at the names of bishop and presbyter are in Scripture used
indiscriminately to denote the holder of the same office; second, that
the only office-bearers of permanent divine appointment in the church
are the pastor, the doctor, the elder, and the deacon. In fact, at the
head of Calvin's Ordonnances Ecclesiastiques, drawn up, if not printed,
as early as 1541, we find the following: "Il y a quatre ordres d'offices
que notre Seigneur a institue pour le gouvernment de son eglise,
premierement les pasteurs, puis les docteurs, apres les ancients,
quatrement les diacres," which passed substantially into the Book of
Common Order in 1556. This being the case, we are not guilty of any
anachronism in attributing substantially presbyterian opinions to our
reformer, even if we have to grant that the particular church court
first known as the greater eldership or presbytery, and now exclusively
enjoying the title of presbytery, existed at that time only in a
rudimentary form.

[Sidenote: Superintendents temporary.]

The Book of Common Order of 1556 is the earliest authentic document
casting light on the opinions of our reformers respecting the government
and discipline of the church. The introductory part of the book treats
at length of the permanent office-bearers of the church, the manner of
their election, the duties of their respective offices, and the
assemblies they were to hold in common for government and discipline.
The enumeration of the office-bearers and the description of their
duties is quite in harmony with what the Books of Discipline
subsequently laid down. The office-bearers recognised are the minister,
the elder, the deacon, and the doctor; and the duties assigned to each
are such as have generally been allotted to these functionaries in the
presbyterian churches. The terms in which the last-named of them is
referred to are specially deserving of notice. They effectually close a
loophole, that might otherwise have been imagined to be left, for the
introduction of either bishop or superintendent as an essential and
ordinary office-bearer in the church on the pretext that, even if he
were so, he could be of little use in the single English congregation at
Geneva.[183] "Wee are not ignorant," it is said, "that the Scriptures
make mention of a fourth kind of ministers left to the church of Christ,
which also are verie profitable where time and place doth permit; but
for lack of opportunity in this our dispersion and e