ed wisdom and experience, and to great integrity and purity and devotion; an authority like that which often leads you to receive the opinions of this man or that with great, respect and deference, and perhaps with absolute confidence, even when you do not understand, and have not inquired after, the grounds on which that opinion rests. Some of them had an authority of another sort the authority of inspiration; they spoke as men directly commissioned from the Lord Jesus, and wrought miracles to show that what they said was to be received by all men implicitly, as the word of God. This was the authority of Paul and of Peter and of all the apostles, an authority like that of Elijah, or Isaiah, or of any other person acknowledged as inspired. This authority was one essential part of apostleship; and if any man in these days, shall set up his claim to be regarded and honored as a legitimate successor to the authority of the apostles in and over the churches, we have only to say that we will acknowledge his claim, whenever he shall be able to appeal to us, as Paul appealed to the church at Corinth, “Truly the SIGNS OF AN APOSTLE were wrought among you in all patience, in SIGNS AND WONDERS AND

We proceed now to a second question. Are officers essential to the existence of a church? I answer at once, No. To the being of a church,

officers are not essential; to its completeness and well being they are. Hands are essential to a man's well being, but not to his existence. A man is a man with his hands cut off, though he is a man maimed. This shows what I mean when I say, the officers of a church are not essential to its being, though they are highly important to its well being. A church may be really a church without any of the officers instituted by the apostles in their churches.

Do you ask for proof? It is at hand. Paul and Barnabas in their first missionary tour from Antioch, passed through Pamphylia, Pisidia, and Lycoania, as is commonly supposed in the years 45 and 46. Sometime afterwards, in the year 48 or 49, as it is commonly reckoned, they returned that way, "confirming the souls of the disciples," and "ordaining them elders in every church." Read the epistles of Paul to the church at Corinth. The first was written about three years after his departure from that city; and both were written before he had made them a second visit. He addresses them expressly as a church, and treats of a great variety of church matters; but where are their officers? No salutation is sent, as in the case of the Philippians, to the bishops and deacons ; no mention is made of any elders; no distinct allusion can be found that implies the existence of any church officers among them. Put these two things together,

first that Paul's custom was to ordain elders in the churches on his second visit, and secondly the fact that here is a church where the apostle had labored nearly two years, and from which he had been absent now three years, in which there is no sign of there having been any officers at all ;—and are we not warranted in saying that the officers in a church are not essential to its existence, however important they may be to its prosperity or to its completeness.

But why is this proposition introduced here?" Simply for the sake of one plain inference. Whatever may be our views of what church officers ought to be, we have no right to disown any church, to renounce fellowship with it, or to deny its being, merely because its officers are not scriptural, or even if it has no officers at all.

We are now prepared to inquire directly, What are the proper officers in a church? and what are their powers and duties? I answer, You have already seen what they were by name in the church at Philippi, to wit, bishops and deacons.

A few passages in the New Testament contain all the distinct information which we have, respecting the duties and powers of these offiIn the first epistle to Timothy, iii. 1-13, the qualifications proper to the bishop and to the deacon, are fully described. In the same epistle, v. 17, it is laid down as a rule that the

cers.

elders, who presided over the church were to have a full compensation, especially such of them as were devoted to the work of instruction in religion. In the epistle to Titus, i. 5—10, there is an abridged description of the proper character of elders, and especially of a bishop. In Acts xx, we have a summary of Paul's address to the elders of the church at Ephesus, who at his request had come to meet him at Miletus, in which he reminds them of their most important duties. A brief passage of the same kind occurs in 1 Peter, v. 1-4. In other places in the Acts, (xi. 30; xv. 2, 4, 6, 22.) the elders of the church at Jerusalem are mentioned as receiving the contributions forwarded for the relief of the needy there, and as consulting with the apostles and with the brotherhood respecting the interests of religion. And in the epistle to the Hebrews, xiii. 17, those christians are exhorted to obey their rulers or guides who spoke to them the word of God, and who watched for their souls as men that must give account. The knowledge contained in these various passages may be summed up thus.

1. The name elder seems to be, sometimes at least, a generic name for all church officers. (1.) Among the Jews almost every magistrate was called an elder, from the member of the great national council, down to the officer who kept order in the synagogue. What more

natural then, than that church officers of all sorts should sometimes be spoken of under this comprehensive designation? (2.) We never find the phrase bishops and elders' nor the phrase ' elders and deacons'; wherever the two sorts of officers are distinctly enumerated, they are enumerated, accurately, by their distinctive titles, "bishops and deacons." (3.) When the disciples at Antioch undertook to send relief to the brethren which dwelt in Judea, they "sent it to the elders by the hands of Barnabas and Saul." To what elders? To those surely who had the charge of such matters, namely to the seven, or their successors. But however this may be, certain it is that the names bishop and elder are used frequently with reference to the same persons in the same office.

2. In regard to the duties and powers of the bishops, or overseers of a church, our information is sufficiently definite. It is their office to preside in the church; to do the work of a shepherd over the flock, who guides, oversees and supplies, who feeds the lambs and the sheep; to superintend the devotions of the church, its ordinances, its discipline, its instruction, all its interests and concerns. Their office is to teach and preach the gospel; for though a preacher is not of course a pastor and bishop, or a church officer at all, yet every pastor or bishop is by virtue of his office an authorized preacher of the