They provide for its continued exercise through individuals. They make no provision for its future exercise in synods of presbyters, all officially equal, and deciding their differences by a majority of votes.

First, they assume the continuance of the Apostolic authority in the persons of Timothy and Titus.

Proofs are:

"I besought thee to abide still at Ephesus . . . that thou mightest charge some that they teach no other doctrine" (1 Tim. i. 3). Here is authority given to Timothy over teachers and preachers.

In the third chapter the qualifications needful in candidates for two orders of ministers, bishops and deacons, are set forth, as if Timothy had either the sole choice of these persons or the sole power of ordaining them; the Apostle distinctly asserting (verses 14 and 15) that in the choice or ordination of these men Timothy was to act for him.

In the fifth chapter, the Apostle gives sundry directions to Timothy respecting elders and widows. Widows under sixty years of age are not to be put on the roll. The elders that rule well are to be "counted worthy of double honour," and an accusation is not to be received against an elder "except before two or three witnesses." (1 Tim. v. 9, 17, 19.)

The words in chapter vi. ver. 3: "If any man teach otherwise," taken in connexion with other intimations which we have before noticed, evidently imply that Timothy had authority over all teachers in the Ephesian Church.

In 2 Tim. ii. 2, we have a very plain authority given to Timothy to look out and ordain teachers; and in verses 14 and 25, and in chapter iv. 2-4, sad forebodings of impending divisions and heresies, and directions to

Timothy respecting his treatment of them, and those who fomented them. Similarly Titus was left in Crete that he might "set in order the things that are wanting, and ordain elders in every city." (Titus i. 5.)

The qualifications of these bishops or elders are afterwards enumerated, as if Titus alone was responsible for their appointment and ordination.

St. Paul also enjoins him to "rebuke sharply" (Tit. i. 13), to "rebuke with all authority” (ii. 15), and to “reject an heretic after the first or second admonition" (iii. 10).

It is clear, then, that St. Paul committed to these two men authority over these Churches and all their ministers and teachers.

These three Epistles are the only Epistles in which there are any directions whatsoever respecting the government of the Churches. In no other Epistle is there one word respecting the choice, qualifications, or ordination of ministers, and these three Epistles are written to individual companions of the Apostle-not to Churches.

Now, if it had been the will of God that His Church should be ruled after some Presbyterian' or some democratic model, would not directions respecting such matters

Presbyterianism is oligarchical rather than democratic. In the form in which we are best acquainted with it, i.e., WesleyanMethodism, it appears as a strict oligarchy. The supreme power in that body residing really not in the whole Conference, but in one hundred preachers, perfectly irresponsible, and having all the property of the connection vested in them. Any vacancies in the number of this "legal hundred” being always carefully filled up before the annual Conference proceeds to business. The Presbyterianism of Scotland, notwithstanding some apparently popular features, is essentially oligarchical. In America, on the contrary, Wesleyanism is combined with Episcopal features, but how far these are considered essential, I do not know.

The Episcopacy of the American Episcopal Church is connected with Presbyterian, or even democratic forms so far as this, that its

as ordination and the qualifications of ministers have been sent to the Churches themselves? If God had intended that the people should be the source or depository of Church power, or that the Apostolic authority should in future reside in a board of presbyters, would not Epistles especially bearing upon the exercise of Church power have been addressed to the people or to the presbyters of the Churches? Would they not have been told that all ecclesiastical power had been entrusted to them—i.e., to the laity that they must religiously guard the deposit from all encroachment, and beware lest in the infancy of the Church an evil precedent should be established, if they allowed even the companion and fellow-helper of an Apostle to usurp the authority inherent in the Church itself? But no such words are written to them; they are never bid to watch their rights with jealousy; they are bidden rather to obey and submit themselves.

Nothing appears to me more significant of the will of God respecting the government of His Church than this.

But, in the last place, in these latest writings of the Apostle we have no intimations whatsoever that the authority which he was conferring on Timothy and Titus was temporary and abnormal-that it was to be speedily superseded by some more popular or democratic government, when the Churches were able to exercise such.

If it had been the will of God that the Church should

Conventions and Diocesan Synods are composed of clergy and laïty, and no Bishop can be elected, or any change brought about, except by a majority of both clergy and laity. No question, I am informed, ever arises, or is likely to arise, on which the clergy and laity, as orders, take opposite sides. The only pure Democracies are the Congregational Churches of this country and America. In these bodies all power is vested in the Deacons as representatives of the people.

be governed by boards of presbyters, then ample directions must have been given by St. Paul to his companions to organize the Churches on this principle, by forming Presbyteries and Synods, and by endowing them with plenary authority; or rather, perhaps, assuring them of the authority already inherent in them as the representatives of the people.

But no such directions are given. There is not a word to Timothy or Titus to form the elders of Ephesus and Crete into Synods or Presbyteries, with independent power to ordain and govern. On the contrary, Timothy is told to "lay hands suddenly on no man," and Titus is reminded that on him lay the responsibility of "ordaining elders in every city."

There is no word to either of these men to associate others with themselves as judges of either doctrines or persons; on the contrary, Timothy is directed not to receive an accusation against an elder except before two or three witnesses, as if he alone were the judge; and Titus is enjoined to reject an heretic after the second admonition. (1 Tim. v. 19; Titus iii. 10.)

If the office of such men as Timothy and Titus was temporary, or for a time, I can only say that, on all Presbyterian or Congregational principles, it was established just at the wrong time, for the ecclesiastical powers committed to these men in the Pastoral Epistles must have seriously interfered with, or rather rendered impossible, the due action of any Presbyterian or Congregational system which might have been established by the Apostle. Just at the very time when the Churches were learning to walk alone, and with firm step, in their newlyacquired Congregational or Presbyterian liberty, we have the Apostle himself binding on them the authority of individual rulers, and giving to these rulers not one word

respecting the temporary nature of the rulo he had made over to them, but actually implying that it should last till the Second Advent itself. (1 Tim. vi. 13; 2 Tim. iii. 1; iv. 1.)

From what has been adduced from Scripture in the foregoing pages, wo gather that the government of the Churches founded by St. Paul was Apostolic, merging, after the Apostle's death, into Episcopal.

By Episcopal government I mean government centred in one man; not, of course, so that one man should govern without advice or constitutional restraint, but that one man should be its depository. So that the power of ordaining and overseeing was not derived from the people through the presbyters to a president; or exercised by the people through deacons, or in popular assemblies; but authority flowed from the Apostles through their delegates to overseers of Churches.

In the Epistles of the other Apostles there are no directions whatsoever respecting the government of the Church, so that the field of investigation is narrowed to the Pastoral Epistles of St. Paul.

In the Book of the Revelation we have the messages or Epistles of Christ to the angels of the seven Churches— these angels being, without doubt, the governing ministers of these Churches-those in whom the Apostolic power, so far as it could be transmitted, was lodged.

It is to be noted that these latest messages of God are sent, not to synods, nor to presbyteries, nor to the people, but to angels, i.e., to individuals to whom the chief oversight was committed.

So far for the testimony of the New Testament to the principles on which the Apostolic Churches were governed. It must be abundantly clear to the reader that such principles of Church rule must necessarily develop into