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nized his authority. He could not, therefore, call in the aid of the civil magistrate to compel her to submit to his jurisdiction, and to cease from her false doctrine. But God exacted this from him. His weapons, then, must have been the anathemas and excommunications of the church; the giving of the refractory over to Satan. And though it may be said that the apostolic was an extraordinary office, and hath ceased, the same cannot be said of the angels, for they were not of the twelve; and moreover, they were in the right hand of God, and who shall dare to pluck then thence ? God, then, set up that polity in the churches; God gave the angels and their authority; God appointed their territorial jurisdiction, i.e. their dioceses, not the care of one but of several flocks, as well heretics and schismatics as the faithful, both clergy and laity. God held them responsible for the doctrines taught in the territory under their care. God would judge them according to their zeal or lukewarmness, and as the "gifts and calling of God are without repentance," the successors, therefore, of the angels in every age and country, whether supported, established, and endowed by the state, or existing as bishops of a voluntary or even persecuted church, must in all points resemble their illustrious ancestors.

The authority herein committed to the angels, the dreadful responsibility attached to their office, the

warnings and the threats addressed to them whom God had made princes in all lands over his household, are by a perpetual decree passed upon their successors to the latest generations. They who are inheritors of their glory, are of their cares and troubles also. They who sit on their thrones here on earth, if they are faithful and overcome," will I grant, saith the Alpha and Omega, to sit with me in my throne, even as I also overcame and am set down with my Father in his throne." When I carefully read the account of the seven churches and of their angels, invested by God himself with such matchless power, placed in the heart of a heathen population, officially bound to superintend the doctrine taught by the faithful, and by "them also which said they were apostles and were not, and were found to be liars;" and when we compare with this the opinions and the practice of Protestants, men who vainly pretend that they have erected their churches exactly on a scriptural model, it is truly astonishing to witness the discrepancy. Everywhere the office of an angel or bishop is treated with contempt, and his authority trampled upon with scorn. In England, Henry VIII. transferred from the Roman bishop to himself a share of that spiritual rule which by right appertained to, and had been wrested from, the angels of the Anglican church. In Scotland, a turbulent nobility, and even (oh nefas)

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some of the presbyters themselves, together with the people, rose in rebellion, and expelled the angels from their churches, and their descendants glory in the crime. They pretend scripture as their warrant; surely, however, in the scripture under consideration neither the emperor nor the inhabitants of the cities founded the churches and gave jurisdiction to the angels, nor had they any to bestow; God had it, and God gave it, and what He planted men have plucked up. But the angels, though spoiled, still exist, and there are a few names, even in Scotland, which have not defiled their garments.

Now the sum of all is, that as God required of the angels a strict watchfulness of their churches, it is manifest that He must also have required at the hands of the clergy and laity obedience to the angels and that they were not at liberty to shake off their fealty and to take the authority unto themselves, for if they might have done this, then God would not have blamed the angel of Thyatira for suffering a false prophetess to teach and to seduce His servants, and that jurisdiction is nowhere declared to have been temporary, nor by any new revelation to have been abrogated. Hear what the Spirit saith unto the church of Philadelphia, “Behold I will make of the synagogue of Satan, which say they are Jews and are not, but do lie; behold I will make them come and

worship at thy feet, and to know that I have loved thee." This was not temporary nor local, for the message begins with the warning, "He that hath an ear let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches ;" and the whole body of Revelation is thus wound up, "For I testify unto every man that heareth the words of the prophecy of this book, if any man shall add unto these things, God shall add unto him the plagues that are written in this book; and if any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the book of life, and out of the holy city, and from the things which are written in this book." Rev. xxii. 18, 19. This denunciation is most solemn and emphatic in its manner, and as to the matter of it, there needeth no comment.

It is difficult to comprehend by what train of reasoning any body of Christians, professing submission to the Sacred Scriptures, can, in the face of this positive revelation from heaven, deny the existence of such a ruler in the church as an angel, or a bishop as he is now called-deny diocesan episcopacy as contrary to Scripture and unlawful-abjure the jurisdiction of a diocesan bishop, and contemptuously administer the blessed sacraments, and preach the gospel in opposition to his authority, most especially when the opening command to the apostle runs

thus:-"Write the things which thou hast seen, and the things which are, and the things which shall be hereafter." Can any expression mark more decidedly the perpetuity of the ecclesiastical polity as then existing in the seven churches of Asia?

I will now examine into the duties of the offices of the priesthood, as set forth in the Epistles to Timothy and Titus. To begin with these to Timothy. They inform us that Timothy was ordained by St. Paul. "Neglect not," says he, "the gift that is in thee, which was given thee by prophecy with the laying on of the hands of the presbytery." Again, in his second Epistle, he says, "Wherefore I put thee in remembrance that thou stir up the gift of God that is in thee by the putting on of my hands;" the gift, St. Paul affirms was given by the putting on of his hands, an expression which is more forcible in the original Greek, “ διὰ τῆς ἐπιθέσεως τῶν χειρῶν μου,” the preposition "die," meaning through the medium of, while in the former verse, "with the laying on of the hands of the presbytery,” is in the Greek, “μετά επιθέσιως τῶν χειρῶν τοῦ πρεσβυτερίου,” not τῶν πρεσβυτερων, the elders, the preposition"μsra," signifying in conjunction with. Thus the xagioua, or the gift of the Holy Ghost in the ordination of Timothy, for the work of the ministry, was imparted by St. Paul, by virtue of the apostolic power which he had received directly from

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