d our pastors, contemning the law of piety, were,
under the excitement of mutual animosities, fomenting nothing else but
disputes and threatenings and rivalry and reciprocal hostility and
hatred, as they contentiously prosecuted their ambitious designs for
sovereignty." [601:2]

What a change had passed over the Christian commonwealth in the course
of little more than two hundred years! When the Apostle John died, the
city church was governed by the common council of the elders, and their
president simply announced and executed the decisions of his brethren:
now, the president was transformed into a prelate who, by gradual
encroachments, had stripped the presbytery of a large share of its
authority. At the close of the first century the Church of Rome was,
perhaps, less influential than the Church of Ephesus, and the very name
of its moderator at that period is a matter of disputed and doubtful
tradition; but the Diocletian persecution had scarcely terminated when
the bishop of the great metropolis was found sitting in a council in the
palace of the Lateran, and claiming jurisdiction over eight or ten
provinces of Italy! These revolutions were not effected without much
opposition. The strife between the presbyters and the bishops was
succeeded by a general warfare among the possessors of episcopal power,
for the constant moderator of the synod was as anxious to increase his
authority as the constant moderator of the presbytery. About the close
of the third century the Church appears to have been sadly scandalised
by the quarrels of the bishops, and Eusebius accordingly intimates that,
in the reign of terror which so quickly followed, they suffered a
righteous retribution for their misconduct.

Discussions respecting questions of Church polity are often exceedingly
distasteful to persons of contracted views but of genuine piety, for
they cannot understand how the progress of vital godliness can be
influenced by forms of ecclesiastical government. [603:1] About this
period such sentiments were probably not uncommon, and much of the
apathy with which innovations were contemplated may thus be easily
explained. Besides, if the early bishop was a man of ability and
address, his influence in his own church was nearly overwhelming; for as
he was the ordinary, if not the only, preacher, he thus possessed the
most effective means of recommending any favourite scheme, and of giving
a decided tone to public opinion. When a parochi