Public Reading of the duty; we shall, perhaps, find no further difference between the method originally pursued and that now established among the purest reformed Churches, than is accounted for, and warranted, by the difference of circumstances. The public reading of portions of the Scriptures in the service of the Church; and even of the prayers, as made up in a great measure Scriptures. of scriptural expressions, may of itself be reckoned among the ministerial duties of dispensing Gospel truth. Indeed, in an age when neither books nor readers were general, this would be even more important than at present; because, whatever more convenient forms were devised for the conveying of those truths, it was necessary to convince all, that to the Bible they were to be traced; and this could only be done by reading or hearing it read. If, therefore, there be any difference in the proportion which the lessons have borne to the prayers in the primitive Church services, and in the service of any modern society of Christians, it might be expected to have been generally greater formerly than now. Authorities for this custom. Preaching. 64 Such was the case. The remains of the apostolical Fathers do not, indeed, furnish direct testimony, to the custom of reading the Scriptures, as part of the Church service; but the writings of those who immediately succeeded them are sufficiently clear and ample on the point; and speak of it as a custom originally established, and coeval with the Church service. Justin Martyr, Chrysostom, and St. Basil, may be appealed to as decisive authorities for the early existence of the usage; which, indeed, could not have been neglected without so flagrant a violation of the fundamental principles of the Church's establishment, as to have occasioned the neglect, and the origin of it, to be recorded and handed down to us. The mere silence of history on such a point would have left us warranted in maintaining the observance of the custom. At the same time, the public reading of the scriptural record was not the only, nor the principal office which the ministers of the Church had to perform, as dispensers of the truths contained in it. That record was the test, the source of all that was to be communicated to the world; but it was left to the discretionary power of the Church to shape the various forms in which it should be presented to mankind—to the Church collectively, to its ministers individually. The Gospel ministers were to expound, to arrange, and to accommodate the Divine truths to the education, habits, and other circumstances of their hearers; looking in each instance to the mode in which instruction would be best understood, and most readily listened to. Hence, the importance of the preacher's character-not as the eloquent master of the feelings of an audience -but far more, as the judicious dispenser of Gospel truth; in 64 For the indirect testimony to be derived from these writings, see the remarks on the public reading of the Scriptures, considered as one of the means of preserving the sacred record. the accom to the applying, and teaching others to apply, to particular cases, the general principles and precepts of the New Testament; in arranging systematically the doctrines there incidentally taught; or in giving clearness to what might be there obscure, by combining separate passages, and by all other legitimate methods of uninspired exposition. In such an employment, the danger, the chief danger Danger from at least, would arise from too great an accommodation to the modation of previous tastes and habits of thought in those addressed. The Preaching converted Gentile philosopher would best understand the Christian particnlar mysteries, when illustrated by allusions to the metaphysical theories hearers. with which his fancy had been previously familiar; the Jew would be made more ready to listen and to understand, by the continual use of images belonging to the Old dispensation, to clothe and recommend the topics of the New. In the great inspired preacher to the Gentiles, his successors and imitators would observe, perhaps, the splendid effect produced by his grafting Christian instruction on the manners, and even the prejudices, of men; and might, therefore, proceed the more fearlessly in the same track, without quite the same controlling wisdom. What he had gained by colouring his instructions with the memory of the law, and its venerable adjuncts, when addressing the Jew; or by alluding to the serious pursuits, or the amusements of the Gentile world, when the Gentiles were addressed; emboldened, perhaps, the first uninspired preachers even beyond the bounds of prudence. They taught, we have every reason to believe, truth and only truth; but, if we may judge from the remains, even of the apostolical Fathers, it would be uncandid not to admit an over-readiness to allow those truths (in some cases) to receive their form and impression from the previous notions, both of Jew and Gentile. It was the easier method, nor can we wonder to find it adopted. But to this only can we attribute the ready introduction into the Church's language of the terms above mentioned, "priest," (isgeùs,) "mediator," &c., as applied to the ministers of that religion which acknowledges no priest on earth, and only one Mediator between God and Men, the man Christ Jesus.' Harmless as it might have been then, it is, perhaps, the first link in that chain of corruption which ended in the creation of a Christian pontiff.& Their accommodation to the Gentile prejudices, or rather to the philosophy of the Gentiles, was by no means so great; 66 65 It was, doubtless, in conformity with the custom of the synagogue, that the sermon used in the primitive Church to be almost universally delivered by the preacher sitting whilst the congregation stood. (See Bingham's Eccl. Antiq. Book XIV. C. IV. Sect. 24.) "The Scribes and Pharisees" (said our Lord) "sit in Moses' seat," (Matt. xxiii. 2;) and his own example might have been considered as a further warrant for adopting the Jewish usage in a matter of indifference. 1 Tim. ii. 5. Custom of the African Church in Preaching. Epistles. of this mode of instruction. although occasionally discoverable in some laboured illustrations of the doctrines of the Trinity and the Incarnation. It was to the sacred record, however, and to their own preaching, only as a particular form of communicating it, that they directed the attention of their audience; and it deserves to be recorded, as a remarkable illustration of this fact, that in the African Church a custom long prevailed among the preachers, of quoting only part of any scriptural passage, cited in their sermons, and pausing for the remainder to be filled up by the congregation. An instance of it may be found in Augustin's Sermons.67 That the character 68 of the primitive preaching was such as is here described, we chiefly infer from the character of the primitive writings; and these being in the form of Epistles, require some observations distinct from what is applicable to them, in common with preaching. The custom of writing public letters is a distinct branch of the office of the Christian ministers, in dispensing the truths of the Gospel; and one for which, no less than preaching, they had the example of the apostles. Indeed, when we consider the opportunity afforded by such a mode of address, for the bishop to give an interest to his instructions, by allusions to matters of local and peculiar interest, which could not so properly be introduced in a Sermon or a Charge, it is rather surprising to find so early and so Advantages total a disuse of this good old custom. It is probable, that few attempts to exhort or to instruct as a preacher would be so interesting, as the opening of the successive packets, for instance, which conveyed to the churches of Asia the farewell injunctions of Ignatius; and Polycarp's serious instructions to the Philippians were, doubtless, remembered better in an Epistle, which disdained not an allusion to conversational matters, than if he had been compelled to address them only with the solemnity of the Christian preacher."—Clement, whose First Epistle to the Corinthians is perhaps, on the whole, the most valuable of the remains of the apostolical Fathers, seems not to have been sensible of this advantage, in the method which he nevertheless employed; and his Epistle is therefore a treatise, compared with an apostolical Epistle, cold, drily systematic, and uninteresting. It is scarcely possible to devise a better method of appreciating St. Paul as a writer, in this particular department, (as a writer, namely, of public letters to bodies of Christians,) than by comparing with Clement's his Epistles to the same Church written 66 Almost all the early heresies may be traced to the presumptuous attempt to speculate metaphysically on the nature of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. St. Paul speaks of such speculations as "falsely called knowledge ;" and warns Timothy against them, as endangering the faith of the instructor and the instructed. For the results which ensued in no long interval, we need only refer to Irenæus's First Book adv. Hæreses. 67 See Bingham's Eccl. Antiq. Book XIV. Ch. IV. Sec. 26, where the passage is cited. 08 That such was the character of their epistolary instruction, will be manifest from a cursory glance at the remains of the apostolical Fathers, which abound with references to scriptural authority. 69 See ch. xi. and xiii. of the Epistle. on nearly the same subject. At the same time, it must be considered, that Clement was writing in the name of the Church at Rome, and addressing a Church not peculiarly his charge. Now, it is out of this latter circumstance that an Epistle derives its most interesting topics. It was thus, then, that the primitive Church fulfilled its office of dispensing the truths of the sacred record, through the agency of its various orders of ministers. They read publicly the Word of God; they preached it; and they sent it to the absent by letters. Of the mode of appointing these ministers, some account has been given in a preceding part of this inquiry; enough, perhaps, for our purpose. It does not appear, from the remains of the apostolic Fathers, whether the performance of this rite required a bishop. Still, as this practice is mentioned by Jerome, Chrysostom, and succeeding writers; and noticed by them, not as an innovation, but as a settled usage, there can be no reasonable doubt of its primitive adoption. The revenue for the support of the clergy in this season of the Revenue. Church's poverty, appears to have arisen from the continual contributions of the laity in each Church; aided in some instances by the accumulation of a fund, the probable origin of which, in the apostolic days, has been already suggested. The catalogue of the bishops, ordained by the apostles, is, Bishops according to the most probable account, as follows:70 ordained by the Apostles I. At Jerusalem: James, the apostle, and Simeon, the son of Jerusalem. Cleopas. Authorities: Unanimous testimony, especially that of Jerome, Epiphanius, Chrysostom, the author of "The Apostolical Constitutions," Hegesippus, Clemens Alexandrinus, and Dionysius of Corinth, as quoted by Eusebius. II. Antioch: Euodius and Ignatius. Baronius conjectures, that they were contemporary; one for the Gentile, and the other for the Jewish portion of the Church. But it must be admitted that this is not a very likely arrangement, when we consider that one of the great efforts of the apostolical founders was to amalgamate Jew and Gentile into one Church, and to preserve the unity of the Spirit. They are represented as successive bishops by Eusebius, Theodoret, Athanasius, Origen, and Jerome. At the same time, the expedient might have become necessary for a time at Antioch, as appears to have been the case at Rome. III. Smyrna: Polycarp. Authorities: Jerome, Irenæus, Tertullian, Eusebius. Antioch. Smyrna. IV. Ephesus: Timothy. See APOSTOLIC AGE. 70 See Bingham's Eccl. Antiq. B. II. C. I. Sect. 4. Ephesus. Crete. Athens. Philippi. Rome. Hierapolis. Authorities: Eusebius, Chrysostom, Epiphanius, Jerome, Hilary the deacon, the author of "The Passion of Timothy" in Photius, and Theodoret, who expresses himself singularly enough, saying, “that he was bishop, under the title of an apostle. V. Crete: Titus. >>71 The same authorities. Eusebius makes both metropolitans. Hooker adopts this view, in his "Eccles. Polity." VI. Athens: Dionysius the Areopagite, and Publius Quadratus. Authorities Dionysius, bishop of Corinth, a writer of the second century, quoted by Eusebius. It was Quadratus who presented an apology to the emperor Hadrian. VII. Philippi: Epaphroditus. VIII. Rome: Linus, Anacletus, and Clement. The order of succession between these three is not very easily determined. Irenæus, Tertullian, Chrysostom, Eusebius, Ruffinus, Jerome, Optatus, Epiphanius, and Augustin, all contain notices which may help the inquirer. The most probable mode of solving the difficulty is, that in the distracted state of the Church at Rome, the same necessity, which required the care both of St. Paul and St. Peter, namely, the aversion of the Jewish party to the great Gentile apostle, might have caused a division of that Church into two societies; over that, composed chiefly of Gentiles, Linus may have been appointed by St. Paul, and succeeded by Anacletus; over that, consisting of Jews chiefly, Clement may have been appointed by St. Peter. As Clement survived Linus and Anacletus, and by that time the spirit of dissension had well nigh ceased, the Church was probably reunited and again became one, as it originally was, when St. Paul first wrote and preached to them; and thus Clement became the first sole bishop. The assertion of Eusebius, that St. Paul and St. Peter were joint founders, favours this view; which is, however, subject to the objection above noticed, respecting a similar case at Antioch. IX. Hierapolis: Papias. 72 He was a disciple of St. John, and contemporary with Ignatius and Polycarp. Although, therefore, there is no direct assertion in ancient authors, of his being ordained by the apostle, he may be numbered among those who were 71 See, too, the quotation above given from St. Ambrose. It is likely enough, indeed, that Timothy was called an apostle, because sent by St. Paul to preside over the Church at Ephesus; and it was perhaps subsequently, to avoid the confusion between apostles of Christ and these apostles of his apostles, that the latter were called by a synonymous term angels, or messengers. Under this title St. John speaks of them in the Revelations. This title also must have been liable to objection, because applying so so ordained. specifically to an unearthly messenger; and still more, when the succession of bishops in established sees began to take place, and a new bishop was not necessarily sent to preside over a new see, and ceased therefore to be considered in the light of a messenger, apostle, or angel. His superintending character was now the chief, or only one which claimed regard, and hence the natural transition to, and permanent adoption of, the title Episcopus, superintendent. 72 Irenæi, Lib. V. C. 33. |