of a later date than
the First Epistle to the Corinthians. The Epistle to the Philippians
contains internal evidence that it was dictated during Paul's first
imprisonment at Rome; the Epistle to the Hebrews appeared after his
liberation; and the First Epistle of Peter was written in the old age of
the apostle of the circumcision. [527:3] Nor is this even the full
amount of his testimony to the antiquity of the presbyterian polity. On
another occasion, after mentioning some of the texts which have been
given, he goes on to make quotations from the Second and Third Epistles
of John--which are generally dated towards the close of the first
century [527:4]--and he declares that prelacy had not made its
appearance when these letters were written. Having produced authorities
from Paul and Peter, he exclaims--"Do the testimonies of such men seem
small to you? Let the Evangelical Trumpet, the Son of Thunder, whom
Jesus loved very much, who drank the streams of doctrine from the bosom
of the Saviour, sound in your ears--'The _elder_, unto the elect lady
and her children, whom I love in the truth;' [528:1] and, in another
epistle--'The _elder_ to the very dear Caius, whom I love in the truth.'
[528:2] But _what was done afterwards_, when one was elected who was set
over the rest, was _for a cure of schism_; lest every one, insisting
upon his own will, should rend the Church of God." [528:3]

We have already seen [528:4] that extant documents, written about the
close of the first century and the middle of the second, bear similar
testimony as to the original constitution of the Church. The "Epistle of
Clement to the Corinthians" cannot be dated earlier than the termination
of the reign of Domitian, for it refers to a recent persecution, [528:5]
it describes the community to which it in addressed as "most ancient,"
it declares that others now occupied the places of those who had been
ordained by the apostles, and it states that this second generation of
ministers had been _long_ in possession of their ecclesiastical charges.
[528:6] Candid writers, of almost all parties, acknowledge that this
letter distinctly recognizes the existence of government by presbyters.
[528:7] The evidence of the letter of Polycarp [528:8] is not less
explicit. Jerome, therefore, did not speak without authority when he
affirmed that prelacy was established after the days of the apostles,
and as an antidote against schism.

The apostolic Church was comp