receive Christ. He speaks rather more explicitly in the Epistle to the Galatians,[784] where, in a comparison between Ishmael and Isaac, he represents many as occupying a place in the Church, who have no right to the inheritance, because they are not the children of a free mother. Hence he proceeds to a contrast of the two Jerusalems, because as the law was given on Mount Sinai, but the gospel came forth from Jerusalem, so many who have been born and educated in bondage, confidently boast of being the children of God and of the Church, and though they are themselves a spurious offspring, look down with contempt on his genuine and legitimate children. But as for us, on the contrary, who have once heard it proclaimed from heaven, “Cast out the bondwoman and her son,” let us confide in this inviolable decree, and resolutely despise their ridiculous pretensions. For if they pride themselves on an external profession, Ishmael also was circumcised. If they depend on antiquity, he was the first born. Yet we see that he was rejected. If the cause of this be inquired, Paul tells us that none are accounted children but those who are born of the pure and legitimate seed of the word.[785] According to this reason, the Lord declares that he is not confined to impious priests, because he had made a covenant with their father Levi to be his angel or messenger.[786] He even retorts on them their false boasting, with which they were accustomed to oppose the prophets, that the dignity of the priesthood ought to be held in peculiar estimation. This he readily admits, and argues with them on this ground, because he was prepared to observe the covenant, whereas they failed of discharging the correspondent obligations, and therefore deserved to be rejected. See, then, what such succession is worth, unless it be connected with a continual imitation and conformity. Without this, the descendants, who are convicted of a departure from their predecessors, must immediately be deprived of all honour; unless, indeed, because Caiaphas was the successor of many pious priests, and there had been an uninterrupted series even from Aaron to him, that execrable assembly be deemed worthy to be called the Church. But it would not be tolerated even in earthly governments, that the tyranny of Caligula, Nero, Heliogabalus, and others, should be called the true state of the republic, because they succeeded the Bruti, the Scipios, and the Camilli. But in regard to the government of the Church, nothing can be more frivolous than to place the succession in the persons, to the neglect of the doctrine. And nothing was further from the intentions of the holy doctors, whose authority they falsely obtrude upon us, than to prove that Churches existed by a kind of hereditary right, wherever there has been a constant succession of bishops. But as it was beyond all doubt that, from the beginning even down to their times, no change had taken place