Is it not difficult to reconcile one's mind to the thought that these men who ruled the Catholic Church for three centuries were the viceregents of God on earth? Or that through them a divine authority and a divine mission has been transmitted to later and happier times? To do so one would be under the necessity of maintaining that no amount of immorality, however infamous, can possibly disqualify men from acting as God's representatives. And such a position would be contrary to all the evidence of scripture, as well as revolting to sound reason. Footnotes 1. Compare Luke x with Matt. x. 2. Acts xiv: 23. Acts xx: 17, 28. 3. Phillip i: 1. I Tim. iii. This also is the view of Clement of Rome who, in writing to the Corinthians in the third century, says of the apostles: "So preaching everywhere in country and town, they appointed their first fruits when they had proved them by the spirit, to be bishops and deacons unto them that should believe. And this they did do in no new fashion; for indeed it had been written concerning bishops and deacons from very ancient times; for thus saith the scriptures in a certain place: 'I will appoint their bishops in righteousness and their deacons in faith.'" 4. Eph. iv. 5. I Cor. xii. 6. Eph. iv. 7. Eph. iv. 8. "Ibid." 9. In this connection it may be observed that the vacancy in the quorum of the Twelve, occasioned by the apostasy of Judas, was filled (Acts i: 24-26). Paul, too, though not in the original Twelve was an Apostle, and so subscribes himself in nearly all his letters. Clement of Alexandria, an elder and writer of the second century, calls Clement of Rome, the "Apostle Clement." Though whether this is meant in a rather loose sense or because he had been ordained such by one of the apostles--for he was an associate of both Peter and Paul--does not appear. (Philip iv: 3.) 10. See epistle of Clement to the Corinthians. 11. Mosheim's Eccl. Hist., Cent. iv, Bk. ii, Part ii, ch. ii. See also his remarks on the government of the church in Cent. iii and ii. 12. The bishops of Jerusalem, in the 5th century, also contended for and at last secured the title of Patriarch. (Mosheim's E. Inst., Cent. v, Part ii, ch. ii.) 13. Mosheim's Eccl. Inst., Cent. iii, Part ii, ch. ii. 14. See pp. 21, 22. 15. Schlegel among them. 16. Mosheim's Eccl. Inst., Cent. iv, Part ii, ch. ii. 17. Intellectual Development of Europe, Vol. i, p. 359. Draper remarks also that "the children arising from these associations do not appear to have occasioned any extraordinary scandal."--_Ibid_. 18. The above quotation is taken from the third and fourth books on "The Providence of God," by Salvian. 19. Such are the representations of Caesar Baronius, a Catholic historian of the 16th century. He was a candidate for the papacy in 1605, and hence his devotion to the Catholic church cannot be doubted. 20. Milner's Ch. Hist., vol. III, Cent. x, ch. i. 21. Intellectual Development of Europe, Vol. i, pp. 378-382. CHAPTER V.