particularly when he writes in 2 Cor. i. 20. "Now then we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech you by us, we pray you in Christ's stead, be ye reconciled to God." In other passages, however, the same Apostle speaks more sharply; as 1 Cor. iv. 21. "What will ye? shall I come unto you with a rod, or in love, and in the spirit of meekness?" and in 2 Cor. x. when he mentions the "authority given him by the Lord,"

given Me. If you say He speaks here of all his elect, the words following, ver. 12, prove the contrary; for those, saith He, whom Thou hast given Me I have kept, and none of them is lost but the child of perdition. Here He plainly affirms, He lost one of those His Father gave Him; wherefore he speaks not of His elect ones, for those no man can take out of His hands. Again, ver. 18, As Thou didst send Me into the world, saith He, so I sent them into the world: but I hope all the elect are not sent as Christ was sent by His Father. I conclude therefore, so long as God in the Law says specially of the Levites, They are Mine; so long as Christ in the Gospel of His Apostles, They are Mine, O Father, which Thou hast given Me out of the world; it is neither arrogancy nor injury to style those who minister about holy things by the name of xangos so, the inheritance of

the Lord."

he clearly shews that he did not mean merely preeminence in the Church in things pertaining to the kingdom of God. Whence it appears, that the power of government in the Church, by which one Minister of the Gospel surpasses another, was not abrogated by the prohibition of such violent sway as kings. may exercise over their subjects, any more than that power which every Pastor has over his flock committed to his peculiar charge. The Lord did not so confound the two Orders of the Apostles and the seventy Evangelists, as to make no difference between them. I am exceedingly surprised that men of learning should be convinced by this passage, that all superior power of Bishops over Presbyters was forbidden: such an assertion cannot be made without casting an imputation on the holy Fathers of old, whom it is a more easy matter to accuse than to convict of tyranny, and whose government of the Churches it is easier to find fault with than to improve. The Lord intended only to remove the error under which the Apostles

were labouring, not to deprive them of the chief power which He had given them, and which He designed them to exercise over the Church and the Pastors of Churches.

THERE is neither Scripture proof, nor reason, nor authority of the Fathers, to shew that the form of Church government established by the Apostles ended with their lives. Neither is it any thing to the purpose to assert that the Apostles possessed extraordinary powers: for on the same ground it might be made appear, that no one has in these days authority to baptize or to preach the Gospel. Whatever gifts possessed by the Apostles were extraordinary, could not, it is asserted, be left by them to their successors.