centuries. Particular offices
were doubtless instituted and men appointed to them with specific
reference to needs which were making themselves felt. But all the while
that idea of the Church's unity and of her holiness was present in their
thoughts. And certainly as soon as it becomes necessary to insist upon
the duty of loyalty to those who had been duly appointed to office, and
directly or indirectly to defend the institutions themselves, appeal is
made to the idea, as notably by the two chief Christians in the
Sub-Apostolic Age, Clement of Rome and Ignatius.

It is in itself evidence of a common spirit and common tendencies that
broadly speaking the same form of constitution in the local Christian
communities, though not introduced everywhere with quite equal rapidity,
was so nearly everywhere almost on the confines of the Apostolic Age,
and that soon it was everywhere. Ere long, with this form of government
as a basis, plans were adopted expressly for the purpose of uniting the
local Churches on terms of equality among themselves, especially in
combating error. And at length in the name still of the Church's unity
there came, however much we may regret it, the centralisation of Western
Christendom in the See of Rome.

All these measures of organisation, from the earliest to the latest of
them, were means to an end; and we shall regard them differently. But we
ought not any of us to regard means, however they may commend themselves
to us, and however sacred and dear their associations may be, in the
same way as we do the end. There must always be the question, which will
present itself in a different light to different minds, whether
particular means, even though men may have been led by the Holy Spirit
to employ them, were intended for all time. Moreover there are points in
regard to the earliest history of Church organisation which remain
obscure, in spite of all the labour that has been expended in
investigating them: for instance the exact relation of different
ministries, of the functions of different officers, to one another, the
exact moment when the orders of ministers which proved to be permanent
appeared in this or that important Church, the part which any of the
immediate disciples of Christ had in their establishment, the ideas
which at first were held as to the dependence of the rites of the Church
for their validity upon being performed by a lawful ministry. Upon
these matters, or some of them, it is