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15. Concerning the former of these, we are told by St. Paul, Acts vi. that when the Apostles thought it necessary to establish a new order of ministers in the Church, that might take care of those things which they who were of a higher rank could not find leisure to attend to, though their ministry were of the lowest order, and which required much lesser capacities in those who were to discharge it than theirs whose business it was to govern and instruct the Church of Christ, yet they particularly laid it down to the brethren, as one of the qualifications that was to be required in those whom they chose for that purpose, that they should be men well approved of, full of the Holy Spirit and of wisdom, v. 3. And of one of them, viz. St. Stephen, it is particularly observed, v.8. That he was full of power, and did signs and great wonders among the people. And when the Jews disputed against him, we read, v. 10. That they were not able to stand against the wisdom and spirit by which he spake.

16. Now if such were the care which they took in the choice of those who were to be admitted into the lowest ministry of the Church, we cannot doubt but that they were certainly much more careful not to admit any into the highest ranks of honour and authority in it, but what were in a yet more eminent manner endued with the same gifts. Hence St. Clement(y) tells us that the Apostles did prove by the Spirit the first fruits of their conversions, and out of them set Bishops and Pastors over such as should believe. By which we must understand one of these two things, and very probably they were both meant by it: either that the Apostles made use of their own extraordinary gift of the Spirit (one use(z) of which was to discern and try the spirits of others) in choosing persons fitly qualified for the work of the ministry; or else, that by the extraordinary gifts of those whom they pitched upon, they perceived that they were worthy of such

(y) Clem. Epist. numb. xliii, xliv. (z) 1 Cor. xii. 10. Heb. iv. 12.

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mploy, and therefore chose them out for it. And ther Clement(a) yet more plainly speaks the same : that St. John being returned from his banishin Patmos, went about the country near unto esus, both to form and settle Churches where he Occasion, and to admit into the order of the Clergy, as were marked out to him by the Spirit. . And then for the other thing observed, it is clear the very imposition of hands, did in those days er the holy Spirit in an extraordinary manner, those who were ordained to the ministry of the bel. This St. Paul intimates to Timothy, where khorts him to stir up, τὸ χαρισμα, the gift, i. e. the Lordinary power of the holy Spirit, which, says s in thee by the imposition of my hands, 2 Tim. And would you know how this ceremony of ng him apart for such a service came to endue him such an extraordinary power? the same Apostle ell you, 1 Tim. iv. 14. that it was given unto him rophecy; with, or through, the imposition of s upon him. That is to say; God, who by his hets had before designed and marked him out for great office, 1 Tim. i. 18. upon the actual admisof him into it by the outward rite of laying on of s, and upon the solemn prayers that were then al made for him, did bestow the gifts of his ed Spirit in an extraordinary manner upon him. - Now this as it will give us a good ground to ude that those holy men, whose writings we have collected, were endued with a large portion of extraordinary gifts of the Holy Ghost; whether onsider the frequency of those endowments in age in which they lived, or the extraordinary ness and piety of their lives, or the greatness of stations to which they were called in the Church; tly, the judgment which the Apostles, who called to those high offices, were by the Spirit enabled

Clem. Alex. de Divit. Salv. num. xlii. Euseb. Hist. Eccles. c. 23.

to make them. So (thirdly) if we look to those accounts which still remain to us of them, they will plainly shew us that they were endued, and that in a very eminent manner, with this power and gift of the blessed Spirit.

19. Of Barnabas, the holy Scripture itself bears witness, that he was a good man, full of the Holy Ghost and of faith, Acts xi. 24. Hermas is another of whom St. Paul himself makes mention, Rom. xvi. 14. as an early convert to Christianity; and what extraordinary revelations he had, and how he foretold the troubles that were to come upon the Church, his following visions sufficiently declare.

20. Clement is not only spoken of by the same Apostle, but with this advantageous character too, that he was the fellow labourer of that great man, and had his name written in the book of life, Phil. iv. 3. And when we shall consider how much the lesser and worser men of these gifts were usually communicated at that time, we can hardly think that so excellent a man, and the companion of so great an Apostle, employed first in the planting of the Gospel with him, and then set to govern one of the most considerable Churches in the world, should have been destitute of it.

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21. As for St. Ignatius, I have before observed that he had this gift, and by the help of it, warned the Philadelphians(b) against falling into those divisions which he foresaw were about to rise up amongst them.

22. Polycarp not only prophesied of his own death(c) but spake oftentimes of things that were to come, and has this witness from the whole Church of Smyrna, that nothing of all he foretold ever failed of coming to pass according to his prediction.

23. It remains then that the holy men whose writings are here subjoined, were not only instructed by

(b) Epist. to the Philadelphians, c. vii. Add. the martyrdom of Ignatius, num. xii. (c) Euseb. Hist. Eccles. lib. v. c. 20. p. 153. a.

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has were inspired, but were themselves, in some asure, inspired too: at least were endued with the aordinary gifts of the Holy Ghost, for the better lling of those great offices to which God had ed them in his Church. And therefore we must clude, that they were not only not mistaken in at they deliver to us as the Gospel of Christ, but, II the necessary parts of it, were so assisted by the y Ghost as hardly to have been capable of being caken in it. By consequence, that we ought to look n their writings, (d) though not of equal authority

those which we call in a singular manner the y Scriptures; (because neither were the authors hem called in so extraordinary a way to the writof them, nor endued with so eminent a portion of gifts of the blessed Spirit for the doing of it; nor e their writings been judged by the common conof the Church in those first ages of it, when they e so much better qualified than we are now to ge of the divine authority of these kind of writ, to be of equal dignity with those of the Apostles Evangelists) yet worthy of a much greater resthan any composures that have been made since, vever men seem to have afterwards written with e art, and to have shewn a much greater stock of nan learning than what is to be found not only in following pieces, but even in the sacred books of New Testament itself.

4. I shall add but one consideration more, the betto shew the true deference that ought to be paid he treatises here collected, and that is, sixthly, they were not only written by such men as I have , instructed by the Apostles, and judged worthy them both for their knowledge and their integrity, govern some of the most eminent Churches in the -ld; and lastly, endued with the extraordinary of the Holy Ghost; and upon all these accounts

Vid. Dodwe'l. Dissert in Iren. Præfat. and Dissert. 2. Et æum apud Euseb. Hist. Eccles. loc. cit. p. 153.

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to be much respected by us; but were moreover received by the Church in those first ages, as pieces that contained nothing but what was agreeable to sound doctrine, which could scarcely be mistaken in its judgment of them.

25. The Epistle of St. Clement was a long time read publicly with the other Scriptures in the congregations of the faithful; made a part of their Bible, and was numbered among the sacred writings, however finally separated from them. And not only the Apostolical canons, but our most antient Alexandrian manuscript, gives the same place to the second that it does to the first of them: and Epiphanius after both, tells us, that they were both of them wont to be read in the Church in his time.(e)

26. The Epistle of St. Polycarp, with that of the Church of Smyrna, were not only very highly approved of by particular persons, but like those of St. Clement, were read publicly too in the assemblies of the faithful. And for those of Ignatius, besides that we find a mighty value put upon them by the Christians of those times, they are sealed to us by this character of St. Polycarp; "that they are such Epistles, by which we may be greatly profited: for, says he, they treat of faith and patience, and of all things that pertain to edification in the Lord."

27. The Epistle of Barnabas is not only quoted with great honour by those of the next age to him, but in the antient stichometry of Cotelerius, (f) we find it placed the very next to the Epistle of St. Jude, and no difference put between the authority of the one and the other.

28. And for the book of Hermas, both Eusebius and St. Jerome tell us, that it was also wont to be read in the Churches. In the same stichometry I before mentioned, it is placed in the very next rank to the Acts of the holy Apostles: and in some of the

(e) Epiphan. Hæres. xxx. num. 15.
(f) Annot. in Barnab. p. 9, 10.

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