:

those observations which he made when he was a boy. And this may be a sufficient reason to us why we need no longer muse at the spreading of many idle traditions so soon after the apostles, while such as this Papias had the throwing them about, and the inconsiderate zeal of the next age, that heeded more the person than the doctrine, had the gathering them up. Wherever a man, who had been any way conversant with the apostles, was to be found, thither flew all the inquisitive ears, although the exercise of right instructing was changed into the curiosity of impertinent fabling: where the mind was to be edified with solid doctrine, there the fancy was soothed with solemn stories with less fervency was studied what St. Paul or St. John had written, than was listened to one that could say, Here he taught, here he stood, this was his stature; and thus he went habited; and, O happy this house that harboured him, and that cold stone whereon he rested, this village wherein he wrought such a miracle, and that pavement bedewed with the warm effusion of his last blood, that sprouted up into eternal roses to crown his martyrdom. Thus, while all their thoughts were poured out upon circumstances, and the gazing after such men as had sat at table with the apostles, (many of which Christ hath professed, yea, though they had cast out devils in his name, he will not know at the last day,) by this means they lost their time, and truanted in the fundamental grounds of saving knowledge, as was seen shortly by their writings. Lastly, for Irenæus, we have cause to think him less judicious in his reports from hand to hand of what the apostles did, when we find him so negligent in keeping the faith which they wrote, as to say in his third book against heresies, that "the obedience of Mary was the cause of salvation to herself and all mankind;" and in his fifth book, that "as Eve was seduced to fly God, so the virgin Mary was persuaded to obey God, that the virgin Mary might be made the advocate of the virgin Eve." Thus if Irenæus, for his nearness to the apostles, must be the patron of episcopacy to us, it is no marvel though he be the patron of idolatry to the papist, for the same cause. To the epistle of those brethren of Smyrna, that write the martyrdom of Polycarpus, and style him an apostolical and prophetical doctor, and bishop of the church of Smyrna, I could be content to give some credit for

the great honour and affection which I see those brethren bear him; and not undeservedly, if it be true, which they there say, that he was a prophet, and had a voice from heaven to comfort him at his death, which they could hear, but the rest could not for the noise and tumult that was in the place; and besides, if his body were so precious to the Christians, that he was never wont to pull off his shoes for one or other that still strove to have the office, that they might come in to touch his feet, yet a light scruple or two I would gladly be resolved in: if Polycarpus (who, as they say, was a prophet that never failed in what he foretold) had declared to his friends, that he knew, by vision, he should die no other death than burning, how it came to pass that the fire, when it came to proof, would not do his work, but starting off like a full sail from the mast, did but reflect a golden light upon his unviolated limbs, exhaling such a sweet odour, as if all the incense of Arabia had been burning; insomuch that when the billmen saw that the fire was overawed, and could not do the deed, one of them steps to him and stabs him with a sword, at which wound such abundance of blood gushed forth as quenched the fire. By all this relation it appears not how the fire was guilty of his death and then how can his prophecy be fulfilled? Next, how the standers-by could be so soon weary of such a glorious sight, and such a fragrant smell, as to hasten the executioner to put out the fire with the martyr's blood; unless perhaps they thought, as in all perfumes, that the smoke would be more odorous than the flame: yet these good brethren say he was bishop of Smyrna. No man questions it, if bishop and presbyter were anciently all one: and how does it appear by anything in this testimony that they were not? If among his other high titles of prophetical, apostolical, and most admired of those times, he be also styled bishop of the church of Smyrna in a kind of speech, which the rhetoricians call kar' oxy, for his excellence sake, as being the most famous of all the Smyrnian presbyters; it cannot be proved neither from this nor that other place of Irenæus, that he was therefore in distinct and monarchical order above the other presbyters; it is more probable, that if the whole presbytery had been as renowned as he, they would have termed every one of them severally bishop of Smyrna. Hence it is, that

we read sometimes of two bishops in one place; and had all the presbyters there been of like worth, we might perhaps have read of twenty.

Tertullian accosts us next, (for Polycrates hath had his answer,) whose testimony, state but the question right, is of no more force to deduce episcopacy, than the two former. He says that the church of Smyrna had Folycarpus placed there by John, and the church of Rome, Clement ordained by Peter; and so the rest of the churches did shew what bishops they had received by the appointment of the apostles. None of this will be contradicted, for we have it out of the scripture that bishops, or presbyters, which were the same, were left by the apostles in every church, and they might perhaps give some special charge to Clement, or Polycarpus, or Linus, and put some special trust in them for the expe rience they had of their faith and constancy; it remains yet to be evinced out of this and the like places, which will never be, that the word bishop is otherwise taken than in the language of St. Paul and the Acts for an order above presbyters. We grant them bishops, we grant them worthy men, we grant them placed in several churches by the apostles, we grant that Irenæus and Tertullian affirm this; but that they were placed in a superior order above the presbytery, shew from all these words why we should grant. It is not enough to say the apostle left this man bishop in Rome, and that other in Ephesus; but to shew when they altered their own decree set down by St. Paul, and made all the presbyters underlings to one bishop. But suppose Tertullian had made an imparity where none was originally, should he move us, that goes about to prove an imparity between God the Father and God the Son, as these words import in his book against

On the character of this early Christian writer the reader will find an interesting and eloquent chapter in Father Malbranche's Recherches de la Verité. Milton held him in exceedingly slight estimation, as also will most other persons who consider accurately the history of his life. His writings, however, are curious and useful, though we have outlived the period in which they were regarded with superstitious reverence. Tertullian was a man of strong imagination, but weak judgment, who fuctuated between contrary doctrines, and adopted ultimately the least philosophical system broached by the heretics of the early church. But in an historical inquiry his testimony is of some weight, and accordingly Milton uses it without scruple.-ED.

Praxeas?" The Father is the whole substance, but the Son a derivation, and portion of the whole, as he himself professes, 'Because the Father is greater than me.'" Believe him now for a faithful relater of tradition, whom you see such an unfaithful expounder of the scripture. Besides, in his time, all allowable tradition was now lost. For this same author, whom you bring to testify the ordination of Clement to the bishopric of Rome by Peter, testifies also, in the beginning of his treatise concerning chastity, that the bishop of Rome did then use to send forth his edicts by the name of Pontifex Maximus, and Episcopus Episcoporum, Chief Priest, and Bishop of Bishops: for shame then do not urge that authority to keep up a bishop, that will necessarily engage you to set up a pope. As little can your advantage be from Hegesippus, an historian of the same time, not extant, but cited by Eusebius: his words are, that "in every city all things so stood in his time as the law, and the prophets, and our Lord did preach." If they stood so, then stood not bishops above presbyters; for what our Lord and his disciples taught, God be thanked, we have no need to go learn of him: and you may as well hope to persuade us out of the same author, that James, the brother of our Lord, was a Nazarite, and that to him only it was lawful to enter into the holy of holies; that his food was not upon anything that had life, fish or flesh; that he used no woollen garments, but only linen, and so as he trifles on.

If therefore the tradition of the church were now grown so ridiculous, and disconsenting from the doctrine of the apostles, even in those points which were of least moment to men's particular ends, how well may we be assured it was much more degenerated in point of episcopacy and precedency, things which could afford such plausible pretences, such commodious traverses for ambition and avarice to lurk behind!

As for those Britain bishops which you cite, take heed what you do; for our Britain bishops, less ancient than these, were remarkable for nothing more than poverty, as Sulpitius Severus and Beda can remember you of examples good store.

Lastly, (for the fabulous Metaphrastes is not worth an answer,) that authority of Clemens Alexandrinus is not to be found in all his works; and wherever it be extant, it is in con2 F

VOL. II.

troversy, whether it be Clement's or no; or if it were, it says only that St. John in some places constituted bishops: questionless he did; but where does Clemens say he set them above presbyters? No man will gainsay the constitution of bishops: but the raising them to a superior and distinct order above presbyters, seeing the gospel makes them one and the same thing, a thousand such allegations as these will not give prelatical episcopacy one chapel of ease above a parish church. And thus much for this cloud I cannot say rather than petty fog of witnesses, with which episcopal men would cast a mist before us, to deduce their exal ed episcopacy from apostolic times. Now, although, as all men well know, it be the wonted shift of error, and fond opinion, when they find themselves outlawed by the Bible, and forsaken of sound reason, to betake them with all speed to their old startinghole of tradition, and that wild and overgrown covert of antiquity, thinking to farm there at large room, and find good stabling, yet thus much their own deified antiquity betrays them to inform us, that tradition hath had very seldom or never the gift of persuasion; as that which church histories report of those east and western paschalists, formerly spoken of, will declare. Who would have thought that Polycarpus, on the one side, could have erred in what he saw St. John do? or Anicetus, bishop of Rome, on the other side, in what he or some of his friends might pretend to have seen St. Peter or St. Paul do? and yet neither of these could persuade either when to keep Easter. The like frivolous contention trouble the primitive English churches, while Colmanus and Wilfride on either side deducing their opinions, the one from the undeniable example of St. John, and the learned bishop Anatolius, and lastly the miraculous Columba, the other from St. Peter and the Nicene council, could gain no ground each of other, till king Oswy, perceiving no likelihood of ending the controversy that way, was fain to decide it himself, good king, with that small knowledge wherewith those times had furnished him. So when those pious Greek emperors began, as Cedrenus relates, to put down monks, and abolish images, the old idolaters, finding themselves blasted, and driven back by the prevailing light of the scripture, sent out their sturdy monks, called the Abramites, to allege for images the ancient fathers Dionysius, and this our objected Irenæus; nay, they were so highflown in their antiquity, that they under