The well-known historian Milman, also an Episcopalian, in his History of Christianity, says, "The earliest Christian communities appear to have been ruled and represented, in the absence of the apostle who was their first founder, by their elders, who are likewise called bishops, or overseers of the church." Page 194. Kurtz, in his Church History, says: "To aid them in their work, or to supply their places in their absence (Acts 14:23), the apostles ordained rulers in every church, who bore the common name of _elders_ from their dignity, and of _bishops_ from the nature of their office. That originally the elders were the same as the bishops, we gather with absolute certainty from the statements of the New Testament and of Clement of Rome, a disciple of the apostles. (See his first epistle to the Corinthians, Chaps. 42, 44:52.) 1. The presbyters are expressly called bishops--compare [the Greek especially] Acts 20:17 with verse 28, and Titus 1:5 with verse 7. 2. The office of presbyter is described as next to and highest after that of apostle (Acts 15:6, 22). Similarly, the elders are represented as those to whom alone the rule, the teaching and the care of the church is entrusted (1 Tim. 5:17; 1 Pet. 5:1, etc.).... In [several] passages of the New Testament and of Clement we read of many bishops in one and the same church. In the face of such indubitable evidence, it is difficult to account for the pertinacity with which Romish and Anglican theologians insist that these two offices had from the first been different in name and functions.... Even Jerome, Augustine, Urban II. (1091) and Petrus Lombardus admit that originally the two had been identical. It was reserved for the Council of Trent to convert this truth into a heresy." Pages 67, 68. Chrysostom, Theodoret, and others also admitted the same. Many similar historical testimonies now lying before me to the humble equality of the New Testament ministry could be added; but lest the reader become weary, I will conclude with the following beautiful description from D'Aubigne in his noted History of the Reformation: "The church was in the beginning a community of brethren, guided by a few of the _brethren_." Again, "All Christians were priests of the living God, with _humble pastors_ as their guides." Vol. I, pp. 35, 50. With this description of the early ministers of Christ, who went forth under the symbol of the first horseman to disciple all nations, we have the events pertaining to the early history of the church, laid before us; until the opening of the second seal brings us to another important phase of its history. 3. And when he had opened the second seal, I heard the second beast say, Come and see. 4. And there went out another horse that was red: and power was given to him that sat thereon to take peace from the earth, and that they should kill one another: and there was given unto him a great sword.