It was in the Pontificate of _Sylvester_, and under the benign Auspices of _Constantine_, that the Ecclesiastical Hierarchy was first formed and settled in the Manner it continues to this Day; the new Form of Government, introduced by that Prince into the State, serving as a Model for the Government of the Church. In the Three first Centuries no other Hierarchy was known, no other Degrees thought of, but those of Bishops, Presbyters, and Deacons. Of these alone was composed the whole Body of the Clergy; but with this Difference, that the Bishop or Supervisor was the general Disposer and Manager of all Things within the Bounds of his Jurisdiction, nothing being done there without his Consent and Approbation, and the Presbyters and Deacons his Assistants, or his Counsellors and Senate, as St. _Jerom_[588], and before him St. _Ignatius_[589], styled them. This Order was probably introduced, according to _Grotius_[590], in Imitation of the _Jewish_ Synagogues; for each Synagogue had its Ruler, who presided over the rest, its Pastors, and its Eleemosynaries; to the Ruler succeeded the Bishop, to the Pastors the Presbyters, and to the Eleemosynaries the Deacons. [Sidenote: _The Office and Duty of Bishops._] It was the Bishop’s Office and Duty to preach the Word[591], to pray with his People[592] to administer the Sacraments[593], to ordain Ministers[594], to excommunicate Offenders[595], to absolve Penitents[596], and to regulate and settle every thing relating to his particular Church[597], with the Consent and Concurrence of the Presbytery; for the Presbyters were his Counsellors or Senate, and, together with him, presided in the Consistories of those Times, as we learn from _Tertullian_ telling us, that in those Courts _approved Elders presided_[598]. Hence _Petrus de Marca_ concludes the original Government of the Church to have been mixt of Monarchy and Aristocracy; or, to use his own Words, the Monarchical Government of the Church to have been tempered with the Aristocratical. As the Bishop could not discharge, as he ought, the above-mentioned Functions, without residing among those who were committed to his Care, his Residence was deemed absolutely necessary, and Non-residence a most heinous Transgression; insomuch that St. _Cyprian_, enumerating the Sins that brought the Wrath of God upon the Church in the bloody Persecution of _Decius_, mentions Non-residence in the Bishops as one[599]. [Sidenote: _How chosen, and ordained._] Upon the Vacancy of a See a new Bishop was chosen in the room of the deceased in some Places by the Clergy and People of that Church alone, in others by the neighbouring Bishops, the People and the Clergy only expressing their Desire, and giving Testimony of the Life and Manners of the Person proposed, and in some by the joint Suffrages of the Clergy, of the People, and of the neighbouring Bishops. These three different Methods of electing we find practised at different Times with respect to the same Church; but on no