tioch, and of other provinces, as far as had been usual The seventh canon secures the same undefined prerogative to the bishop of Ælia Capitolina. With this council commenced the combination of civil and ecclesiastical authority; force being substituted for the conviction of truth.

The second was at Constantinople, A. D. 381, in the reign of Theodosius the Great, for the correction of the errors of Macedonius, who denied the divinity of the Holy Spirit. The second canon confines bishops to their own dioceses, and declares that the ecclesiastical government of each province shall be administered by its own synod.

The third was convened at Ephesus, A. D. 431, by Theodosius the Younger, emperor of the East, and condemned the heresy of Nestorius, who accounted the Son of God and Christ two persons, and denied that the Virgin was the mother of God. In the canons of this council, the terms "bishops, clergy, and laity," often occur, the word clergy including unquestionably the presbyters and deacons. Charisius alone is named in these a presbyter; he was a heretic, whose writings were condemned by the synod.

The fourth met at Chalcedon, under the emperor Marcianus, A. D. 451, and anathematized Eutyches and Dioscorus, who held that Christ was to be worshiped as God and as man; and in both natures as one nature. This council recognized the repeal of the second council of Ephesus by the bishop of Rome, which had established the Eutychian error. The second canon expressly describes bishops, chorepiscopi, presbyters and deacons as clergy.

The fifth was held at Constantinople, in the reign of Justinian the First, A. D. 553. Its efforts were directed against the Nestorian errors which had been taught by Theodore of Mopsuestia and Diodorus of Tarsus; the opinion that the soul exists before the body, and some ancient doctrines of Origen and others.

The sixth convened at Constantinople, A. D. 680, under Constantine the Fourth, called Pogonatus, the

father of Justinian, against the Monothelites. This council held, that Christ had one person, but two natures, neither of which was destitute of its own will and works.

Another council, holden in 692, in the tower of the palace, by Justinian the Second, is also called the sixth, because the former, like the fifth, enacted no canons. Of this there remain an hundred and two. The canons of this council abound with proofs that presbyters were of the clergy; the reader will find these in canons 3, 6, 13, 14, 32, 58, and others.

The seventh œcumenical council was held at Constantinople, in the year 754, under the reign of Constantine, called Copronymus, the father of Leo the Fourth, and condemned the use of images in worship. This council is denominated œcumenical by the Greek church, but is rejected by the Latin. Upon the death of the emperor Leo, his son Constantine being a youth, his mother Irene who reigned in his behalf, held a council, also accounted the seventh, at Nice, A. D. 787, in defence of the worship of images, against the iconoclasts. The records of these furious zealots are preserved with great particularity, together with their unanimous anathema of all those who will not kiss the images.f

At the period of the council last mentioned, Charles the Great possessed Burgundy, France, Germany, and Italy, and was about to re-establish the empire of the West, which had been overrun and divided in the beginning of the fifth century. A little before the time of this council also, the pope had received the civil exarchate of Ravenna, the commencement of his temporal power; and a general monarchy had been erected in England.

These councils, in no instance, were founded on the consent of the whole church. Even had they been, they could thereby have derived no power to legislate for Christ, to erect or legitimate the hierarchy, which

* Εικονας ασπαζόμεθα, μη ουτως έχοντας αναθεμα εσίωσαν.

was the principal object of their care. The pretence that they were under spiritual guidance is absurd, for council decided against council, and often against the word of God. Their decisions were by majorities, who repeatedly silenced the truth merely by numbers, and generally persecuted those who were in the minority. Augustine gave it as his opinion, that the truth was to be investigated without regard to the decrees of councils; and Gregory Nazianzan declared that he never had observed good to result from any council. What he had not, others may have seen. Councils composed of holy men, with a view deliberately to investigate the meaning of revelation, and to advise, have, especially in times of great declension, done much good. Nevertheless their articles, creeds, and confessions, however excellent, are uncommanded, merely human, and destitute of authority.

SECTION XII.

The canons of the council of Nice established diocesan episcopacy, for which various causes had paved the way.-Yet parochial episcopacy was not wholly banished in the fourth century.-Hilary of Poictiers; his writings.—Hilary, a deacon of Rome; his commentary among the works of Ambrose, and his questions in the 4th tome of Augustine.-He says, Presbyters were at first called Bishops, and still performed the same duties in their absence.—And proves, in the middle of the fourth century, that the ordination and office of a Bishop and Presbyter were the same.— -He agrees with antecedent proofs that the priority of the Bishop or first Presbyter, was merely adventitious, and no diversity in office until made so by canons.

THE removal of parochial authority by the introduction of councils, paved, the way for, and became the engine of, the establishment of diocesan episcopacy. Power being aggregated from the individual churches into synods and councils, there remained to be effected for the hierarchy, the exclusion of presbyters from synods and councils, and the appointment of bishops by bishops, both of which were secured by the canons of the council of Nice. But although a superior order was by these means prepared for diocesan government, it did not universally supersede parochial, during the fourth century.

The gradual advances towards episcopal domination and patriarchal pre-eminence, by the monopoly of the name bishop, by the necessity of his concurrence, by the computation of successions, by the claims of ecclesiastical legislation and appellatory jurisdiction, by the exclusive but unsupported claim of episcopal ordination, by the exclusion of presbyters from councils, all of which have passed successively under our view; and, also, by the erection of diocesan instead of parochial government, which, in the middle of the fourth century, our present place, is still incom

THE PRIMITIVE GOVERNMENT, &c.

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plete, are obvious to every unprejudiced reader of the fathers. Nevertheless, presbyters have not been degraded from their principal employments, the preaching of the gospel and the administration of the baptismal and eucharistical ordinances, even among Episcopalians. To rescue Presbyterians from such an imputation, to which some are willing to succumb, is the object of these efforts. At a late period, upon which the finger shall be placed, as soon as it arrives, ruling elders, so denominated from a mistaken sense of the words προεστώτες πρεσβύτεροι, presiding presbyters, were most unwarrantably intruded into the original standing of deacons, who were thereby driven from their office. This was not a degradation of presbyters, but an encroachment of mere laymen, and equally reprehensible, who have no title to the name presbyter, nor to the employment assigned by the Holy Spirit to deacons. On a full understanding of this faulty clerical contrivance, a great portion of the American pastors ordain and consider only as deacons, those who are denominated ruling elders; and they are authorized to do so by their form of government.

The author who next succeeds is Hilary of Poictiers, who was born in Gaul near the end of the third century, and educated a heathen, but afterwards convinced, instructed, and baptized. When bishop of Pictavium, he wrote Tractates on the Psalms, and a commentary on the gospel of Matthew.

On Psalm cxxxiv. 27, he observes, that the Psalmist means different things by the house of Israel, Aaron, Levi, and those who fear the Lord: and that, in like manner, Paul writing to the Corinthians distinguishes between the called, the saints, and those who call upon the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. By Aaron, he understands the priests-"in Aaron, sacerdotes significari," for he was first of the order under the law: by Levi, the deacons―"in Levi autem ministros ostendi," for this tribe was chosen to attend.

a Hilar. Pict. Opera. vol. i. p. 413.

L

But the