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2. Blessed are they that mourn for they shall be comforted. 3. Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth.

4. Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness for they shall be filled.

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5. Blessed re the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy.

6. Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God.

7. Blessed are the peace-makers: for they shall be called the children of G.

8. Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness sake: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

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NOTE FOR PAGE 199.

IT may not be amiss to present to the reader the following passages from the writings of the Fathers, which, with many others that might be produced, decisively prove, that the primitive Church was episcopal.

FIRST CENTURY. IGNATIUS, Bishop of Antioch, in his Epistle to the Trallians.

"Continue inseparable from Jesus Christ our God, from your Bishop; and from the commands of the Apostles. He that is within the altar is pure; but he that is without, that is, does any thing without the Bishops, and Presbyters, and Deacons, is not pure in his conscience."

In his Epistle to the Smyrnians.

"Let no man do any thing of what belongs to the Church without the Bishop. It is not lawful, without the Bishop, neither to baptise, nor to celebrate the holy Communion."

SECOND CENTURY. IRENEUS, Bishop of Lyons.

"We can reckon up those whom the Apostles ordained to be Bishops in the several Churches, and who they were that succeeded them down to our times." (a)

CLEMENS, of Alexandria.

"There are other precepts without number; some which relate to Presbyters; others which belong to Bishops; others respecting Deacons." (b)

THIRD CENTURY. ORIGEN, of Alexandria.

"There is a debt due to Deacons; another to Presbyters; and another to Bishops; which is the greatest of all, and exacted by the Saviour of the whole Church." (c)

CYPRIAN, Bishop of Carthage.

"The Church is built on Bishops, and every act of the church is governed and directed by them its Presidents." (d)

(a) Irenæus, lib. iii. cap. 5. (b) Pædag. lib. iii. cap. 12.

(c) Origen. lib. περὶ ευχῆς. (d) Cyprianus. principio Epist. 33.

The testimony of St. Jerome, in the 4th century, has been supposed, by some, to militate against Episcopacy. In his comment on the first chapter of Titus, he advances only as a conjecture," that the Churches were at first governed by a college of Presbyters, equa! in rank and dignity. Afterwards, divisions being occasioned by this parity among Presbyters, when every Presbyter began to claim, as his own particular subjects, those whom he had baptised; and it was said by the people, I am of Paul, and I of Apostles, and I of Cephas; to remedy this evil, it was ordered, all the world over, that one of the Presbyters in every Church should be set over the rest, and peculiarly called Bisbop." But it is evident, that, in this passage, St. Jerome plainly refers the decree by which Bishops were established over Presbyters, to the time of the Apostles. He not only assigns, as the occasion of it, the adherence of some to Paul, of others to Apostles, of others to Cephas, which is reproved by St. Paul in his Epistle to the Corinthians; but in his Epistle to Evagrius, he expressly calls the distinction of Bishops, Presbyters, and Deacons, an apostolic institution, and taken by the Apostles from the Old Testament, where Aaron, his sons the Priests, and the Levites, correspond to the three orders of the Christian Church. In his catalogue of ecclesiastical writers, he affirms, "that James was ordained Bishop of Jerusalem by the Apostles; that Timothy was made Bishop of Ephesus, and Titus of Crete by St. Paul; and Polycarp, Bishop of Smyrna by St. John," &c. Even in St. Jerome's opinion, therefore, the primacy of Bishops over Presbyters was an apostolic institution. Yet, were the opinion of St. Jerome otherwise, the opinion of a single Father, in the 4th century, ought not certainly to be adduced against the concurring testimony of all the earlier Fathers.

The primitive Church, beyond all doubt, was episcopal. The Bishops alone possessed the power of ordination, of transmitting from Christ, the Head of the Church, that spiritual power which can be derived from him alone. If, then, Presbyters who never rcceived authority to ordain, were to exercise this power; the ministerial commission which they would confer, would not be derived in the appointed channel from Christ, and of course would not be sanctioned by him. The mode established by Christ and his Apostles, of conveying ministerial power in the Church to "the end of the world," cannot be altered by any human authority.

The reader who is in doubt on this subject, certainly one of the most important that can engage his attention, is earnestly requested candidly and seriously to peruse Potter on Church Government, and Law's Three Letters to the Bishop of Bangor, which last are published in the Scholar Armed. The former of these writers, by a luminous series of testimony from Scripture and the primitive Fathers, proves, that the original constitution of the Church was episcopal ; and the latter, in a masterly strain of argument, defends this truth

against all the objections with which it can be assailed. United, they place the Episcopal Constitution of the Church on the firm foundation of Scripture, antiquity, and sound reason.

The opinion advanced by St. Peter King, and since by others, that a Bishop was originally the head of only one congregation, and possessed no diocesan authority, is entirely refuted and exposed by Slater, in his Original Draught of the Primitive Church. And much valuable information on this subject may be found in a late work re-published in this city, entitled, A Guide to the Church, by Charles Daubeny, L. L. B. a Presbyter of the Church of England.

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