LETTER V. ON THE THREE ORDERS IN THE MINISTRY OF. THE CHURCH-BISHOPS, PRIESTS, AND DEACONS. SIR, Although what has been already advanced is amply sufficient to justify my conduct in leaving your sect and uniting to the Church, and far more than you can possibly invalidate by legitimate argument, and enough I imagine to shake your Dissenting principles; yet if you will be bold enough to proceed with me to the careful consideration of what I shall further lay before you, you will be ready, I doubt not, to justify any one who shall take the step which I have taken. I proceed, then, to show that the Government of your Societies is contrary to the Word of God, and subversive of that order, authority, and obedience which the Scriptures so clearly define, and so frequently force upon our attention. You exactly reverse the Scriptural order for that authority and power with which God has invested his Ministers, you say belong to the people and that obedience which God demands from the people to his Ministers, your people demand from their Teachers: so that with you, Teachers and people have exactly changed places. Your Societies are entirely destitute of offices of Ecclesiastical Government, and consequently of all those Ecclesiastical Officers which the Holy Scriptures distinctly describe. This, (as one error leads to another,) is a natural consequence> -consistency requires it. For, as you give to the people that authority and power which belong to the Bishop, or chief Pastor of the Christian Church, you have no need of the Episcopal Office, and therefore reject it altogether;-not, particularly, because you fancy it unscriptural, but because the admission of it would overthrow the whole of your Dissenting system. Instead of bending your opinions to the Word of Truth, or rather drawing them from it, you make the Word of God bend to your pre-conceived notions. You have but one order of what you term Spiritual Officers in your Societies; but from the Scriptures I find, that in the early Christian Church, there were three distinct orders of Spiritual Officers-Bishops, Priests, and Deacons; or, in other words, the office which Timothy and Titus held, and the two offices under them.* I use the word Priest for Elder or Presbyter, of which it is a contraction. You contend, I am aware, that the office of Bishop or Elder is one and the same, because in the New Testament, you say, Bishops are called Elders, and Elders Bishops, synonymously. That all Bishops were Elders is quite certain; but that all Presbyters were Bishops in the full sense of the word, or in the same sense in which Timothy and Titus were, is just as false. The connexion in which the word Bishop stands, will always determine its meaning. St. Paul "sent to Ephesus, and called the Elders of the Church," and said unto them, "take heed, therefore, unto yourselves, and to all the flock over which the Holy Ghost hath .made you Overseers."+ As the word "Overseers" is the same as Bishops, we here find that the very samé persons that are called Elders are also called Bishops, and with the greatest accuracy; for in relation to their + 1 Tim. iii. 10. +Acts, xx. 17, 28. people or flock, they were Overseers or Bishops; but in relation to the Apostle, who was then exercising the office of Bishop in the sense in which we now understand the word, they were but Elders only. That they were not Bishops in the highest sense of the term is very evident, from the circumstance of the Apostle's sending Timothy to exercise the office of a Bishop over both them and their Church, which he would certainly not have done had they held the same office which Timothy held. For if their office had been equal to his, they might have ordained Elders— charged them what doctrine to preach-received accnsations against them, and have judged them, just as well as he. "The Elders which are among you I exhort, who am also an Elder-feed the flock of God which is among you (EIXOTOUTES) taking the oversight thereof," or Bishopping over them. Elders are termed Bishops here exactly as they are in the passage before quoted; they were not Bishops over other Ministers, as Timothy and Titus were, but simply over their people. To argue that they were all Bishops, in the highest sense of the term, would be just as absurd as to argue that they were all Apostles, because the Apostle Peter was an Elder, as he here styles himself. He was an Elder and an Apostle too; they were simply Elders in reference to other Ministers, but in reference to their people they were Bishops, acting over them as such. And in the very same sense, the Priests or Elders of the Church of England are Bishops; and their Bishops, or those who are Overseers over them, as well as their people, may with strict propriety of speech, charge them to "take heed to themselves, and all the flock over which the Holy Ghost has made them Overseers;" or, if you please, Bishops; for in that relation they stand to their people. With respect to their people, they are Bishops or Over * 1 Peter, v. 1, 2 seers; but with respect to other Elders, and to their Bishops, they are simply Elders and no more. They are Bishops in relation to their people only; but the Bishops, or highest order of the Clergy, are Bishops or Overseers in relation to the Clergy under them, as well as to the people. But to argue that because Elders are sometimes called Bishops in one sense they are so in every sense, is absurd. The word Bishop is evidently used in the New Testament in different senses, but then no difficulty can ever arise as to its meaning, because as before observed, the context always clearly determines it. The word literally means Overseer; any one who is placed in any kind of authority over any other persons or things-the shepherd of a flock of sheep, and such like, may be called a Bishop with propriety; but as the indiscriminate use of the word would create almost endless confusion, the meaning of it is now limited to signify the chief Pastor of the Christian Church. In the Apostolic age, those to whom we now confine the term Bishop were generally called Apostles or Angels; but for the sake of distinction, and out of reverence to the inspired Apostles, the term Apostle was dropped by their uninspired successors, and applied to the inspired Twelve alone, and that of Bishop substituted in its place, and exclusively used to describe those who continued to hold the highest dignity in the Church, such as Timothy, Titus, Clement, Ignatius, Polycarp, Irenæus, and others. But, provided we understand what is meant, I attach no importance whatever to the names; for whether those who hold the highest dignity in the Ministry of the Church be called Bishops, or superior Presbyters, is a matter of little or no consequence-it makes nothing either for or against, in the controversy. All I contend for is this-that there are three distinct orders in the Christian Ministry clearly revealed in the Scriptures of truth, and that the highest exercised authority over the other two. There is what St. Paul terms "the office of a Deacon," and what he terms "the office of a Bishop," and then there is the office which Timothy held above them both, which clearly shews three distinct offices or orders in the Ministry of the Church. In speaking of these three offices or orders, I may remark, that, in order to prevent misunderstanding, whether wilful or otherwise, I shall use the terms now employed to describe them-Bishop, Priest, and Deacon. By the word "Deacon," I mean him who holds that which St. Paul terms "the office of a Deacon;" by the word "Priest," I mean him who holds that which St. Paul terms "the office of a Bishop;" and by the word "Bishop," I mean him who holds that office which Timothy held. That which we understand by Episcopacy, appears to me to be so clearly revealed in the Scriptures, but particularly in the Epistles of the Apostles, and so firmly supported by the writings of their immediate successors, that it really seems surprising that any man, or any set of men, pretending to Christianity, should so determinately shut their eyes to such decisive testimony-such plain and naked truth. If we turn to the Church of Christ, as it existed under the Old Testament economy, before his incarnation, we there find that Christ did himself appoint three ranks of those who ministered in his holy temple, the High Priests, the Priests of the second order, and the Levites. And, When as he is the same yesterday, to day, and for ever, what was right in the Christian Church then, cannot be wrong in the same Church now. But I am well aware that Dissenters generally look upon the Old Testament as something widely different from the New. speaking of the Old Testament to Dissenters, when I was a Dissenter, or producing any passage therefrom to establish any point of doctrine, I have repeatedly heard them say, Yes, but come to the New Testament, that is the law for Christians-we live in different times altogether-you know we have the Gospel -the Old Testament is all done away with nowwe live in times of far greater light and knowledge," and |