merely personal to the Apostles, our Saviour promises to be with them and their successors in the execution of this commission, "even unto the end of the world." .... This commission the Apostles and their successors exercised in all places, and even in opposition to the Rulers that then were; so that the Church subsisted as a distinct society from the state, for above three hundred years, when the civil government was only concerned to suppress and destroy it. Indeed when the Church received the benefit of incorporation and protection from the state, she was content to suffer some limitations as to the exercise of these powers, and thought herself sufficiently recompensed by the advantages that accrued to her by the incorporation.
Kettlewell, Presbyter and Confessor.—Practical Believer, ii. 6.
Question. There remains yet one instance of the Communion of the Primitive Christians, mentioned by St. Luke, viz. their "continuing in the Apostles' fellowship." (Acts ii. 42.) I pray you what is meant by that?
Answer. Owning their authority and continuing under their government. They were appointed by Christ, as His deputies, to govern His Church; and, therefore, to adhere to them, as the delegates of Christ, is called living " in their fellowship."
Q. But how can we live in their fellowship, and adhere to their government, now they are dead?
A. By adhering to and owning the authority of our own Bishops, who are their successors, and rule the Church in their stead.
Hicks, Bishop and Confessor.—Treatise on the Episcopal Order, § 2.
Can you, Sir, when you consider that Bishops are appointed to succeed the Apostles, and, like them, to stand in Christ's place, and exercise their kingly, priestly, and prophetical office over their flocks; can you, when you consider this, think it novel, or improper, or uncouth, to call them spiritual princes, and their dioceses principalities?—when they have every thing in their
