VIII. In calling those who preside over Churches by the appellations of bishops, elders, pastors, and ministers, without any distinction, I have followed the usage of the Scripture, which applies all these terms to express the same meaning. For to all who discharge the ministry of the word, it gives the title of “bishops.” So when Paul enjoins Titus to “ordain elders in every city,” he immediately adds, “For a bishop must be blameless.”[821] So in another Epistle he salutes more bishops than one in one Church.[822] And in the Acts he is declared to have sent for the elders of the Church of Ephesus, whom, in his address to them, he calls “bishops.”[823] Here it must be observed, that we have enumerated only those offices which consist in the ministry of the word; nor does Paul mention any other in the fourth chapter of the Epistle to the Ephesians, which we have quoted. But in the Epistle to the Romans, and the First Epistle to the Corinthians, he enumerates others, as “powers,” “gifts of healing,” “interpretation of tongues,” “governments,” “care of the poor.”[824] Those functions which were merely temporary, I omit, as foreign to our present subject. But there are two which perpetually remain—“government,” and “the care of the poor.” “Governors” I apprehend to have been persons of advanced years, selected from the people, to unite with the bishops in giving admonitions and exercising discipline. For no other interpretation can be given of that injunction, “He that ruleth, let him do it with diligence.”[825] Therefore, from the beginning, every Church has had its senate or council, composed of pious, grave, and holy men, who were invested with that jurisdiction in the correction of vices, of which we shall soon treat. Now, that this regulation was not of a single age, experience itself demonstrates. This office of government is necessary, therefore, in every age.