Besides these magisterial employments in the Church;namely,apostles,bishops,elders,pastors,and doctors,whose calling was to proclaim Christ to the Jews and infidels,and to direct and teach those that believed,we read in the New Testament of no other.For by the names of evangelists and prophets is not signified any office,but several gifts by which several men were profitable to the Church:as evangelists,by writing the life and acts of our Saviour;such as were St.Matthew and St.John Apostles,and St.
Mark and St.Luke Disciples,and whosoever else wrote of that subject (as St.Thomas and St.Barnabas are said to have done,though the Church have not received the books that have gone under their names);and as prophets,by the gift of interpreting the Old Testament,and sometimes by declaring their special revelations to the Church.For neither these gifts,nor the gifts of languages,nor the gift of casting out devils,nor of curing other diseases,nor anything else did make an officer in the save only the due calling and election to the charge of teaching.
As the Apostles Matthias,Paul,and Barnabas were not made by our Saviour himself,but were elected by the Church,that is,by the assembly of Christians;namely,Matthias by the church of Jerusalem,and Paul and Barnabas by the church of Antioch;so were also the presbyters and pastors in other cities,elected by the churches of those cities.For proof whereof,let us consider,first,how St.
Paul proceeded in the ordination of presbyters in the cities where he had converted men to the Christian faith,immediately after he and Barnabas had received their apostleship.We read that "they ordained elders in every church";which at first sight may be taken for an argument that they themselves chose and gave them their authority:but if we consider the original text,it will be manifest that they were authorized and chosen by the assembly of the Christians of each city.For the words there are cheirotonesantes autois presbuterous kat ekklesian,that is,"when they had ordained them elders by the holding up of hands in every congregation."Now it is well enough known that in all those cities the manner of choosing magistrates and officers was by plurality of suffrages;and,because the ordinary way of distinguishing the affirmative votes from the negatives was by holding up of hands,to ordain an officer in any of the cities was no more but to bring the people together to elect them by plurality of votes,whether it were by plurality of elevated hands,or by plurality of voices,or plurality of balls,or beans,or small stones,of which every man cast in one,into a vessel marked for the affirmative or negative;for diverse cities had diverse customs in that point.It was therefore the assembly that elected their own elders:the Apostles were only presidents of the assembly to call them together for such election,and to pronounce them elected,and to give them the benediction,which now is called consecration.
And for this cause they that were presidents of the assemblies,as in the absence of the Apostles the elders were,were called proestotes and in Latin antistites;which words signify the principal person of the assembly,whose office was to number the votes,and to declare thereby who was chosen;and where the votes were equal,to decide the matter in question by adding his own which is the office of a president in council.And,because all the churches had their presbyters ordained in the same manner,where the word is constitute,as ina katasteses kata polin presbuterous,"For this cause left I thee in Crete,that thou shouldest constitute elders in every city,"we are to understand the same thing;namely,that he should call the faithful together,and ordain them presbyters by plurality of suffrages.It had been a strange thing if in a town where men perhaps had never seen any magistrate otherwise chosen than by an assembly,those of the town,becoming Christians,should so much as have thought on any other way of election of their teachers and guides,that is to say,of their presbyters (otherwise called bishops),than this of plurality of suffrages,intimated by St.Paul in the word cheirotonesantes.Nor was there ever any choosing of bishops,before the emperors found it necessary to regulate them in order to the keeping of the peace amongst them,but by the assemblies of the Christians in every several town.
The same is also confirmed by the continual practice even to this day in the election of the bishops of Rome.For if the bishop of any place had the right of choosing another to the succession of the pastoral office,in any city,at such time as he went from thence to plant the same in another place;much more had he had the right to appoint his successor in that place in which he last resided and died:
and we find not that ever any bishop of Rome appointed his successor.For they were a long time chosen by the people,as we may see by the sedition raised about the election between Damasus and Ursinus;which Ammianus Marcellinus saith was so great that Juventius the Praefect,unable to keep the peace between them,was forced to go out of the city;and that there were above a hundred men found dead upon that occasion in the church itself.And though they afterwards were chosen,first,by the whole clergy of Rome,and afterwards by the cardinals;yet never any was appointed to the succession by his predecessor.If therefore they pretended no right to appoint their own successors,I think I may reasonably conclude they had no right to appoint the successors of other bishops without receiving some new power;which none could take from the Church to bestow on them,but such as had a lawful authority,not only to teach,but to command the Church,which none could do but the civil sovereign.
