[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.] SIR,—The Bishop of Gloucester
says that our Lord " did not establish either Presbyterianism or Episcopacy, but He built up His Church on the principles of ministry and dis- cipleship." That is incontestable if by the two words we mean the actual working systems familiar to us.
But the Episcopate is more than this. It is not a precise and uniform working system, for it is patient of much varia- tion. Our Lord did certainly institute the Apostolate, which appears in the pages of the New Testament as an expanding institution ; James, Paul and Barnabas were soon added to the original Twelve, and others make a more obscure appearance. It survives, name and thing, in the Didache, and the Episcopate historically known to us from the time of Ignatius, with considerable variety of , organization, is meaningless if it be not a continuation of that expanding institution.
It was not without reason that in the fourth century Paulinus of Nola could describe the insignificant episcopal seat of Thagaste as sedes apostolica. If this be so, the Episcopate, as distinct from our system of Episcopacy, was established by our Lord.—I am, Sir, &e., T. A. LACEY.
Worcester.
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