of one bishop, and that people were inured to such phrases as these, the church of Antioch, the church of Cesarea, the church of Constantinople, and the church of the bishop of Antioch, &c. the word continued to be so applied, notwithstanding the change of circumstances, in consequence of which many congregations came to be included. This paved the way for extending still farther the import of the term, and employing it, in the singular number, to denote all the churches of a province under the same metropolitan, or even one or more kingdoms under the same patriarch.

It may not, however, be improper to remark, that for several ages there remained here and there the traces of the footing on which things had formerly stood. In small and distant towns and villages, wherein bishops had been planted, and whereof the circumjacent country was but thinly peopled, the charge, even after the conversion of all the inhabitants, remained undivided, and the bishop was still no more than what every bishop was primitively, the pastor of a single congregation, with his assistant presbyters and deacons. But these changes, in process of time, gave place to still greater. When the division of ancient parishes, which I shall henceforth call dioceses, became universal, the principal reason for confining them within moderate bounds entirely ceased, and motives of interest and ambition operated the contrary way without controul. The immediate dependance of the people, and even of the clergy, upon the bishop, and the connexion of ninety-nine parts in a hundred of the diocese with the bishop's church, formerly the parish church, now the cathedral, being totally dissolved, and the people more commodiously supplied in every part of the religious services, worship, sacraments and teaching, by those tituli, now called parish churches, newly erected, there needed no more to abolish the presbytery, whose principal use subsisted no longer. The diocese accordingly underwent a new division into deaneries, so named from their including at first ten parishes, or ten presbyters in each, though they did not long confine themselves to that number. The president, called decanus, the dean, is properly an archpresbyter, such as anciently, in the bishop's absence, presided in the presbytery. The deanery of the cathedral, consisting

of the clergy whose duty it is to perform there the sacred service and to preach, is denominated capitulum, the chapter, being, as it were, the head of the clergy of the diocese. But the rural deaneries, as they answered little purpose, have, in most places, gone into disuse. The presbyters, who under the dean officiated in the mother church, came to be distinguished from the parochial clergy by the titles of prebendaries and canons. The former name they derived from the appointments called prebends, to which they were entitled; the latter, from the regulations to which they were subjected. The chapter served instead of the presbytery in matters of election, not only in electing the inferior officers, but in supplying vacancies, in concurrence with the bishop, in the prebends or canonries and deanship; nay, that they anciently, on the decease or translation of the bishop, elected his successor, the conge d'elire, still in use in England, though now no better than a form, is a standing evidence. They had the superintendency of the fabric, with the goods and ornaments belonging to the cathedral, and were also guardians of what is now called the spiritualties of the bishopric, when the see was

vacant.

In regard to the episcopal jurisdiction, which extended over the whole diocese, the chapter, consisting only of the clergy of the cathedral, could not be considered as a proper council. In the bishop's court of judicature, denominated the consistory, his counsellors and assessors in judgment when he was present, and delegates in his absence, were those called archdeacons. The archdeacon was originally of the order of deacons, as the name imports. There was but one of them in a diocese. He presided among those of his own order; was a constant attendant upon the bishop; and was considered as his prime minister. But some time after the partition of dioceses became very general, particularly after the country bishops were, through a jealousy that they would lessen the dignity of the order, suppressed by canon, and their parishes annexed to those of the next city bishops, it was found convenient to elect those delegates, the archdeacons, from the order of the presbyters, and to have more or fewer in a diocese, according to its extent. Through the

influence of custom, in opposition to propriety, the name archdeacon was retained. The diocese was accordingly divided into archdeaconries, and these subdivided into deaneries, not unlike the division of counties that obtains in England into hundreds and tithings. It was then judged expedient to invest archdeacons with a share of episcopal jurisdiction, both in temporals and in spirituals, within their archdeaconries, where they perform regular visitations, like the bishops, hold spiritual courts, either in person or by their deputies, called officials, and are accounted dignitaries. The only acts peculiar to the bishop are confirming and ordaining.

I have been the more particular in this deduction, in order to give at once a faint sketch of the model which, in a great measure, still subsists in England and Ireland, and among the secular clergy of the church of Rome. The variations, indeed, are considerable, which the influence of time and local customs have produced in different places. A perfect uniformity in these things is not to be expected.-We are now arrived at the second step of the hierarchy, when prelacy or diocesan episcopacy succeeded the parochial, and began generally to prevail.

LECTURE IX.

In my last lecture I traced the origin of prelacy, or diocesan episcopacy. I shall now, ere I proceed, for the further illustration of the subject, contrast the two methods that might naturally be supposed to have suggested themselves, upon the great revolution in circumstances which the establishment of Christianity by the imperial laws, and the numerous conversions from paganism consequent thereon, occasioned in the church. There was then, indeed, an absolute necessity to make a considerable alteration in the arrangement which had subsisted formerly, in order that such multitudes of people might be supplied with pastors, and with the ordinances of religion. One way of answering this end was to attempt anew the division of Christian countries into such parishes as were no more than necessary for affording each a sufficient congregation, and to give each, as formerly, its own bishop, presbyters, and deacons, independently of every other parish. In this way, indeed, there would have been vast alterations made on the territories and local extent of pastoral charges, which would have had the appearance of dispossessing, in a great measure, those then actually in office; but the form, as well as the spirit of the model adopted in the second century, would have remained: And, indeed, this was the only possible method whereby it could have remained unimpaired.

The other way was, to preserve the same division of territory that had been made so long before, and which the people through custom were brought to regard as sacred; to continue the same nominal parishes in the same hands, but, in order also to accommodate the parishioners without overloading the pastors, to increase the number of the presbyters, and, as they could not now all convene in one place, to erect a sort of subordinate chapels or churches, (a thing in the two first centuries probably not conceived); to affix to each, in subordination to the prelate, its proper presbyter, who in most things was to be, in respect of this smaller parish, what the bishop had been in respect of the larger parish whereof it

was a part. If the former of these methods suited more the primitive constitution of the church, the latter (which in fact was adopted) was more accommodated to the natural bent of the imagination. It had the appearance of paying a proper regard to ancient land-marks, of accommodating the people without injuring individuals, by stripping them both of the titles and of the territories which had been immemorially possessed by them and their predecessors.

Besides, though the accession of proselytes to the Christian cause was both great and sudden on the establishment of Christianity as the religion of the empire, there had been a real, though more gradual accession, for centuries before. And as this, through its being gradual, had never given rise to any new division, but, perhaps, in a few distant places, to the erection of country parishes, under the care of those called chorepiscopi, or to the addition of some presbyters to the bishop's council, they would be prepared by custom to adopt the second method rather than the first. I have hinted already, that both interest and ambition pointed to the same conduct. I might add another thing, which has no inconsiderable influence on our apprehensions of fitness, that a certain analogy to the civil government would also contribute to recommend this plan. How far this principle operated on the advancement of the hierarchy to the grandeur which in process of time it attained, as it is admitted by every judicious and candid historian, shall be evinced more fully in the sequel.

Thus a circumstance in itself merely accidental, and which we have reason to think was not regarded as of any moment by the first publishers of the gospel, namely, the extent of territory that was necessary for affording converts enow to make a congregation; this circumstance, I say, aided by some concurring causes, proved the secret source of that total change, in respect to government, which the church in a few ages after underwent. Some of those concurrent causes have been explained already, and we shall have occasion to investigate others of them as we proceed. But that we may, if possible, be more fully satisfied of the truth of the foregoing remark in regard to the rise of the dioceses, comprehending many congregations out of parishes, which, though generally