THE APOSTOLATE NOT A PARTICULAR CHARGE. 107 prophets, then pastors and teachers," 1 Cor. xii. 28; Eph. iv. 11. Wherefore, St Peter, after he was an apostle, could not well become a bishop; it would be such an irregularity as if a bishop should be made a deacon. 2. The offices of an apostle and of a bishop are not in their nature well consistent: for the apostleship is an extraordinaryoffice, charged with instruction and government of the whole world, and calling for an answerable care; the "apostles being rulers," as St Chrysostom says, " ordained by God ; rulers not taking several nations and cities, but all of them in common intrusted with the whole world; "'but episcopacy is an ordinary standing charge, affixed to one place, and requiring a special attendance there; bishops being pastors, who, as St Chrysostom says, " sit, and are employed, in one place. ' Now, he that has such a general care can hardly discharge such a particu- lar office; and he that is fixed to soparticular attendance can hardly look well after so general a charge. Either of these offices alone would suffice to take up a whole man, as those tell us who have considered the burden incumbent on themeanest of them; the which we may see described in St Chrysostom's discourses concerning the priesthood. Baronius says of St Peter, that " it was his office not to stay in one place, but, as much as it was possible for one man, to travel over the whole world, and to bring those who did not yet believe to the faith, and thoroughly to establish believers."3 If so, hów could he be bishop of Rome, which was an office inconsistent with such vagrancy? 3. It would not have beseemed St Peter, the prime apostle, to as- sume the charge of a particular bishop, it had been a degradation of himself, and a disparagement to the apostolical majesty, for him to take upon him the bishopric of Rome; as if the king should become mayor of London, as if the bishop of London should be vicar of Paneras. 4. Wherefore it is not likely that St Peter, being sensible of that superior charge belonging to him, which exacted a more extensive care, would vouchsafe to undertake an inferior charge. We cannot conceive that St Peter affected the name of a bishop, as now men do, allured by thebaits of wealth and power, which then were none [not in existence]. If he affected the title, why did he ' 'Amami; eiory ú4ró 7oû eeoV xerporovnAÉ47EÇ ai i, ó47,.b,' ápxovmeç oún L', nee) ,róXs4 Sramápous Xa(cßávovmóÇ, ,Zxxic ,'447e, norvñ ,r6 olnavizivnv ipegr çmeug ,,,,. Chrys., tom. viii. p. 115. 2 01 xesatoera nai ,refi `ára 7ó4m4 r',vxoxniziva. Chrys. in Eph. iv. 11. s Non erat ejus officii in uno loco consistere, sed quantum homini licuisset Universum peragrare orbem, et nondum credentes ad fidem perducere, credentes vero in fide penitus stabilire.Baron., Ann. lviii., § Si .
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