rmanence in the Church of a spiritually-endowed
'stewardship of divine mysteries' received continually by the original
method of the laying on of hands in succession from apostolic men. The
necessity for each individual Christian to remain in relation to these
commissioned stewards if he wishes to continue to be of the divine
household, has kept men together in one body. And any one who looks at
St. Paul's method of imparting spiritual authority {169} and office to
Timothy and Titus, and directing them in their turn to hand it on by
ordaining others, can scarcely doubt that he contemplated the
institution in the Church of a permanent ministry deriving its
authority from above.

How, in fact, did the later church ministry connect itself with that
which we find existing in the apostolic age? The apostolic ministry
divides itself broadly into the general and the local. There are
'ministers' or 'stewards' who are officers of the church catholic and
have a general commission. Such general commission belonged, of
course, to the apostles, though mutual delimitations were arranged
among themselves and though St. James, who ranked with the apostles,
was settled at Jerusalem. It belonged also, more or less, to
'evangelists' and other 'apostolic men,' who, however, might be
temporarily located in particular churches and districts, like Timothy
in Ephesus, and Titus in Crete. It belonged also to the prophets, who
would have been recognized as men inspired of God in all the churches,
and who in the subapostolic age are found in some districts exercising
functions like those of the apostles in the first age. The local
officers, on the other hand, were the presbyters, who are called also
bishops, and the {170} deacons. With this earliest state of things in
our mind, we shall perceive that where an apostle or apostolic man was
permanently resident in one particular church, a threefold ministry,
like that of later church history already existed. So it was at
Jerusalem where the presbyters and deacons were presided over by St.
James. So it was in Crete under Titus, and in Ephesus under Timothy.
So it was a few decades later in all the churches of Asia as organized
by St. John. In other parts of the world the exact method by which the
ministry developed is a matter of much dispute. But it seems to the
present writer most probable that everywhere the threefold ministry
came into existence by (1) a change of arrangement, and (2