Apostles, invested with the plenitude of that royal Priesthood which the Son of God had set up on the earth in His own Person, and from that Person had communicated to His chosen disciples, and so possessed of whatever authority was necessary to govern the Church. Thus spoke a fresh and unbroken tradition, so universal and so unquestionable that no other voice was heard beside. Thus the Episcopal power may be safely recognised as of divine appointment: in truth it is scarcely possible to have stronger evidence than we have of this. One of the most learned of those who are opposed to us on the charge of schism, thus sums up the decisions "of all the Fathers and all the Councils of the first ages." "The Bishop represents Christ, and stands in his place on earth. As therefore the Priesthood of Christ embraces all sacerdotal authority and complete power to feed the flock, so that while we may indeed distinguish and define the various powers included in that fullness and perfection, yet it is a great crime to dissever and rend them in any way from each other, just as we distinguish without dividing the attributes and perfections of the Godhead itself; so the Episcopate in its own nature contains the fullness of the Priesthood, and the perfection of the Pastoral office. For Christ received the perfection of the Priesthood from His Father, when He was sent by Him. Moreover the perfection of the Priesthood, or both the Episcopal powers, (_i.e._ the Sacerdotal and the Pastoral,) He gave at once to His Apostles when he sent them as He himself was sent by the Father. Lastly, that same perfection they transmitted to Bishops, sending them as they themselves were sent by Christ." "Whence Bishops are Fathers by the most noble participation of divine Fathership which is on earth; so that here that expression of Paul is true--'From whom every Fathership in heaven and earth is named.' For no greater Fathership is there on the earth than the Apostolical and the Episcopal." _Thomassin_, Part I. Liv. i. ch. 2.