have subdivided the diocese, and to have selected a second bishop; and so bishops and dioceses were multiplied, according to the wants of the churches, until it was thought expedient to reserve the right of erecting new bishoprics to provincial councils, and this reservation was made a rule of the Church by a decree of the Council of Sardica.* Meanwhile the bishops of the new sees had grouped themselves round the bishops of the more ancient sees, who exercised over them a certain spiritual authority as primates, and presided in their councils; and as some of the great cities in which the sees of the first bishops had been established were distinguished by the title of 'metropolis,' or mother-city, and were in fact the chief cities of civil provinces of the Roman empire, the bishops of these sees came to be distinguished by the title of metropolitan bishops, and exercised a superior authority in the councils of the Church in proportion to the greater importance of their respective sees. This superior dignity of the metropolitan bishops over the others was formally recognized at the Council of Nicæat as being in accordance with Upon the establishment of Christianity as the religion of the Roman empire a coercive jurisdiction was ingrafted on the spiritual supe riority of the metropolitan; and the district over which the metropolitan exercised this jurisdiction was called his province, the earliest ecclesiastical provinces † A. D. 325. custom. * A. D. 347. being for the most part conterminous with the civil provinces of the empire. From the circumstance that there was no metropolitan city in western Africa, the term metropolitan was never adopted in the Carthaginian Church, the senior bishop of that church being termed the primate, and having precedence and authority as such over other bishops." * Thus from the simplicity of New Testament times, when presbyter and bishop were synonymous terms, as applied to the same person, though one indicated the order and the other the office, there was a gradual modification. After a time the presbyter presiding over other presbyters appropriated the distinctive title of bishop, but still he was only a presbyter-bishop. Then, from the innocent idea of a presiding presbyter or presiding elder, the presiding officer or bishop claimed supremacy of order and exclusive authority over the presbyters. The metropolitan bishop obtained jurisdiction over the other bishops in the province, and the tendency to centralization and the assertion of superior authority went on until the bishop in the greatest city of Europe and the center of the Roman empire claimed superiority over all the rest. At first the bishop of Rome was conceded only an "ideal precedence," but the bishops of Rome soon showed their cager desire to make this honorary supremacy mean a real superiority over all other bishops. * Ency. Britannica. Ninth Edition, art. "Bishop," by Sir Travers Twiss, Q. C. The claim was at first "promptly and emphatically denied in all parts of the world,"* yet gradually the persistent claim, aided by all kinds of weapons and furthered by such men as Leo I. (440–461), Gregory I. (590–604), and ultimately by Hildebrand, or Gregory VII. (1073), made its way until there was not only the assertion of the superiority of the pope of Rome over other bishops, but also the assertion of "a theocratic rule of the pope over all the nations of the world." Thus we see how evil may gradually grow out of that which at first seemed a harmless expedient or what probably appeared to be a necessary prudential arrangement. Such are the possibilities of human government and human nature. * McClintock & Strong's Bib. and Theol. Cyclopædia, art. "Papacy." Ν CHAPTER II. EPISCOPACY IN THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND. studying the episcopacy of the Church of England, it is not necessary for our present purpose to go back farther than the time of the Reformation. Prior to the Protestant Reformation the English Church, like all Churches under papal domination, had an episcopal form of government. After the Reformation, however, the Churches on the Continent of Europe discarded episcopacy, while it was retained by the Protestant Reformed Church of England. The explanation of the difference in this particular is not difficult. The Protestants on the Continent, though springing from an episcopal Church, abandoned the organization for the simple reason that the hierarchy sided with the papacy. In England, on the contrary, Protestantism continued to be episcopal because the bishops generally were in harmony with King Henry VIII. in his opposition to the pope. Thus it happened that Continental Protestantism became presbyterian and English Protestantism remained episcopal.* * Butler's Ecclesiastical History, p. 39. Fisher's History of Reformation, p. 332. The question now arises as to how the English Protestant Reformed Church regarded its episcopacy. Did the English reformers understand that bishops were in a clerical order distinct from and superior to that of presbyters? Did they maintain that episcopacy was by divine right? Did they teach that there could be no true Christian Church without episcopal government? Did they hold that episcopal ordination was the only valid ministerial ordination? In 1537, shortly after the separation of the Anglican Church from Rome, there was published by the authority of the king, the Institution of a Christian Man. As it was prepared mainly by the bishops it was also called the Bishops' Book. Referring to the various clerical orders in the Church of Rome, it declares: "The truth is, that in the New Testament there is no mention made of any degrees or distinctions in orders, but only of deacons or ministers, and of priests or bishops." This is a clear statement that they believed that presbyters (or priests) and bishops were the same order. In 1543, by order of the king, the Institution was revised and issued under the title of A Necessary Doctrine and Erudition of a Christian Man. It says: "Of these two orders only, that is to say, priests and deacons, Scripture maketh express mention." * Burnet's History of Reformation, ii, Collection of Records, Addenda v. |