Now from ten thousand royal argosies. I weep not o'er thy spoils, thou wild and wrathful main,

Earth claims not these again.

Yet more, the depths have more!

Thy

waves have roll'd Above the cities of a world gone by! Sand hath filled up the palaces of old, Sea-weed o'ergrown the walls of revelry! Dash o'er them, ocean, in thy scornful play;

Man yields them to decay." Jonathan ben Uzziel remarks as follows: "From the sand are produced looking-glasses, and glass in general; the treasures, the method of finding and working which, was revealed to these tribes." There is considerable probability in this supposition, as several ancient writers inform us that there were havens in the coasts of the Zebulunites in which the sand, proper for the manufacture of glass, was found. Tacitus relates, "Et Belus amnis Judaico mari illabitur, circa ejus os lectæ arenæ admixto nitro in vitrum excoquuntur.". "The river Belus falls into the Jewish sea, about whose mouth those sands, mixed with nitre, are collected, out of which glass is formed." This fact is also recorded

by Pliny, who states, that it was at the mouth of the river Belus, that the art of making glass was first discovered.* A party of sailors, who had occasion to visit the shore in that neighbourhood, propped up the kettle in which they were about to cook their provisions with sand and pieces of nitre; when, to their surprise, they found produced, by the action of the fire on these ingredients, a new substance, which has added immensely to the comforts of life, and to the progress of science. The "treasures hid in the sand" may then be interpreted as referring to the materials for this beautiful production; and Zebulun and Issachar, in gathering and exporting it from their havens, might truly be said to "suck of the abundance of the seas. These coasts supplied the manufactories of Sidon for ages with their precious sand; and so late as the middle of the seventeenth century, vessels from Italy were employed in removing it to the glass-houses of Venice and Genoa.

There is, however, another exposition, which refers the passages

3

There is another singular circumstance, connected with this river, which is equally celebrated in the mythological writings of antiquity. Lucian relates that the Belus, at certain seasons of the year, especially about the feast of Adonis, is of a bloody colour--a fact which the heathens looked upon as proceeding from a kind of sympathy for the death of this wild boar in the mountains, whence the favourite of Venus, who was killed by a stream takes its rise. "Something like this," says Maundrell, "we saw actually come to pass; for the water was stained to a surprising redness, and, as we had observed in travelling, had discoloured the sea a great way into a reddish hue, occasioned doubtless by a sort of minium, or red earth, washed into the river by the violence of the rain, and not by any stain from Adonis' blood." -Journey from Aleppo to Jerusalem, p. 35.

+ Pliny, Hist. Nat. lib. 5. c. 25.

generally, the Romish Episcopacy was abolished, and it does not now exist. Many of those holy men in England, laboured, but in vain, to restore the gospel ministry to the simplicity of the apostolic institutions. Those who perseveringly endeavoured to establish the primitive Episcopacy, were opposed by the majority, who were proud of their clerical dignities, and themselves were branded with the title of Puritans. Hence the origin of Dissenters in England. The various clerical orders and titles, previously existing as Roman Catholic, were adopted from that antichristian system, and established by law in the Church of England. Still they were not pretended to be scriptural, or necessarily Christian, but only favours granted by the king, as head of the Church of England. This is affirmed in the Act of Parliament passed in 1545, when the Pope's supremacy was abolished by Henry VIII: in that Act it is declared, that "Archbishops, Bishops, Archdeacons, and other Ecclesiastical persons, have no manner of jurisdiction ecclesiastical, but by and under the King's Majesty, the only undoubted supreme head of the Church of England!!"

Here we are instructed in a remarkable fact, which it must be of consequence for every Christian, and indeed for every Briton, to know and consider; that the lordly dignities of the Church of England, with all their numerous satellites, have no other foundation on which to rest their claims, than the corruptions of Popery, or the Act of an English Parliament !

The same sentiments are inculcated in a remarkable treatise, entitled, "A Necessary Erudition for a Christian Man." It was drawn up by a committee of Bishops and Divines, read and ap

proved by both houses of Parliament, and published with a preface in the name of the king. It says, "St. Paul consecrated and ordered bishops by imposition of hands; but there is no certain rule prescribed in Scripture for the nomination, election, or presentation of them." Of Deacons it says, "Their office in the primitive Church was partly to minister to meat and drink, and other necessaries, to the poor; and partly to minister to the bishops and priests. Of these two only, that is to say, priests and deacons, Scripture maketh express mention, and how they were conferred of the Apostles by prayer and imposition of hands; but the primitive Church afterward appointed inferior degrees, as subdeacons, ecolytes, exorcists, &c. but lest peradventure it might be thought by some that such authorities, powers, and jurisdictions, as patriarchs, primates, bishops, and metropolitans, now have, or heretofore at any time have had, justly and lawfully over other bishops, were given them by God in Holy Scripture, we think it expedient and necessary, that all men should be advertised and taught, that all such lawful power and authority of any one bishop over another, were, and be given them by the consent, ordinances, and positive laws of men only, and not by any ordinance of God in Holy Scripture; and all sụch power and authority which any bishop has used over another, which have not been given him by such consent and ordinance of men, are in very deed no lawful power, but plain usurpation and tyranny !"*

arch

In a work of Wyckliffe, that

*Neal's Hist. of the Puritans, Vol. I. pp. 30, 31.

father of the Reformation, says, "The holy doctors were of opinion, that 'tis superfluous in the sacrament of orders, to allow more than two degrees, viz. Deacons or Levites, and Presbyters or Bishops. In Paul's time, two orders of clergymen were thought enough for the Church, viz. Priests and Deacons the other degrees are the inventions of imperious pride."

That Bishops and Presbyters, as Christian ministers, are not distinct orders in the Church; and, that they have no superiority one over another by Apostolical institution, but are pastors of single congregations, we might produce a host even of episcopalian writers to confirm: a few only can be selected. Of all professing Christians, the highest prelatists are the Papists; and of all the Romish Church, the Jesuits have been the most zealous in defence of that principle; and of all the writers of that' sect, Petarius is said to have entertained the loftiest notions yet he, in a treatise concerning episcopal dignity, says, at the close of his chapter containing quotations from the chief Fathers, Hitherto, it is proved by the authority of the ancients, that in the first time, not only the names but the orders of Presbyters and Bishops did concur into the same persons, so that both were the same men.'

66

Dr. Hammond says, "Although this title Пçeoẞurepot, elders, have been also extended to a second order in the church, and now is only in use for them under the name of Presbyters, yet in Scripture times it belonged principally, if not alone, to Bishops, there being no evidence that any of the second

* Baxter's Treatise of Episcopacy, Part II. p. 13.

In ano "It

were then instituted.”* ther work, the Doctor says, is evident that by the immediate impulse of the Spirit of God, Bishops were constituted, Deacons only joined with them, in every church, and so at Corinth, and the rest of the cities of Achaia. And that by the command of the same divine prophecy or revelation, successors were assigned to them after their departure."+ Again, he says, "Indeed mention is found only of Bishops with Deacons constituted in each city, sometimes under the title of Bishop, sometimes of Presbyters; there being no token or footstep at all appearing of such as we now call Presbyters." Again, "That observ. ing the paucity of believers in many cities in the first plantations, which made it unnecessary that there should by the Apostles be ordained any more than a Bishop and a Deacon, one, or more, in each city, and that this was done by them at first, is approved by the most undeniable ancient records." Again, "As congre gations and parishes are synonymous in their style, so I yield that believers in great cities were not at first divided into parishes, while the number of Christians in a city was so small that they might well assemble in the same place, and so needed no partitions or divisions. But what disadvantage is this to us, who affirm that one Bishop, not a college of Presbyters, presided in that one congregation, and that the believers in the regions and villages about did belong to the care of that single Bishop or city church. A Bishop and his

* Annotations, Acts xi. 3. + Hammond's Dissertations, Diss. V. Chap. VII. sect. 9.

Ibid. Chap. VIII. see. 9.
Dissertations Vindicated, p. 5,

Deacon were sufficient at the first to sow these plantations. For what is a diocese, but a church in a city with the suburbs and territories, or region belonging to it?"*

From a sentence in the writings of Jerome, attempts have been made to support the claims of three orders of the clergy; that Father says, "that Aaron, and his sons and the Levites, were in the temple; the same let Bishops and Priests, and Deacons claim to themselves in the church." Upon this attempt at proof, Bp. Stillingfleet remarks, "The plain meaning then of Jerome is no more but this: that as Aaron and his sons in the order of the priesthood, were above the Levites under the law; so the Bishops and Presbyters in the order of the evangelical priesthood, are above the Deacons under the gospel. For the comparison runs not between Aaron and his sons as one part of the comparison under the law, and the Levites under them, as the other. So under the gospel, Bi. shops and Presbyters make one part of the comparison answering to Aaron and his sons, in that wherein they all agree, viz. the order of the Priesthood; and the other part, under the gospel, is that of Deacons, answering to the Levites under the law."+ As to the matter itself, I believe, upon the strictest inquiry, Medina's judgment will prove true, that Jerome, Austin, Ambrose, Sedulius, Primasius, Chrysostom, Theodoret, Theophylact were all of Aerius's judgment, as to the identity of both name and order of Bishops and Presbyters in the primitive Church."t

says

Bp. Burnet "The names of Bishop and Presbyter are used for the same thing in Scripture : and are also used promiscuously by the writers of the two first centuries."*

Mr. Milner, in his truly valuable Church History, though an interested advocate for the Episcopal Prelacy, is constrained to make the following, though apparently unwilling, acknowledgment, in relation to the primitive Christians. "At first," he says, 66 or for some time, church governors were only of two ranks, Presbyters and Deacons ; at least this appears to have been the case in particular instances: as at Philippit and at Ephesus, and the term Bishop was confounded with that Presbyter. The church of Corinth continued long in this state, so far as one may judge by Clement's epistle.§

of

Dr. Haweis, in his "Impartial History of the Church of Christ," reviewing the ecclesiastical government of the primitive Christians, says, "The Epistle to the Hebrews, though not bearing his (Paul's) express subscription, is generally adjudged to be his. A single sentence, (chap. xiii. 7.) inculcating obedience and love towards those who have the rule over them, and have spoken unto them the word of God, is all I can find relative to the church government, and at least affords a negative proof of how little importance the outward forms and administration in the Church are, compared with holding the head Christ, and believing the glory of his person and sacrifice. If the