office which they have not; all power must flow down from the jure divino monarch, else it could not be a power" ORDAINED OF GOD." But whatever Legitimists may think, we doubt not that the Governor of Connecticut, or the President of the United States, is as much a "Power ordained of God," as any other earthly potentate that ever existed. And the Governor or President must be ordained before his acts are legal. But does it require a superior officer to induct the Governor or the President? Why, a simple justice of the peace may ordain the one or the other; and that without any claim to an office superior to that of either.

(4.) The performance of any ceremony of ordination, is no mark or peculiarity of Apostleship. In all the instructions of our Lord to the Apostles, and in all the commissions he gave them he said not one word to them about ordaining. He spoke of preaching, teaching, and baptizing, but not of ordaining. Had this been their great and peculiar work, it could not have been so passed by. With Episcopalians, ordination is something mystic and awful. Virtue flows from the ordainer's hands. Ordination is everything. If the ceremony be not performed by the hands of one who has received the virtue, or virus, by a good conducting medium, or succession, everything is lost,—nothing is valid; all who come after that interrupted link, and all who depend upon them, are out of the Church and destitute of all claim to covenant mercies. Nothing can exceed the care, minuteness, and circumstantial pomp with which they make their records of the ordination of Bishops. But go to the New Testament, and you find nothing of the kind. The ORDINATION of a successor of the Apostles! The New Testament is silent about it. Christ said not one word about this (on the Episcopal scheme) greatest, most stupendous transaction-the ordaining of an Apostle.

(5.) But it may be said that though the word "ordain," in the New Testament, has no reference to any particular ceremony like a modern ordination, yet there are passages, which show that the induction to office was by the laying on of hands.

Grant it. By whose hands? Does the New Testament say that it must be by the hands of an Apostle; so that whoever may be supposed to perform the ceremony of ordination, he must be supposed to be an Apostle? Nothing like it. The only passage that bears this reference, and that attributes the act of ordaining to an office, attributes it not to the Apostleship, but to the Eldership. Thus, 1 Tim. iv. 14, "Neglect not the gift that is in thee, which was given then by prophecy, with the laying on of THE HANDS OF THE PRESBYTERY." The hands of a "PRESBYTERY" (or collection of elders), therefore, may

ordain," and that ordination is Scriptural. Admitting, therefore, that so Titus and Timothy ordained; they ordained by the laying on of hands of THE PRESBYTERY, not by virtue of Apostleship. The ordaining, therefore, cannot prove them Apostles.

The shifts and windings to which Prelatists are driven on this point, furnish some amusing specimens of the art of shifting off the force of arguments, that cannot be met in direct encounter. You have heard of the ancient Retiarius, or gladiator of the net; whose weapon was an instrument to entangle his adversary, not to meet him in fair and sturdy combat. Bishop Onderdonk, on this all essential point of the argument, very strikingly resembles the ancient gladiator of the net. With regard to this ordination of Timothy by the hands of the Presbytery, he first intimates, that it is no ordination at all; but the casual designation of a person already in orders to a special work. This ground he first "submits to the candid judgment of his readers;" and yet shows in the issue that he himself neither rests upon it nor believes it. Next, to "meet his non-Episcopal brethren on their own ground," he is willing, for argument sake, to admit it to be an ordination; but denies that there was a laying on of the hands of any Presbytery; the word Presbytery meaning_Presbyterate, the office to which he was ordained, not a body of Elders. Here he quotes Calvin again, to sustain a position which both himself and Calvin finally renounce. Next he argues that if it be an ordination, and by Presbyters, then the sort of Elders (or Presbyters) is not designated. (We should have thought, in such a case, that it was no matter what sort, provided they were Elders, or Presbyters.) He insists that it might have been a Presbytery of Apostles; or at least that an Apostle might have been present, from whose hands the virtue of the ordination might have proceeded. At last he comes upon the ground where Episcopalians commonly rest; that it was an ordination; that the Presbytery was composed of real Presbyters; and that it is so recognized by Paul; "who," he says, "makes the following distinction in regard to his own agency and that of others in this supposed ordination; by the putting on of my hands, WITH the laying on of the hands of the Presbytery." Such a distinction, he says (p. 22), "may be justly regarded as intimating that the virtue of the ordaining act flowed from Paul, while the Presbytery, or the rest of the body, if he was included in it, expressed only consent."

If we follow the steps of Bishop Onderdonk, through the several positions which he assumes, we must come to the following conclusions with regard to this ordination of Timothy. It was an ordination, and it was not an ordination; there was a laying on of the hands of the Presbytery, and there was not a laying on

of the hands of the Presbytery; Presbytery means Presbyterate and no body of men, and again it means a body of men and no Presbyterate; the body was made up of Apostles, and it was not made up of Apostles, but of Presbyters; the ordination was by the hands of the Presbytery, because perhaps an Apostle or Apostles might have been among them; and again it was not by the hands of the Presbytery, the virtue flowed from Paul, while the Presbytery only gave consent. Truly, Bishop Onderdonk must get out of his own net as he can. No man of his unquestionable capacity, in such a studied and deliberate treatise, would have taken so many inconsistent positions, had he seen any firm and inpregnable ground.

The "BY" and "WITH," two little particles which constitute the final ground for Prelacy to rest on here, are in two separate Epistles, 1 Tim. iv. 14, uera εnione with the laying on of hands); and 2 Tim. i. 6, "That thou stir up the gift of God which is in thee by (Sa) the putting on of my hands." Chapin puts the two passages together, and makes them read thus: "By the putting on of my hands, with the hands of the Presbytery. Nothing can be plainer than this," he says, "The ordination was by the Apostle, with the concurrence of the Presbytery." On this I remark:

(1.) It admits the act to be an ordination, and the body to be composed of simple Presbyters; since they only concur.

(2.) It assumes that the two passages refer to the same act; whereas the gift of God by the putting on of Paul's hands might have been no appointment to office, but gifts of miraculous power; which Paul, again and again, was the instrument of conferring on others by the laying on of his hands.

(3.) Even admitting the two records to refer to the same act; Paul, in the first, deems it a sufficient account to speak of the laying on of the hands of Presbytery. Presbyters, therefore, ars all that is needed. But:

(4.) The criticism about meta and dia (μera and diα) is both erroneous and contemptible; too weak a peg to hang a rush upon, and yet here it must bear the mountain weight of Episcopacy, or Episcopacy must tumble to the ground. Dr. J. M. Mason so thoroughly exploded this criticism, that it was forty years ere Episcopacy ventured to revive it again. "Be it so," says Mason," be it so, that meta and dia are contrasted; the first simply denoting concurrence, and the last the efficient cause. Be it so. I open my New Testament and read that "Many signs and wonders were done by (dia) the Apostles. Proceeding in the narrative, I read that Paul and Barnabas rehearsed all things which God had done (meta) WITH them, i. e., in the case of miracles wrought by Peter and James, Peter and James

were the efficient cause, or the conductors of the Divine power: but in the case of miracles wrought by Barnabas and Paul, they only acted in concurrence; meta and dia being words used in contrast, to show that the first had power and authority to work miracles, the last only power to act in concurrence!"

I do not see but that the Prelatical argument, from the powers exercised, dies, though in the last ditch. It has veered and shifted, and finally betaken itself for shelter in the last resort to simple meta and dia, which turn out to be no shelter at all; but after every evasion and shift, the brethren of the Church ruled, and Presbyters ordained: nor is the receiving of a complaint against an elder, nor the act of ordaining, any mark of Apostleship at all.

XXVI

DIOCESAN BISHOPS.

Timothy not Diocesan of Ephesus. The Angels of the Churches were no Diocesan Bishops. No change of official designation from Apostle to Bishop.

It is contended, that Timothy was Diocesan Bishop, that is, Apostle, of Ephesus. But the New Testament shows that Timothy was notoriously an itinerant, going from field to field, and not a stationary officer of any special district. To this, our Episcopal brethren reply that Timothy was a Missionary Bishop, at least so long as his journeyings continued. A Missionary Bishop! A Missionary Apostle! Does the New Testament recognize such a thing as a stationary Apostle-the Apostle of a single Church or Diocese ?

sus."

Paul says to Timothy, "I besought thee to abide still at EpheThe inference is inevitable: he' was not by his peculiar office permanently stationed there. Daillé has well remarked; "To beseech a man to abide in a place where his charge assigns him to be, and which he cannot forsake without offending God, and neglecting his duty, is, to say the truth, not a very civil entreaty; as it plainly supposes that he has not his duty much at heart."

There is, however, very plain proof from Scripture, that Timothy was not Bishop of Ephesus at all. If he ever was so, it must have been when the first Epistle of Paul was written to him for the sole argument that he was so, is built upon the assumption that this Epistle was written to him in capacity of Bishop [Apostle] of Ephesus.

But some time after that Epistle was written, Paul (a little before his being sent prisoner to Rome) returns through Macedonia to Asia, "bound in the Spirit unto Jerusalem" (Acts xx.). In the 4th verse, it is specially recorded that Timothy was with him. Coming to Miletus (v. 17), Paul sends to Ephesus for the elders of the Church, and when they are come, he gives them the solemn charge recorded in Acts xx. 18-35. In Timothy's presence, Paul sends for these elders: Paul charges them. He says not a word about Timothy, or any other Diocesan. This is alto