Ephesus in view when he wrote that epistle. He says, "I besought thee to abide still at Ephesus, when I went to Macedonia, that thou mightest charge some that they teach no other doctrine." He must

have had some certain persons in view: and if we look at the exact meaning of the word translated some, we shall see at once the correctness of this idea. The word is TISI, and signifies QUIDAM, some certain persons: it is also used indefinitely to signify somebody, some or other, indefinitum ALIQUIS. Paul evidently must have used the word in the definite sense: he could not have meant to tell Timothy to charge some body or other, but to charge some certain persons, whom he had in view, not to teach any other doctrine.

36. It may be added here, that the very expression of Paul to Timothy, that thou mightest charge some TO TEACH no other doctrine, implies that there were teachers then in Ephesus. He had therefore these very teachers in view when he wrote the instructions to Timothy, and afterwards calling them all together, he himself warns them of this very evil, which he had before directed Timothy to charge them to abstain from.

37. The conclusion drawn from the impossibility of Timothy's having reached Ephesus, when the elders were sent for, to meet Paul at Miletus, (32) is, therefore, confirmed by the latter considerations, (33-36) and it is manifest that there were elders in the Church at Ephesus when Timothy was appointed to take charge of it.

38. We have now seen that Paul, after spending three years in planting and building up the Church at Ephesus, being about to go to Rome, besought Timothy to abide in Ephesus in charge of the Church, with authority over all in it, including the Presbyters:

That Paul on this occasion wrote, for his instruction in the government of the Church, his first epistle to him, while in Macedonia, and a little before rejoining him at Troas, when Timothy was waiting for him.

That Paul left Troas for Jerusalem, where he meant to spend a short time before going to Rome, stopped at Miletus, and sent for the elders of the Church at Ephesus, before Timothy could possibly have reached that city and therefore,

That there were elders in Ephesus when Timothy was appointed to take charge of that Church.

39. We have moreover seen that Timothy had authority to exereise in the Church, ample episcopal powers; to select the presbyters and deacons, to prove or try them, and on proper trial to

ordain them, if they proved faithful to honour them, if otherwise to rebuke any that sinned before all, that the rest might fear the like treatment in case of improper conduct. Indeed so far from the presbyters being on a footing of equality with him in power, more is said about keeping them in order than any body else—a circumstance which unquestionably may be explained by the knowledge Paul had of the perverse disposition of some of them, which he tells them of in his address to them at Miletus.

40. The difference between the character and office of Timothy and the elders, will appear in a striking point of view, on comparing the commission given to him, (see 12, 13, 39,) with the

address to them.

To the elders there is not one word said about ruling, the sole charge to them being to feed the flock over which the Holy Ghost had made them overseers, and to avoid teaching perverse doctrines to draw away disciples after them.

To Timothy the power is given, to restrain those who teach false doctrine; he is the source of authority to preach; ("lay hands suddenly on no man,") he is, to the presbyters, the source of honour, the punisher of offences, a praise to them that did well, a terror to them who should do evil. He was in short the overseer of the whole-the Bishop of the Church at Ephesus.

41. Here, then, we undoubtedly have three distinct orders of ministers in the Church. Timothy over all; the source of ministerial authority in that church; the presbyters and deacons selected and ordained by him; and these, as well as those who were in the Church when he took charge, subject to his rebuke if found acting improperly; the presbyters feeding the Church, teaching the people; and the deacons, though not mentioned, in express words in the epistle to Timothy as preaching, yet in other places as preaching and baptizing. (Acts vi, 9, 10; viii, 5, 12, 35, 38, 40.)

42. It has been said that Timothy exercised these powers in quality of an evangelist; as it is said, "But watch thou in all things, endure afflictions, do the work of an evangelist, make full proof of thy ministry. (II. Tim. iv, 5.)

It is answered,

1. The objection embraces the admission that Timothy had superior authority.

2. Evangelist was not the name of an order of ministers. The DEACON Philip was an evangelist. (Acts xxi, 8.)

F

The word evangelist is so nearly the same as evangelium, the (gospel,) as to make it evident that an evangelist was, in general, one who preached the gospel, who spread the good news. It bears the same relation to evangelium, that the old English word, gospeller, does to gospel: and hence it was that the deacon Philip was called an evangelist.

43. It is objected as a difficulty in the way of receiving this doctrine, that the presbyters are called overseers or bishops. They are so called; overseers over the flock: but that name did not point out their powers. The extent of the oversight which they had in the church is expressly stated. They were to take heed to feed the Church and to avoid false doctrine. (34) No other power or authority is mentioned, than feeding the flock: and notwithstanding this name, there was one over them, from whom they derived their ordination, and who honoured them or rebuked them according to their deserts. He was their overseer, their Bishop.

44. If it be asked why then was not Timothy called a Bishop, the answer is given in the plain statement of the fact, that those who bore the relation he did to the Church were then called Apostles; and that afterwards it became the practice to use the title of Bishop instead of that of Apostle, and to distinguish the elders by the title Presbyter alone.

45. With regard to the assertion that those who had the charge of churches were originally called Apostles, we find that Paul gives that title, in his second epistle to the Corinthians (viii, 23) to Titus and another who was with him. In our English Testament the word is translated messengers; but the word in the Greek is apostoloi, apostles. This word, apostoloi, signifying messengers, is used to designate the messengers of God sent to preach the gospel. It is not therefore proper to translate the word in this case messengers merely--seeing that these men really were messengers of God; of one of whom it is said in the 18th verse of the same chapter, that his praise was in the gospel throughout all the churches, and of both that they were the glory of Christ. (II. Cor. viii, 23.)

Epaphroditus is also called messenger in the English Testament (Philip. ii, 25;) but the word in the original is the same, (apostolon, in the singular number,) and the strong words used with it, show that he was what he is called in the original, the Apostle of the Philippians; "Yet I supposed it necessary to send to you Epaphroditus, my brother and companion in labour (assistant or colleague,)

and fellow-soldier, but your Apostle, and he that ministered to my wants."

46. It may be objected to this, that Epaphroditus carried to Paul the contribution of the Philippians, and therefore he was their messenger literally. But this was what Paul himself frequently did: if carrying a contribution is evidence that the bearer is not an apostle although so called, and called by Paul colleague or assistant and fellow-soldier, Paul must have been merely a messenger. In those times of persecution, when the leading men of the Church were continually liable to be arrested and carried to Rome, while prisoners there they were visited by their brethren, colleagues and fellow-soldiers, who governed the churches in the countries around the Mediterranean sea, and they very commonly carried them some thing to render their imprisonment comfortable. Thus, between 40 and 50 years after the death of Paul, Ignatius, Bishop of Antioch, was carried to Rome, and during his long journey, Onesimus Bishop of the Ephesians, Damas Bishop of the Magnesians with two presbyters and a deacon, and Polybius Bishop of the Trallians, went to attend to him and comfort him on his way. [See the appendix.] These Bishops in these cases carried the contributions of their respective churches; but this did not make them mere messengers.

47. The objection to considering as apostles, any but the twelve and Paul, and to reject the claim of others whom Paul in his epistles calls apostles, leads to the rejection of the claim of Barnabas likewise. Accordingly Dr. Miller attempts to show that he also is but a messenger of the Churches. (Miller's Letters, p. 59.) It has however been satisfactorily shown that Barnabas was an Apos tle (p. 16 of this essay,) and Paul himself calls him an Apostle in the following passage in which he is speaking of his own claim to the title of an Apostle, "My answer to them that do examine me, is this: Have we not power to eat and to drink? Have we not power to lead about a sister, a wife, as well as other the brethren of the Lord, and Cephas? Or I only and BARNABAS, have not we power to forbear working?" (I. Corinth. ix, 3-6.) The objection to Epaphroditus, Titus, and others whom Paul calls Apostles, is equally invalid.

Apostles, and as

48. The assertion that those persons who occupied the chief station in the Church and were originally called apostles, were afterwards called bishops, is of such a nature that it can be shown to

be true or false only by evidence, and the appeal therefore is to evidence. This in the very nature of things must be drawn from the writings of those who succeeded the apostles in the care and charge of the Church. These are the best witnesses that possibly could be thought of; men who spent their lives in the service of the Church, devoted to God; men who chose "rather to suffer affliction with the people of God, than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season;" men who "had trial of cruel mockings and scourgings, yea, moreover, of bonds and imprisonment;" men who not only "hazarded their lives for the name of our Lord Jesus Christ," which the Apostles, elders and brethren at Jerusalem speak of as a high recommendation of Barnabas and Paul, (Acts xv, 25, 26,) but who deliberately yielded up their lives to a violent death by the sword, by fire, and by wild beasts, rather than deny the Lord that bought them. Let any man read the martyrdom of Ignatius and the 3rd to the 8th sections of his epistle to the Romans, in the appendix to these pages, and then, laying his hand on his heart and looking up to God, say that Ignatius is not to be credited as a wit ness respecting the order of the Church in his time.

49. Ignatius was an old man when, for his steadfast refusal to deny the Saviour, he was thrown into the amphitheatre at Rome and devoured by lions. This occurred in the year 116 of the Christian æra, and about forty-six years after the death of Paul. He was about forty years in the service of the Church, and consequently he was in that service almost the whole interval between Paul's death and his own. He was a disciple of the Apostle John, and as the latter lived till about the year 96 he died only twenty years before Ignatius.

50. In his epistles, written in the year 116, on his way to Rome to suffer martyrdom, Ignatius speaks very frequently of all the orders of ministers. He speaks of the Bishop in the sigular number in every instance, and in such terms as carry conviction to the mind that there was but one in a church at one time. He attributes to him powers and authority fully equal to that exercised by the Apostles. The Bishop, according to Ignatius, was the source of authority in the Church; without his approbation nothing was to be done; in his absence the flock had no other shepherd but God. (Sect. 9th of the epistle to the Romans.) Timothy was no more, Timothy was no less in Ephesus. According to Ignatius the presbyter had no longer the title of Bishop: but he was no less than the