cidentally; "For as much as we are shepherds, TOIMEVES Esμev, who govern, gonyouμεvo, the churches, after the example of the good shepherd, and guard the sheep." (a) This pastoral office was that of the presbyter, for he was such. In strict accordance he speaks of the presbyter, as blessing with the imposition of hands. "Upon whom will the presbyter, gedẞuregos, impose his hand, and whom will he bless ?" (b) This ascription of blessing to presbyters supposes them of one kind and clerical.

After citing from the epistle of Paul ten passages of practical duties, suited to various classes, he ob serves; "numerous other precepts also, directed to select characters, have been written in the sacred books, some to presbyters gesBulegois, and some to bishops, and some to deacons, and others to widows." (c) If presbyters be not here taken appellatively, the language makes a threefold discrimination, presbyters, bishops and deacons. It is possible that the author, in these precepts given from the New Testament, follows the language of the epistle to Titus, in which the same order is named, presbyters and bishops (Ch. i. 5. 6. 7.) That there were but two orders, (diaxova) presbyters and deacons, he expressly and repeatedly shows; and that there was a realoxadedgia or first seat, in each presbytery, he also asserts; the meaning therefore of the passage is obvious.

If from the circumstance, that this writer never enumerated deacons before presbyters, because an inferiour order, it may be fairly inferred, that the collocation of bishops after presbyters, in this sentence, evinces no inferiority in presbyters, we may be permitted to argue from the same circumstance, that he had no idea that presbyters were mere laymen. Whether, in this passage,

(a) Pædagogue, Lib. I. p. 99.
(b) Pædagogue, Lib. III. p. 248.
Pædagogue, Lib. III. p. 264.

go Bulegos was intended only of those who presided over the rest of the bishops, or vice versa, lay presbyters are equally, and wholly omitted.

In the numerous precepts addressed by the scriptures to various characters, neither this author, nor any other, has ever found a change directed to lay presbyters.

Writing of marriage, he decides, that each man should be "the busband of one wife, whether he be a presbyter, or a deacon &c.” xqv πρεσβύτερος η, καν διακονος. (d)

The word Presbyter being substituted in this direction, for bishop, used in Paul's epistle, (m) and by himself in two other references to the same duty, (n) proves that Clement understood the same by bishop and presbyter, and would not have intended an inferior, or lay elder. And if the promiscuous use of bishop and presbyter can demonstrate parity in the clerical, it must be equally effectual to exclude an inferior order.

a

In another place he observes ; "That man is in fact a presbyter, geo Bulegos, of the church, and a true minister, diaxovos, of the counsel of God, who practices and teaches the things of the Lord; deemed righteous, not because ordained of men nor because a presbyter, but because a righteous man, he is numbered in the presbytery. And if here on

earth he be not honored with the first seat, πρωτοκαθεδρία μη τιμηθη he shall sit down on the twenty four thrones, judging the people, as John represents it in the Apocalypse."(e) This writer does not distinguish the presiding presbyter by the name προεσίως, the word επίσκοπος having begun to take its place, nevertheless the first implied other seats of the presbyters; and the first seat on a bench of presbyters is occupied by a presbyter, with no less certainty than

(d) Strom. Lib. III. 464.
(m) I Tim. III. 2.
(n) Strom. 459. 472.
(e) Strom. Lib. VI. p. 667.

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the last. This president called "godrws in the New Testament, is hence forth denominated sixOTOS without any authorized diversity in order. In the same page, he says; Seeing that in the church, there are promotions of bishops, presbyters, deacons, προκοπαι επισκόπων, πρεσβυτερων diaxovwv, I suppose they are semblances of angelic glory, and of that economy which, the scriptures say, awaits those, who live after the example of the apostles, in the perfection of righteousness, according to the gospel. These, the apostle writes, being raised up in the clouds, διακονήσειν, attend as deacons at the first; afterwards they are associated with the presbytery, gerulegiw, according to their proficiency, goxoTv, in glory; for glory rises above glory, until they shall increase to a perfect man.

(f) This writer thought that the Saviour preached the gospel to departed spirits in hell: and believed, that future punishments were restorative. To the same hypothesis may be attributed his opinion of the value of the righteousness of the saints, both in this world, and in the next, which is here described as measuring their proficiency in glory. His first comparison of the orders in the church, is unto those of the angels, of whom it has been remarked, there are but two, archangels and angels. He supposes also a discrimination in the next world between the glory of deacons, and of the presbytery. But although he names bishops, presbyters, and deacons on earth distinctly, he considered bishops and presbyters, as constituting the same presbytery, not differing in order; otherwise his comparison has failed. Deacons are here also represented as entering into the presbytery, without an intermediate order. Clemens has consequently assigned no place to lay elders, either in the church militant, or triumphant. Having spoken of an instructive, and an obediential service, he says; "In like man(f) Strom. Lib. VI. p. 667.

ner also with respect to the church, the presbyters maintain the part which renders men better, Bλlwlxny Exova, and the deacons the obediential, ὑπηρετικην. Both these offices, ravras aμow ras diaxovias, do the angels perform to God, according to the economy of earthly things."(g) Thus again he expressly describes two, and but two orders in the church, presbyters and deacons; the former to make men better, the latter to aid in a subordinate department.

In this author we find a presbytery and deacons only, which is as forcible an exclusion of a third order, whether superior or intermediate, as can be reasonably expected from a writer who had no knowledge of a third.

In his "What rich man can be saved?" (m) Clemens relates that John the Apostle, observing a young man and turning to the bishop who presìded over all, επι πασι τω καθεστωτι goßhas &idxor, committed him προβλέψας επισκόπω, to his care in the presence of the church, επι της εκκλησίας, who recei ved him του δεχομένου. John is then said to have returned, after repeating the charge, to Ephesus. And the presbyter taking home, i de geoßBulsρος αναλαβων οικαδε, the young man that had been committed to his care, nourished, educated and lost him. Here we have Clemens, no doubt in the language of his day, as it had been in that of the apostles, expressly denominating the same person both a bishop, and a presbyter. Also John, returning, is represented to have addressed him as a bishop, “☎ETIσKOTE; return to us your depos it." It thus appears, that a successor of the last apostle, and by John himself styled a bishop, was notwithstanding a presbyter.

The sum of the testimony of Clemens the most learned christian in his age, is that there was one order only of officers in the church, above

(g) Strom. Lib. VII. p. 700. Some renTix dignified others" quæ facit meliores."

der

(m) Ch. XLII. p. 87.

presiding presbyter, or by some other for him. If the original power of these presbyters, which expediency only suspended, authorised their administration of ordinances, they were not lay-elders. The implied concession of a power in deacons to do the same things, and the position, that the right existed in laymen, show, not merely that, had there been lay-presbyters, they might have baptized, but that the presbyters spoken of, were not lay

men.

He expresses his opinion, "That the authority appointed, constituit, the difference between the order and the people, inter ordinem et plebem."(m) But that authority he must have understood to have been exercised in the days of the apostles; for he challenges the heretics to prove their doctrine by uninterrupted tradition, through successive bishops from the apostles; by which bishops, and the other presbyters, he must have meant the order of which he has spoken in the singular. "Let them show the commencements of their churches-let them tell the series of their bishops, so descending by succession from the beginning, that the first bishop shall have had some author or predecessor from the apostles, or apostolic men, who continued constantly with the apostles; for in this manner the apostolic churches deduced their own genealogies; thus the church of Smyrna, having Polycarp, relate that he was located there by John; thus the church of Rome, having Clement, put forth that he was ordained by Peter; in the same manner, also, other churches present those whom, placed in the episcopacy by the apostles, they account the propagators of the apostolic cion."(a) The originality of doctrines was to be proved by that of the churches; and this could be shown by the successions of the presiding officers.

The preservation of the names and successions of all the presbyters for a century, might have been impracticable; yet the strength of the argument for the sameness of doctrines, chiefly depended upon this circumstance, that the presbytery of each church, at any given period, secured the orthodoxy of each successive poews, presiding, presbyter, whom Tertullian denominates bishop.

Inveighing against the irregularities of the heretics, he observes, "One is the bishop to-day, to-morrow, another, alius hodie episcopus, cras alius; to-day he is a deacon, who is a reader to-morrow, hodie diaconus, qui cras lector; to day a presbyter, who is a layman to-inorrow, hodie presbyter, qui cras laicus; for they also impose sacerdotal functions on the laity." Individual assemblies are here the allusion, as in all other parts of his writings; if one to-day acted as the bishop in public worship, and to morrow another, it must have been intended of one man's leading in the ordinances on one day, and another on the next, which is no more than the office of the pools, president; except that with heretics, the duty belonged to no one permanently. This passage also proves, that reading was no part of the deacon's office; that elders were not laymen; and that the latter ought not to have performed clerical duties in the church.

When arguing the truth of the common doctrines against Marcion, from their priority, after mentioning the churches of Corinth, Galatia, Philippi, Thessalonica, Ephesus and Rome, he observes, "we have also the churches nourished, alumnas, of John; for if Marcion rejects also his Apocalypse, nevertheless, the series of the bishops, ordo tamen episcoporum, reckoned up to their commencement, will stand upon John their founder. In the same nianner also, the genuineness of the other ehurches is recognized." The enumerations of the presiding pres、

byters, which have formerly occurred, render this passage perfectly clear, and vastly different from the modern import of the phrase order of bishops. He sometimes also means by ordo, the bench of presbyters which sat in every organized church. “Ubi ecclesiastici ordinis non est consessus, where there is not a presbytery, offers et tingis, you administer the eucharist, and baptise, &c." This is the plain testimony of Tertullian, that there was but one kind of ecclesiastics in every church, who were called an order, because they sat in a row; of these there was one, who by custom, from the apostle's days, presided; and the series of such presidents, up to the apostles, was also denominated the order of the bishops of that particular congregation ; but we have not found a word concerning laypresbyters, in all his writings. J. P. W.

To the Editor of the Christian Spectator. As it falls, no doubt, within the scope of your publication, to contrib ute, so far as lies within your power, to the promotion of the diligent study and knowledge of the Holy Scriptures, I beg the liberty to state a few questions respecting a passage, which bas recently attracted my attention, and about which I find some difficulties raised in my own mind, that some of your intelligent readers may perhaps contribute to solve. I do this the more readily, because I know that these difficulties are not limited to myself only; but are entertained by many other readers of the New Testament, who will be grateful for a proper and satisfactory solution of them.

The passage of Scripture to which I advert, is found in Heb. i. 6, 7, "And when he introduces the first begotten into the world, he saith; Let all the angels of God worship him." Now as this is evidently a quotation from the Jewish Scriptures, VOL. VI.-No. 2.

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and is addressed to Hebrews as a proof that Christ is superior to the angels, in as much as they are commanded to worship him; and apparently relied upon by the writer as a satisfactory and conclusive proof of Christ's superiority to them; it is natural to ask, from what part of the I find Old Testament is this taken ? no such passage in the Hebrew Scriptures; nor in the English translation But I find that Commenof them. tators are divided in opinion, respecting the place from which this quotation is made. Some suppose it to be taken from Ps. xcvii, 7, where our English translation, in conformity with the original Hebrew, has "Worship him all ye gods." The this Septuagint renders passage, "Let all his angels worship him, προσκυνησάτωσαν αυτό παντες αγγέλοι From this version of the Septuagint, therefore, they suppose the apostle has here quoted.

αυτού.

My difficulties in regard to this solution are,

1. That the Psalm appears to relate wholly to the supremacy of Jehovah, and vanity of idols and idolworship, and the infinite exaltation of the true God above all the objects of heathen worship. In the former part of Ps. xcvii. 7, it is said, "Let all who worship graven images be ashamed; they who boast themselves of idols; worship him (Jehovah) all ye gods, on 3." That is, as I understand it, Let those who are the objects of adoration to others, acknowledge Jehovah as the supreme and only God." This indeed must be regarded as a figurative expression; in as much as it seems to attribute animation and intelligence to the objects of heathen worship. But it speaks of these objects in a manner conformed to the views of those, who paid their devotions to them; just as the sacred writers call the idols of the heathen, gods, because they were so named by their worshippers. besides; what is more common than for the sacred writers, especially in the poetic parts of the Bible, to at

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