sons, it is only a temporal cognizance which he can take; and though as supreme, he may judge and decree in ecclesiastical affairs, yet it must be in a secular, not a spiritual manner; for so far as religion concerns the civil good of the state, and no farther, does his authority extend.

Utterly groundless, therefore, is the loud declamation so frequent with Dissenting writers against the royal supremacy, as if it were an infringement of the sole prerogative of Christ, and an injurious attempt to rob Him of his Headship over the Church. It is so providentially ordered by Him, from whom all government is derived, that a civil supremacy is not incompatible with a spiritual supremacy. The sovereign, as a. Christian and a member of the Church, acknowledges Christ as the only Head of it, as the supreme Lord and Master to whom he is subject, and whose laws and institutions he is bound to observe. Even in things or causes temporal he owns subjection to the commands of Christ, the head of all principality and power. Nor does the ascription of supreme government in the realm imply a right to perform the offices of all persons who are under it: so that it leaves spiritual duties and offices to be performed by spiritual persons; and the ecclesiastical and civil powers being thus essentially distinct, a pre-eminence in one is no infringement upon the other.

Having thus ascertained that the government

of the Church is vested in the ministers, who have received their commission from Christ, its Head and supreme Governor; that they are constituted a separate and distinct order of men ; and that their function and authority are compatible with the civil supremacy of the sovereign, it remains to investigate in the next place their several ranks and gradations, and their peculiar offices.

CHAPTER III.

ON CHURCH MINISTERS.

1. SEVERAL offices were at first instituted in the Christian Church, for "God hath set some in the Church, first apostles, secondly prophets, thirdly teachers, after that miracles, then gifts of healing, helps, governments, diversities of tongues," 1 Cor. xii. 28.; comp. Ephes. iv. 11. Some of these were evidently of an extraordinary nature, and appertained exclusively to the primitive times; setting aside, however, such as were intended to serve a temporary purpose; there are others confessedly of perpetual utility, and universal obligation. But how many, and of what kind are they? Is there a gradation among them? or, are they all equal and co-ordinate? The Episcopalians maintain a triple distinction of rank and order; on the other hand, it is the belief of most Protestant Dissenters that the only permanent ecclesiastical

offices to be found in the New Testament are bishops and deacons; the office of the former being to attend to the spiritual concerns of the Church; of the latter, to direct its temporal affairs; and that among these there are no gradations. According to this, they admit only one order of spiritual officers properly so called, that of deacon being of a secular nature, much the same as our modern churchwarden.

Upon this single point, then, the controversy hinges, and it must be inquired whether the Gospel sanctions a PARITY or an IMPARITY in the Christian ministry; for, if the Saviour hath instituted only one order with co-ordinate powers; Episcopacy will be incapable of any satisfactory. defence.

II.-1. A perfect parity is supposed to be declared by our blessed Lord, in Matt. xx. 25.; xxiii. 8, 9.; Luke xxii. 25, 26. These texts, it was shown in the former part of this work, are not opposed to a Church establishment'; and they are as little so to an imparity among Church officers. On the other hand, both the occasion and the expressions used by Christ favour a distinction of orders in the ministry. The occasion of them was a contention among the Apostles, who should be the greatest, which could hardly have arisen if they had been taught that all the members of the Christian ministry were equal in

1 P. i. chap. ii. § ii. 2.

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rank, and co-ordinate in jurisdiction; but such contests were very likely to originate with those who knew that our Lord intended different orders and ranks in it. His words cannot well be explained on any other supposition; for they certainly imply that a priority and pre-eminence of some above others should exist among the teachers and governors of the Church; that some should be " great," some chief," some "less," some "serving'." In each of these passages he enforces the precept by proposing his own example; and, as he exercised a spiritual power over the Apostles, it could not be his design to forbid in the Apostles the exercise of the same power over others. The general import, therefore, is, that the Apostles and their successors were not to indulge a worldly ambition, or to tyrannize over their brethren; but that although a gradation of ranks was to exist in the ministry, the superiors were to treat the inferiors with kindness and humility, of which he set the example in coming not to be ministered unto, but to minister.

2. Christ, it is urged, gave only one commission to those to whom he delegated the office of teaching and baptizing all nations, Matt. xxviij. 19, 20.; and as the commission is but one, there can be but one order of ministers, invested with

1 In Luke, vεάTεpos, younger, evidently means inferior in dignity.