monize with our notions of Him derived from these memorials. It should seem, therefore, if we judge by the contents of the Gospels, that for some reason or other, not revealed to us, Jesus had hitherto abstained from entering with any minuteness into the mechanical means by which his Church was to be constructed, or into the peculiar functions which his disciples would have to discharge in accomplishing this great object when He should be gone away. Perhaps they were not yet prepared for these intricate details: the old bottles might have been burst by communications involving the prospect of such vast exertions, such endless anxieties, such persevering pains, such elaborate arrangements. Perhaps the eve of the outpouring of the Spirit was to be waited for till this step could be taken with safety.

We perceive that after the departure of Jesus, and even after the Holy Ghost had been given, the minds of the disciples opened very gradually, and even reluctantly, to some practical truths. Still it seems scarcely reasonable to suppose, that Jesus would withdraw Himself finally and for ever, leaving a work so stupendous on their hands as the ecclesiastical provision for the world's wants, and not acquaint them with the plan on which He intended it to proceed, the line of operations by which they were to realize and carry into act his commission. Certainly it is remarkable, that when Moses had to be prepared for the practical office of establishing and spreading amongst the Israelites the Law, he was admitted to more intimate communion with the Deity for forty days and nights previously; and that in like manner the disciples, the heralds of the Gospel, and few or none besides, should have had the privilege of consorting with Jesus, who now walked the earth in a more mystical form than before, and hearing Him "give these commandments," and "speak of the things pertaining to the kingdom of God," for pre

cisely the same period before their ministerial mission. What "those commandments" might be, what "things pertaining to the kingdom of God" might comprise, we cannot positively affirm; but we may conjecture, as I have said, that on the eve of his bidding them farewell, Jesus would be naturally disposed to instruct them in the immediate duties before them in greater detail; the discipline they were to establish, no less than the doctrines they were to unfold; God having done the same by Moses in the former dispensation-a conjecture the more probable from our actually discovering, as we have seen, that the disciples, immediately after his ascension, were carrying on their work in a far more systematic manner than they had ever done before it: laying down details with a precision quite unusual with them when formerly preaching in Galilee and Judæa, and evidently possessed of a stock of principles and rules by which to guide themselves, from whatever quarter derived, but little manifested as yet. Perhaps we may find some confirmation of the conjecture that it was during this interval of forty days that our Lord unfolded more minutely the instructions by which they were to be governed in rearing his House, if we consider the peculiar character of the few transactions which transpire in the course of it. During that period Jesus wrought one miracle; but the choice of that one shows that it was meant to be significant; and so it is considered by the early Christian writers. At the very beginning of Jesus' ministry, when He summoned his principal disciples to attend on Him, and become partakers in his great work, it was by a figurative action, by the miracle of the fishes, that He called them,a figurative action, the sense of which cannot be mistaken, since it is interpreted by our Lord Himself: "I will make you fishers of men." In the same spirit, after his resurrection, and when now they had to be prepared for a more

enlarged and laborious mission, He encouraged them by another miracle, the only one He now wrought, of precisely the same kind; and bidding them cast their net into the sea, which hitherto they had done in vain the night through, they were not able to draw it for fishes. Nay, the very number, an hundred, fifty and three, has been thought to have its latent meaning; and being supposed to comprehend all the different species in the lake, became itself an allegory. Again, it was now that Jesus charged St. Peter, still in anticipation of the task he was on the eve of commencing, over and over again, to "Feed his sheep." It was now that He showed Himself to James alone, the future Bishop of Jerusalem itself: an interview betokening the Lord's confidence in this disciple; and a distinction which could not fail to command the attention of those who elected him to that high function. It was now that Jesus gave the disciples their full commission, "As my Father hath sent me, so send I you," and, breathing on them, added, "Receive ye the Holy Ghost; whose soever sins ye remit, they are remitted unto them; and whose soever sins ye retain, they are retained;" the fiat through which the consecration of the ministry has derived its force ever since. All these are incidents, not having respect to the personal holiness or personal edification of the parties Jesus was addressing, but to their position and office, as master-builders of that Church which henceforth it was to be their business to rear up in the world. And it seems not impossible, that a communication which our Lord is reported by Clemens Romanus to have had with his disciples actually on the very subject of Church discipline and orders, a communication not reported in the Canonical Scriptures, and which must have been imparted to Clemens by those who shared in it, or by those who received it from them— occurred during this remarkable period. "Our Apostles,"

says he, "knew by our Lord Jesus Christ that contention would arise on account of the Episcopate. For which cause, having perfect foreknowledge, they appointed persons (over the Churches), as we have already intimated, and then gave direction that on their death, other approved men should succeed to their ministration." Clemens being evidently under the impression that the organization of the Church, as well as its doctrine, fell within the contemplation of our Lord, and that provision was made for it according to his suggestions. The scope of these suggestions (if such they were) will be yet more fully distinguished by the results; by the next stage of the proceedings of the Church. And accordingly, having now endeavoured to explore the depths of its history, the crypts over which the fabric eventually arose—having attained a resting-place, and landed our subject on the level which the close of the first Whit-Sunday presentsprobably the 24th of May, A.D. 33-a date much to be remembered; for if it be a season of just rejoicing when the first stone is laid of a parish church made with hands, and if the ceremonial on that occasion is impressive and solemn, how much more when the living stones of the universal Spiritual Church were first set, an Apostle himself the basement, and the Holy Ghost visibly taking possession, and consecrating the structure;-having arrived, I say, at this point, let us pause a moment, and then address ourselves to the progress of this new society thus introduced into the world, and destined to have such wonderful effects on it, developing, as well as we can, those passages in Scripture, and more especially in the Acts of the Apostles, which furnish for the present the chief materials for the further prosecution of our History.

1 Clemens Rom. § 44.

CHAPTER II.

Apostolical Teaching, Ecclesiastical and Theological.-Epistles of Ignatius. Early existence of a Creed or Rule of Faith.-The several Orders of the Hierarchy.-The Fund provided for the Church.-Liturgical Services.-The Holy Communion.-Mar

riage.

THE brief yet pregnant account which we have of the conduct and carriage of this new society on its first establishment is this-"they continued stedfastly in the doctrine of the Apostles, and in the fellowship, and in the breaking of the bread, and in the prayers." What state of things then does this intimation imply? What picture of the early Church does it exhibit, when held up advantageously to the light? 1. "They continued stedfastly in the Apostles' doctrine." One of our Lord's injunctions to his disciples had been, not merely to baptize their converts (which in the present instance they had already done, instructing us that no efflux of the Spirit, even such as that at Pentecost on the parties, was a substitute for this Sacrament, which, and which alone, was ordained to place them in a new relation to God, cancelling their sins, original and actual), but also to teach them to observe all things whatsoever He had commanded them.' The compass of subject which this injunction embraces, for it is evidently wide, and the exact manner in which it was obeyed, for it is as evidently complicated, is in some degree matter for conjecture. Certainly several years

1 Matt. xxviii. 20.