acquainted with all this; he has long been accustomed to it all too long have such accents been ringing in his ears. He knows also that there are remaining among us those, who from your writings will quickly take fresh occasion, not indeed to overthrow our Order, which has struck deeply its roots for so many ages, but certainly tooffer it some insult. -The case, moreover, has been aggravated by a certain Bucer, who exactly at the same time, not I believe in concert, yet apparently so, without having received offence or provocation, has edited most inopportunely, a Latin treatise on the same question. And what King would not be grieved by such things, who desired peace, not only in the Churches of his own dominions, but throughout Christendom, and would give much to purchase it? Be not, therefore, troubled, that the King has objected to those parts of your work. I take upon myself to say, that he would prefer making many marks of praise, especially in a book of yours, to affixing a single note of disapprobation.

These sentiments of the King are, however, as they ought to be, the sentiments of the kingdom in general. Which leads me to appeal to your candour and consideration. You were desirous, you said, of defending your own cause, and repressing the insolence of your adversaries;—and that, if you acted otherwise, you must incur the censure of the Synod, and either retract or look for degradation. We concede this to you; but we ask the same concession for ourselves, that we also may defend our cause as becomes upright and prudent men. For we also have forward adversaries; and we have also consciences, which we do not suffer to be unsettled, with the notion, that they are under an ecclesiastical polity different from that which has existed from the beginning, and from the very age of the Apostles:-and that our's has this antiquity, we are prepared, on any occasion, to prove to the whole Church.

Much, then, do I wish that you had not even alluded to us. For who compelled you? You might have directed your darts against the enemies whom you mention, without their glancing on us our concerns are not so interwoven with your's but that you might have passed them over in silence, without any difficulty. "Est et fideli tuta silentio Merces." If, however, you were fully purposed to introduce into your treatise something relative to our Church, I earnestly wish you had made your intention known to the King, and had consulted him in good time, on that which you designed to write respecting his interests; for he accounts our interests as his own. You yourself know, for who does not know it, since he has written so much and so admirably, that he excels in learning and in natural talents, and that, in judgment especially, whether we look for acuteness or solidity, he is among the first, or rather superior to the first. No man has so thoroughly investigated, and taken so accurate account of all that concerns us as he has done. On any subject, and especially in the affairs of our Church and nation, he could have advised you best how far to advance, and to set bounds to your progress when it had reached its proper limit. And if hereafter you undertake any thing of a similar kind, remember, I pray you, this my counsel, dictated by the best consideration for you, and coming from one who knows that the King

esteems you highly that he has entitled himself to your gratitude, which you will not dispute-and will I trust merit it in future.

If you ask my opinion on the three points in question, I give it you with sincerity. I think that the names, Bishop and Presbyter, are promiscuously used in the sacred writings. I will grant to you, that at first little stress was laid on the terms. Nor is it so much what you have said, as the tendency of your words, that the King regards :-he considers the inference which will hence be quickly caught at by persons, in this and other countries, who are prejudiced against our order-namely, that the expression is equivalent to their being no distinction between the things signified. What other object can be imputed to a writer who dwells upon the confusion of terms, when the things are sufficiently distinguished. No one would attack the name, unless he were not thoroughly well disposed toward the thing itself.

But in this respect the case of the episcopal order is not singular. For in the same authors, and in the very passages to which you refer, there exists the same indiscriminate use of the name Deacon. We have these words of Chrysostom, (Philip. i.) "Even a Bishop was termed diakovog. Whence St. Paul, writing to Timothy, although a Bishop, says, fulfil thy diakovia Hence you may collect, that the words Bishop and Deacon were used in the same sense. But, besides this, even the Apostles call themselves in one place Presbyters, in another place Deacons, and their functions they call, accordingly, diakovia. Yet neither is a Deacon or Presbyter the same as an Apostle. Why then did you not in addition make it appear, that this community of names affected the other orders also; and that in the early age the names not only of Bishop, but also of Presbyter and Deacon, were promiscuously used; while the things signified, the functions themselves, were nevertheless distinct.

Again, when those authors say, "hitherto they had their names in common," they also immediately provide a remedy to prevent misinterpretation, and remind the reader that the thing itself is not undistinguished, subjoining, "but since that time each office has had its proper name assigned; the term Bishop to a Bishop; the term Presbyter to a Presbyter t." No one, speaking with propriety, would insist upon the use of a word in its unrestricted sense, when the restricted use of it has been adopted. No one would now use the word tyrannus to denote a King, or the word latro to designate a soldier. On the same principle, he would not apply the term Bishop to signify a Presbyter and if Jerome, when writing what you refer to, had called himself a Bishop, and Augustin a Presbyter, you must be aware, he would have made himself ridiculous.

Chrys. Hom. Phil. i. 1. on the words σvveπiokotoig kai diakovois.

Τι τετο; μιας πόλεως πολλοί επισκοποι ησαν; εδαμως. αλλα τες πρεσβύτερες ούτως εκάλεσε. τότε γαρ τεως εκοινωνεν τοις ονομασι και διακονος ὁ επισκοπος ελέγετο. διατετο γράφων και Τιμοθεῳ ελεγε την διακονίαν σε πληροφορησον

επισκοπῳ οντι.

Chrys. Hom. Phil. i. 1.~

Λοιπον δε, το ιδιαζον εκατψ απονενέμηται ονομα, ἐπισκόπε ἐπισκόπῳ, πρεσβυτέρας πρεσβυτέρῳ.

Add to which, that, in such passages, the Fathers, before they speak of the use of the words, are obliged to lay down and premise that which may place the thing signified out of all controversy. Thus Chrysostom, (in Philip. i.)

"What mean these words? were there several Bishops of one city? Certainly not." That is, not even when St. Paul wrote his Epistle. Thus also Theodoret, (in Philip. i.) "It was not possible that several Bishops should be pastors of one city." Thus Jerome, (in Philip i.) "For there could not be several Bishops in one city." Thus Ambrose, (in 1 Cor. xii. 28.) "God has decreed that one Bishop should preside over one Church*." Here evidently they proclaim a distinction even then existing in the functions, before they allege any thing concerning the name. I infer, that whatever may have been the case at first with the terms, the restricted use of them may have been then neglected, yet in practice, even at the earliest time, there was in one city only one Bishop and Pastor. With us this is still the practice; but is it so with you? If, then, having first stated that the things signified are clearly distinguished, you had afterwards noticed in the second place the indiscriminate use of the names, which once, though but for a short time, prevailed, (although what good end could have been answered by disputing about names, when the things themselves are certain ?) and had avoided making so crude a statement on the subject, the King, I think, would not have affixed his note of censure: on that passage.

We come next to the question concerning Order. Consider, first of all, whether the order ought to be called the same when the functions are not the same. And that the functions, in the present case, are not the same, is acknowledged even by those who little favour Episcopacy; for they always except ordination from the official duties of a Presbyter. Consider, secondly, whether the order ought to be called one and the same, when the imposition of hands is not one and the same, but new and distinct. For no one, I think, will deny that, throughout all antiquity, Bishops have been appointed with imposition of hands. And that the ancient Church regarded the order as distinct, let Isidorus + testify, who has expressly said, "the episcopal order."

If you refer the question to the school authors, they do not agree one with another. Your countryman, Altisiodorensis,-our countryman, Major, and others, support the distinction of the order. Those who are less favourable to the distinction, do not, indeed, consider the admission to it as a sacrament of orders, for they hold no ordination to be sacramental but that which gives power to administer the Eucharist: nevertheless they assign an order to Bishops; order being, according to their definition, the possession of power to perform some special act; suppose, the act of ordination, to which Bishops alone are competent. For what would it be, to deny that to be an order from which ordination itself, and, of course, all orders of the ministry are derived?

"Et quia ab uno Deo patre sunt omnia singulos episcopos singulis ecclesiis præsse decrevit." Ambr. in 1 Cor. xii. 28.

Isid. Hisp. Etym. 7. 12.