As numbers increased, the presbyters served different assemblies in the same city or parish, but still belonged to one bench, over which there was in each church a go7s or presiding presbyter. These presidents were afterwards enumerated as successors from the first planting of the churches. Thus not only were heretics excluded, but their innovations rejected, by demanding an uninterrupted succession of teachers of their tenets. But that these successors of the apostles inherited their gifts, authority, or influence, or had any other ordination than that of their co-presbyters, prior to the Cyprianic age, has never been shown to us by credible testimony. His defence of presbyters against deacons, his use of the word presbyter without the imaginary distinction of preaching and lay elders, and his universal silence with regard to the latter, evince that Jerom had no idea of lay presbyters. He is, therefore, another witness against that novel order, of which not a vestige has been found in the first four centuries.

SECTION XIX.

Augustine's birth, profession, immorality, Manichæism, and conversion.Approved the canonical hierarchy.-Called the innovations titular distinctions.-Though a bishop confessed his inferiority to Jerom, who was a presbyter. Seniores were not presbyters, in his letters, but aged Christians.— Synesius; his writings show that the church was governed in Cyrene according to the canons of the council of Nice.-Sulpicius Severus testifies of a moral declension in the church; and the fact that a layman was made a bishop without censure.

AURELIUS AUGUSTINUS was born at Tagaste, in Numidia, A. D. 354; taught rhetoric at Carthage, Rome, and Milan; and being of dissolute morals, adopted the error of the Manichees. Convinced by Ambrose, he became a Christian in his thirty-second year, and returned from Milan to his native city. Five years afterwards he was ordained presbyter by Valerius, at Hippo Regius; and in 395 was received into the episcopate. Of his contemporaries, Ambrose died in the fourth century; Chrysostom and Jerom in the fifth; the former he survived more than twenty, and the latter about ten years. These with Nonnus, Synesius, Sulpicius Severus, and Paulinus, were deemed orthodox writers; Socrates the historian, and Pelagius, were of the opposite character. He died in Hippo, in 430, whilst it was besieged by the Vandals. His works are contained usually in ten tomes and a supplement. His confessions constitute an edifying history of his early life, and of his views at different periods. His retractations should be consulted with the parts of his works which they correct. His knowledge of the Greek, deemed by himself defective, was obviously competent; but he excelled in the Latin lan

guage, and could not have been ignorant of the Punic. His comparative proficiency in theology was unusual for so late a convert. Possessing a masculine understanding, his decisions were often too prompt, but readily abandoned for the sake of the truth. His opinions were in high repute, and of great utility at the Reformation, when also some of his errors were adopted. In ecclesiastical government, he professed conformity to the canons and customs of the church. Thus when he nominated Eradius the presbyter, to become his successor, and obtained the vote of the people, he observed, that he had been or dained bishop in the life-time of Valerius, contrary to a canon of the council of Nice, but of which neither of them had had knowledge; the reprehension he had received on that occasion, he wished Eradius to escape; but the vote he caused to be recorded and subscribed by the people, and introduced the young man into a portion of his labors.

That the office of bishop was founded upon the custom of the church, he acknowledges in a letter to Jerom: "I intreat you to correct me faithfully when you see I need it; for although, according to the titular distinctions which the custom of the church hath introduced, the office of bishop may be greater than an eldership, nevertheless, in many respects, Augustine is inferior to Jerom."b To suppose he meant hereby the abandonment of a known Scriptural superiority, and the depreciation of a divine right into a mere titular preeminence, is an impeachment of the piety of Augustine. The language, jam ecclesiæ usus obtinuit, is a plain acknowledgment, that episcopal superiority was not original, but merely founded on the custom of the

a Tom. ii. p. 515. Epist. 110.

b"Rogo ut me fidentur corrigas, ubi mihi hoc opus esse perspexeris. Quanquam enim secundum honorum vocabula, quæ jam ecclesia usus obtinuit, episcopatus presbyterus major sit, tamen in multis rebus Augustinus Hieronymo minor est." Tom. ii, Epist. ad Hieron.

church, and no prevention of the precedence due to Jerom for his distinguished learning and knowledge. Had Augustine's compliment been made at the expense of truth, it would have been also an imputation of ignorance and vanity to Jerom. That canonical distinctions originated in custom, and were ratified by mere human authority, was then known; and when truth demanded from the bishop an acknowledgment of his personal inferiority to the presbyter, it was fit, also, that he should wave the distinction which custom had introduced in opposition to the word of God.

He has, on the question, Whether those charged with false doctrines be in the church or not, discarded the authority of the most venerable of the fathers, and the obligation of the decrees of councils, and affirmed that the question can be decided by the sacred Scriptures alone. But on the order of the church he sided with Jerom, and, like him, acquiesced in its government, apprehending no possible advantage from opposing the customs of the church, the canons of councils, and the laws of the empire. The ecclesiastical administration was not then a matter of controversy. "The bishops, who are this day throughout the world, whence sprung they? The church herself calls them fathers; she has borne them, and she has placed them in the seats of the fathers."d He acted as a Christian should do; the church of Christ was then, and still is such, though the original form of government may not exist in the world. The investigation of truth is rarely unimportant; but on these points necessary only, when error would unchurch those whom God accepts; or where primitive truth is denied, and its advocates arraigned by the ignorant.

c De unitate ecclesiæ. Chap. xix. p. 5.

d "Hodie, episcopi qui sunt per totum mundum, unde nati sunt? Ipsa ecclesia patres illos appellat, ipsa illos genuit, et ipsa illos constituit in sedibus patrum." Tom. viii. p. 417.

An argument has been attempted for lay presbyters from an epistle which Augustine wrote to his church at Hippo, commencing with these words: "Dilectissimis fratribus, clero, senioribus et universæ plebi ecclesiæ Hipponenisis."-To the brethren greatly beloved, the clergy, the elders," and all the people of the church at Hippo." The next epistle is directed to the same church, and begins with "Dilectissimis fratribus, conclericis, et universæ plebi."-To the brethren most beloved, fellow clergymen, and all the people, &c. These two letters were written to the same church, consequently the same officers and people were addressed in both. The two first terms, "dilectissimis fratribus," occurring in each salutation, may have been intended of all the worshippers, or of the clergy only. Clero the clergy, in the one epistle, corresponds to conclericis, fellow clergymen, in the other, senioribus, the elders, expressed in the first, are included in the universæ plebi of the second. The conclericis of the second being precisely equivalent to the clero of the first, of which the senioribus being expressed, constituted no part, there elders could not have been implied in the conclericis. If they were not of the clergy, they were not officers; because had they been such, they must have been treated with disrespect, either by a total omission, or the including of them in the plebi. If they were not officers, the term senioribus was taken appellatively, in that letter in which it occurs, and meant nothing more than the aged men of the congregation, who have been often thus distinguished, because of their experience and gravity; but are nevertheless really a part of the plebs, or common people. This interpretation is also corroborated by the circumstance, that senioribus, not presbyteris, is used; the latter being the ordinary official term, and the other generally appellative; a discrimination which, though

e Tom. ii. p. 661. Epist. 139.

f Clerus has been improperly translated a "clergyman.”