SERMONS. 331 



hy.Xn(rfocv in the Acts* the same with II^f(rj3uTf^oi 

 xocra, TToKiv in the text ;) and yet further, that they 

 left the churches of inferior cities and their 

 Bishops in dependance upon the metropolis, 

 which were the chief according to the civil divi- 

 sion, (and that the only true ground of the supe- 

 riority of one church above another,) hath been 

 rendered as manifest as any thing almost in the 

 ecclesiastical antiquity, against all adversaries, 

 (both those of the hills and those of the lake too,) 

 by the learned and well placed labours of those 

 excellent persons in both pages of the diptychs, 

 whom I shall not need to name, since their own 

 works praise them in the gate. Now, I would 

 ask the question. If these be common Presbyters, 

 why appropriated to cities ? Were there to be 

 none of this sort in the villages, or in the country 

 about? Or, since limited to cities, why should 

 we not pronounce them Bishops ? the city being 

 the Bishop's proper seat, and he the star of that 

 orb, the angel and the intelligence of that sphere. 

 A truth so visible, that Calvin, and Beza, and 

 many others after them, (so far may persons 

 otherwise of great learning be transported h ru> 

 ^aXiuetv \j7ro^i(ret,) to avoid the inconvenience, were 

 concerned to translate Kara ttoKiv here oppidatim, 

 (Elders in every Town :) not, as some others, less 

 interested persons, may perhaps be thought to 

 have done, to gain the advantage of that distribu- 



* Act. xiv. 24. and xvi. 4, 5. 



