Constitution of the Early Church
Dean Stanley once remarked that the most learned of all the living bishops of England (Dr. Lightfoot) has, with his characteristic moderation and erudition, proved beyond dispute, in a celebrated essay attached to his edition of “St. Paul’s Epistle to the Philippians,” that the early council of the Apostolic churches of the first century was not that of a single bishop, but of a body of pastors indifferently styled bishops or presbyters, and that it was not till the very end of the apostolic age that the office which we now call Episcopacy gradually and surely made its way into the churches of Asia Minor; that Presbytery was not a later growth out of Episcopacy, but that Episcopacy was a later growth out of Presbytery; that the office which the apostles instituted was a kind of rule, not of bishops, but of presbyters; and that even down to the third century presbyters as well as bishops possessed the power of nominating and consecrating bishops.