the validity of non-episcopal rulers, any more than on the long line of the house of Bourbon against the right of Louis Philippe to be king of the French. If, on the one hand, the revolutions of 1688 in England and 1830 in France broke through the principle of direct lineal descent, and yet the governments of the houses of Brunswick and Orleans are acknowledged to be constitutional and lawfully entitled to the allegiance of their subjects; so, on the other, the mere fact of episcopacy having come down uninterruptedly from the apostles (supposing that it could be historically proved) would not prevent a different kind of government, which had been de facto substituted for episcopacy, from holding itself authorized by divine sanction to bear sway in the church.

But though the early Christians did not entertain the questions, whether one absolute constitution had been set up for all ages, and what was its relation to the state, events were taking such a turn as to give a practical solution to them. The bishops grew to be more absolute within their dioceses; the introduction of synods, from which the laity were excluded, gave them the exclusive power, as representatives of the church, to decide points of doctrine and discipline; metropolitan churches acquired a certain pre-eminence; patriarchates next followed; and at last the increasing importance attached to the theory of a visible unity disposed men's minds more and more to look upon the see of the imperial city, Rome, as the centre of the Christian church. The Christians meanwhile had vastly increased in numbers, and yet more in political importance; but their organization still remained distinct from that of the political body. The progressive development of Christianity necessarily multiplied the points respecting which Christians must peremptorily refuse submission to a pagan government; whilst their numbers now put persecution and martyrdom out of the question. The state became rent

into two distinct confederations; the conquest of one by the other, or dissolution, was inevitable. The Christian principle triumphed; the worn-out and exploded creed of heathenism was no match for the youthful vigour, the evidences, the divine and human strength of its adversary. Christianity now became the national religion; it was incorporated into the state. Not that its proper relation to it was then discussed and determined; it was a practical solution of a practical problem. The Christian church was an organized power standing over against the state; it was, with its existing organization, adopted into the state. The church continued in the same course as before centralization went on steadily; the metropolitans increased in power, but only to be subjugated in turn by the all-devouring sway of Rome. By a series of events guided by consummate skill, and founded on a policy so profound and persevering as to be comparable only with the far-sighted prudence and inflexible steadiness of the ancient Roman senate, religious liberty, both public and private, was overthrown, and a dominion established over men's minds and temporal kingdoms, of which the world before had never had an example.

But the principle of union was carried too far: human nature was outraged by the fetters which a pretended infallibility had placed on the progress of thought and civilization; and the moral sense of Europe was profoundly shocked by the immoralities which despotism had brought in its train. The machine, however, was too complicated to admit of being repaired. Solemn decisions, based on an infallible oracle, could not be rescinded without overthrowing the whole system. The usual resources of arbitrary power, violence and coercion, were put in requisition; and the Reformers, as the champions of the highest interests of the human race, had no other remedy but boldly and peremptorily to challenge the authority of that power which had brought all men into bondage. Then was it perceived, that however vast and imposing the structure, it had been built upon sand; that the Christian religion had not sacrificed the liberty of mankind, moral, intellectual and political, on the altar of infallibility. A few ambiguous or misinterpreted texts, a few scanty and imperfect records, were found to be poor grounds for pretensions