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sident of the assembly; so was it granted to him upon no other considerations than those of his age, zeal, and gravity, for which he was more eminent than the rest.

8. We proceed next to inquire into the fitness and qualification of the persons commissioned for this employment; and we shall find them admirably qualified to discharge it, if we consider this following account. First, they immediately received the doctrine of the gospel from the mouth of Christ himself: he intended them for legati à latere, his peculiar ambassadors to the world, and therefore furnished them with instructions from his own mouth; and in order hereunto he trained them up for some years under his own discipline and institution; he made them to understand the "mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, when to others it was not given;" treated them with the affection of a father, and the freedom and familiarity of a friend. "Henceforth I call you not servants; for the servant knoweth not what his Lord doeth: but I have called you friends; for all things that I have heard of my Father I have made known unto you.' ." They heard all his sermons, were privy both to his public and private discourses; what he preached abroad he expounded to them at home: he gradually instructed them in the knowledge of divine things, and imparted to them the notions and mysteries of the gospel, not all at once, but as they were able to bear them. By which means they were sufficiently capable of giving a satisfactory account of that doctrine to others, which had been so immediately, so frequently communicated to themselves. Secondly, they were infallibly secure from error in delivering the doctrines and principles of Christianity: for though they were not absolutely privileged from failures and miscarriages in their lives, (these being of more personal and private consideration,) yet were they infallible in their doctrine, this being a matter whereupon the salvation and eternal interests of men did depend. And for this end they had the "spirit of truth" promised to them, who should "guide them into all truth." Under the conduct of this unerring guide they all steered the same course, and taught and spake the same things, though at different times, and in distant places: and for what was consigned to writing, "all Scripture was given by inspiration of God, and the holy men spake not but as they were moved by the Holy Ghost." Hence that exact and admirable harmony that is in all their writings and relations, as being all equally dictated by the same spirit of truth. Thirdly, they had been eye-witnesses of all the material passages of our Saviour's life, continually conversant with him from the commencing of his public ministry till his ascension into heaven: they had surveyed all his actions, seen all his miracles, observed the whole method of his conversation, and some of them attended him in his most private solitudes and retirements. And this could not but be a very rational satisfaction to the minds of men, when the publishers of the gospel solemnly declared to the world, that they reported nothing concerning our Saviour but what they had seen with their own eyes, and of the truth whereof

* John xv. 15. + Ibid. xvi. 13.

they were as competent judges as the acutest philosopher in the world. Nor could there be any just reason to suspect that they imposed upon men in what they delivered; for besides their naked plainness and simplicity in all other passages of their lives, they cheerfully submitted to the most exquisite hardships, tortures, and sufferings, merely to attest the truth of what they published to the world. Next to the evidence of our own senses, no testimony is more valid and forcible than his who relates what himself has seen. Upon this account our Lord told his apostles, "that they should be witnesses to him both in Judea and Samaria, and to the uttermost parts of the earth."* And so necessary a qualification of an apostle was this thought to be, that it was almost the only condition propounded in the choice of a new apostle, after the fall of Judas: "Wherefore," says Peter, "of these men which have companied with us all the time that the Lord Jesus went in and out among us, beginning from the baptism of John, unto the same day that he was taken up from us, must one be ordained to be a witness with us of his resurrection." Accordingly we find the apostles constantly making use of this argument as the most rational evidence to convince those whom they had to deal with. "We are witnesses of all things which Jesus did, both in the land of the Jews and in Jerusalem; whom they slew and hanged on a tree: him God raised up the third day, and showed him openly, not to all the people, but unto witnesses chosen before of God, even to us, who did eat and drink with him after he rose from the dead; and he commanded us to preach unto the people, and to testify that it is he that is ordained of God to be judge of the quick and dead." Thus St. John after the same way of arguing, appeals to sensib.e demonstration: "That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, of the word of life: (for the life was manifested, and we have seen it, and bear witness, and show unto you that eternal life which was with the Father, and was manifested unto us :) that which we have seen and heard declare we unto you, that ye also might have fellowship with us." This, to name no more, St. Peter thought a sufficient vindication of the apostolical doctrine from the suspicion of forgery and imposture: "We have not followed cunningly devised fables, when we made known unto you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but were eye-witnesses of his majesty." God had frequently given testimony to the divinity of our blessed Saviour, by visible manifestations and appearances from heaven, and particularly by an audible voice: "This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased." Now "this voice which came from heaven," says he, "we heard when we were with him in the holy mount."

9. Fourthly; the apostles were invested with a power of working miracles, as the readiest means to procure their religion a firm belief and entertainment in the minds of men. For the miracles are the great confirmation of the truth of any doctrine, and the most rational evidence of a divine

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commission. For seeing God only can create, and control the laws of nature, produce something out of nothing, and call things that are not as if they were, give eyes to them that were born blind, raise the dead, &c. things plainly beyond all possible powers of nature, no man that believes the wisdom and goodness of an infinite being, can suppose that this God of truth should affix his seal to a lie, or communicate this power to any that would abuse it, to confirm and countenance delusions and impostures. Nicodemus's reasoning was very plain and convictive, when he concludes that Christ "must needs be a teacher come from God, for that no man could do those miracles that he did, except God were with him"* The force of which argument lies here, that nothing but a divine power can work miracles, and that Almighty God cannot be supposed miraculously to assist any but those, whom he himself sends upon his own errand. The stupid and barbarous Lycaonians, when they beheld the man who had been a cripple from his mother's womb cured by St. Paul in an instant, only with the speaking of a word, saw that there was something in it more than human, and therefore concluded that "the Gods were come down to them in the likeness of men." Upon this account St. Pault reckons miracles among the тa oпpela Tov añoσToy, the signs and evidences of an apostle; whom therefore Chrysostom brings in elegantly pleading for himself, that though he could not show, as the signs of his priesthood and ministry, long robes and gaudy vestments, with bells sounding at their borders, as the Aaronical priests did of old; though he had no golden crowns or holy mitres, yet could he produce what was infinitely more venerable and regardable than all these unquestionable signs and miracles: he came not with altars and oblations, with a number of strange and symbolical rites; but what was greater, raised the dead, cast out devils, cured the blind, healed the lame, making the Gentiles obedient by word and deed, through many signs and wonders wrought by the power of the Spirit of God. These were the things that clearly showed that their mission and ministry was not from men, nor taken up of their own heads, but that they acted herein by a divine warrant and authority. That therefore it might plainly appear to the world that they did not falsify in what they said, or deliver any more than God had given them in commission, he enabled them to do strange and miraculous operations, "bearing them witness both with signs and wonders, and with divers miracles and gifts of the Holy Ghost." This was a power put into the first draught of their commission, when confined only to the cities of Israel: "As ye go, preach, saying, The kingdom of heaven is at hand. Heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, cast out devils: freely ye have received, freely give."} But more fully confirmed unto them when our Lord went to heaven; then he told them that "these signs should follow them that believe; that in his name they should cast out devils, and speak with new tongues; that they should take up serpents, and if they drank

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any deadly thing, it should not hurt them; that they should lay hands on the sick, and they should recover."* And the event was accordingly, "for they went forth and preached every where, the Lord worketh with them, and confirming the word with signs following." When Paul and Barnabas came up to the council at Jerusalem, this was one of the first things they gave an account of, "all the multitude keeping silence while they declared what miracles and wonders God had wrought among the Gentiles by them." Thus the very "shadow of Peter as he passed by cured the sick:" thus "God wrought special miracles by the hands of Paul; so that from his body were brought unto the sick, handkerchiefs or aprons, and the diseases departed from them, and the evil spirits went out of them." So that, besides the innate characters of divinity which the Christian religion brought along with it, containing nothing but what was highly reasonable, and very becoming God to reveal, it had the highest external evidence that any religion was capable of the attestation of great and unquestionable miracles, done not once or twice, not privately and in corners, not before a few simple and credulous persons, but frequently and at every turn, publicly and in places of the most solemn concourse, before the wisest and most judicious inquirers; and this power of miracles continued not only during the apostles' time, but for some ages after.

10. But because, besides miracles in general, the Scripture takes particular notice of many gifts and powers of the Holy Ghost conferred upon the apostles and first preachers of the gospel, it may not be amiss to consider some of the chiefest and most material of them, as we find them enumerated by the apostle ; only premising this obser vation, that though these gifts were distinctly distributed to persons of an inferior order, so that one had this, and another that, yet were they (probably) all conferred upon the apostles, and doubtless in larger proportions than upon the rest. First, we take notice of the gift of prophecy, a clear evidence of divine inspiration, and an extraordinary mission: "the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy." It had been for many ages the signal and honorable privilege of the Jewish church; and that the Christian economy might challenge as sacred regards from men, and that it might appear that God had not withdrawn his Spirit from his church in this new state of things, it was revived under the dispensation of the gospel, according to that famous prophecy of Joel, exactly accomplished (as Peter told the Jews) upon the day of pentecost, when the miraculous gifts of the Holy Ghost were so plentifully shed upon the apostles and primitive Christians: "This is that which was spoken by the prophet Joel: It shall come to pass in the last days, (saith God,) I will pour out of my Spirit upon all flesh; and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams: and on my servants and on my handmaidens I will pour out in those days of my Spirit, and they shall prophesy." It lay in general in

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pretend, that this interruption is an unseasonable check to his revelation, seeing he may command himself; for though among the Gentiles the prophetic and ecstatic impulse did so violently press upon the inspired person that he could not govern himself, yet in the church of God "the spirits of the prophets are subject to the prophets," may be so ruled and restrained by them as to make way for others. This order of Christian prophets, considered as a distinct ministry by itself, is constantly placed next to the apostolical office, and is frequently, by St. Paul, preferred before any other spiritual gifts then bestowed upon the church.When this spirit of prophecy ceased in the Christian church we cannot certainly find. It continued some competent time beyond the apostolic age. Justin Martyr, expressly tells Trypho, the Jew,

us:" an argument, as he there tells him, that those things which had of old been the great privileges of their church, were now translated into the Christian church. And Eusebius, speaking of a revelation made to one Alcibiades, who lived about the time of Irenæus, adds, that the divine grace had not withdrawn its presence from the church, but that they still had the Holy Ghost as their counsellor to direct them.

revealing and making known to others the mind of God; but discovered itself in particular instances, partly in foretelling things to come, and what should certainly happen in after times: a thing set beyond the reach of any finite understanding; for though such effects as depend upon natural agents, or moral and political causes, may be foreseen by studious and considering persons; yet the knowledge of futurities, things purely contingent, that merely depend upon men's choice, and their mutable and uncertain wills, can only fall under his view who at once behold things past, present, and to come. Now this was conferred upon the apostles and some of the first Christians, as appears from many instances in the history of the apostolic acts; and we find the apostles' writings frequently interspersed with prophetical predictions concerning the great apostacy from the faith," the gifts of prophecy are even yet extant among the universal corruption and degeneracy of manners, the rise of particular heresies, the coming of antichrist, and several other things, which the Spirit said expressly should come to pass in the latter times; besides, that St. John's whole book of Revelation is almost entirely made up of prophecies concerning the future state and condition of the church. Sometimes by his spirit of prophecy God declared things that were of present concernment to the exigencies of the church, as when he signified to them that they should set apart Paul and Barnabas for the conversion of the Gentiles, and many times immediately designed particular persons to be pastors and governors of the church. Thus we read of "the gift" that was given to Timothy "by prophecy, with the laying on of the hands of the presbytery;" that is, his ordination, to which he was particularly pointed out by some prophetic designation. But the main use of this prophetic gift in those times was, to explain some of the more difficult and particular parts of the Christian doctrine, especially to expound and apply the ancient prophecies concerning the Messiah and his kingdom, in their public assemblies; whence the "gift of prophecy" is explained "by understanding all mysteries and all knowledge" that is, the most dark and difficult places of Scripture, the types and figures, the ceremonies and prophecies of the Old Testament. And thus we are commonly to understand those words, "prophets" and "prophesying," that so familiarly occur in the New Testament,

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11. Secondly, they had "the gift of discerning spirits," whereby they were enabled to discover the truth or falsehood of men's pretences, whether their gifts were real or counterfeit, and their persons truly inspired or not. For many men, actuated only by diabolical impulses, might entitle themselves to divine inspirations, and others might be imposed upon by their illusions, and mistake their dreams and fancies for the Spirit's dictates and revelations or might so subtilely and artificially counterfeit revelations, that they might with most pass for current, especially in those times when these supernatural gifts were so common and ordinary; and our Lord himself had frequently told them that false prophets would arise, and that many would confidently plead for themselves before him, that they had "prophesied in his name." That therefore the church might not be imposed on, God was pleased to endue the apostles, and it may be some others, with an immediate faculty of discerning the chaff from the wheat, true from false prophets; nay, to know when the true proHaving gifts differ-phets delivered the revelations of the Spirit, and ing according to the grace that is given to us, when they expressed only their own conceptions. whether prophecy, let us prophesy according to This was a mighty privilege, but yet seems to me the proportion of faith ;" that is, expound Scrip- to have extended further, to judge of the sincerity ture according to the generally received principles or hypocrisy of men's hearts in the profession of of faith and life. So the apostle elsewhere, pre-religion; that so bad men being discovered, suitascribing rules for the decent and orderly managing ble censures and punishments might be passed of divine worship in their public assemblies: "Let upon them, and others cautioned to avoid them. the prophets," says he "speak two or three," that Thus Peter, at first sight, discovered Ananias and is, at the same assembly, "and let the other judge;" Sapphira, and the rotten hypocrisy of their intenand if, while any is thus expounding, another has tions, before there was any external evidence in a divine afflatus, whereby he is more particularly the case; and told Simon Magus, though baptized enabled to explain some difficult and emergent before, upon his embracing Christianity, "that his passage, "let the first hold his peace; for ye may heart was not right in the sight of God; for I perall" that have this gift, "prophesy one by one;"ceive," says he, "that thou art in the gall of bitthat so, thus orderly proceeding, "all may learn, terness, and in the bond of iniquity."* Thirdly; and all may be comforted."t Nor can the first the apostles had the gift of tongues, furnished with variety of utterance, able to speak on a sud

1 Cor. xiii. 2.
#1 Cor. xiv. 29-31.

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↑ Rom. xii. 6.

*Acts viii. 21-23.

den several languages which they had never of Rome, in defiance of it, can so openly praclearnt, as occasion was administered, and the ex-tise, so confidently defend their Bible and divine igencies of persons and nations, with whom they services in an unknown tongue; so flatly repugconversed, did require. For the apostles being nant to the dictates of common reason, the usage principally designed to convert the world, and to of the first Christian church, and these plain plant Christianity in all countries and nations, it apostolical commands. But this is not the only was absolutely necessary that they should be able instance wherein that church has departed both readily to express their minds in the languages of from Scripture, reason, and the practice of the first those countries to which they addressed them- and purest ages of Christianity. Indeed there is selves; seeing otherwise it would have been a some cause why they are so zealous to keep both work of time and difficulty, and not consistent Scripture and their divine worship in a strange with the term of the apostles' lives, had they been language; lest by reading the one the people first to learn the different languages of those na- should become wise enough to discover the gross tions before they could have preached the gospel errors and corruptions of the other. Fifthly; the to them. Hence this gift was diffused upon the apostles had the gift of healing, of curing diseases apostles in larger measure and proportion than without the arts of physic; the most inveterate upon other men: "I speak with tongues more distempers being equally removable by an almighthan ye all," says St. Paul; that is, than all the ty power, and vanishing at their speaking of a gifted persons in the church of Corinth. Our word. This begot an extraordinary veneration Lord had told the apostles, before his departure for them and their religion among the common from them, "that they should be endued with sort of men, who, as they are strongest moved power from on high;" which, upon the day of with sensible effects, so are most taken with those Pentecost, was particularly made good in this in- miracles that are beneficial to the life of man. stance; when in a moment they were enabled to Hence the infinite cures done in every place; speak almost all the languages of the then known God mercifully providing that the body should world, and this as a specimen and first-fruits of the partake with the soul in the advantages of the rest of those miraculous powers that were confer- gospel, the cure of the one ushering in, many red upon them. times, the conversion of the other. This gift was 12. A fourth gift was that of interpretation, or very common in those early days, bestowed not unfolding to others what had been delivered in an upon the apostles only, but upon the ordinary gounknown tongue. For the Christian assemblies vernors of the church, who were wont " to lay in those days were frequently made up of men of their hands upon the sick," and sometimes "to different nations, and who could not understand anoint them with oil," (a symbolic rite in use what the apostles, or others, had spoken to the among the Jews, to denote the grace of God,) and congregation; this God supplied by this gift of "to pray over," and for "them in the name of the interpretation, enabling some to interpret what Lord Jesus ;"* whereby, upon a hearty confession others did not understand, and to speak it to them and forsaking of their sins, both health and pardon in their own native language. St. Pault largely were at once bestowed upon them. How long this discourses the necessity of this gift, in order to gift, with its appendant ceremony of unction, the instructing and edifying of the church, see- lasted in the church is not easy to determine: ing without it their meetings could be no better that it was in use in Tertullian's time, we learn than the assembly of Babel after the confusion of from the instance he gives us of Proculus, a Chrislanguages, where one man must needs be a bar- tian, who cured the emperor Severus, by anointing barian to another; and all the praying and preach-him with oil; for which the emperor had him in ing of the minister of the assembly be to many altogether fruitless and unprofitable, and no better than a speaking into the air. What is the speaking, though with the tongue of angels, to them that do not understand it? How can the idiot and unlearned say amen, who understand not the language of him that giveth thanks? The duty may be done with admirable quaintness and accuracy; but what is he the better, from whom it is locked up in an unknown tongue? A consideration that made the apostle solemnly profess, that "he had rather speak five words in the church with his understanding, that by his voice he might teach others also, than ten thousand words in an unknown tongue." Therefore "if any man speak in an unknown tongue, let it be but by two, or at most by three, and let one interpret" what the rest have spoken; "but if there be no interpreter," none present able to do this, "let him keep silence in the church, and speak to himself and to God." A man that impartially reads this discourse of the apostle, may wonder how the church

1 Cor. xiv. 18. + 1 Cor. xiv. 8.

great honor, and kept him with him at court all his life; it afterwards vanishing by degrees, as all other miraculous powers, as Christianity gained firm footing in the world. As for extreme unction, so generally maintained and practised in the church of Rome, and by them made a sacrament, I doubt it will receive very little countenance from this primitive usage. Indeed, could they as easily restore sick men to health as they can anoint them with oil, I think nobody would contradict them; but till they can pretend to the one I think it unreasonable they should use the other. The best is, though founding it upon this apostolical practice, they have turned it to a quite contrary purpose; instead of recovering men to life and health, to dispose and fit them for dying when all hopes of life are taken from them.

13. Sixthly; the apostles were invested with a power of immediately inflicting corporal punishments upon great and notorious sinners; and this, probably, is that which he means by his " operations of powers," or "working miracles;" which surely cannot be meant of miracles in general, † 1 Cor. xii. 10.

+ 1 Cor. xiv.
Ibid. ver. 27, 28.

* James, v. 14, 15 16.

of Simon Magus himself, "yet the Holy Ghost fell upon none of them, only they were baptized in the name of our Lord Jesus;" till Peter and John came down to them, who having "prayed for them that they might receive the Holy Ghost, they laid their hands upon them, and they received the Holy Ghost." Which when the magician beheld, he offered the apostles money to enable him, that on whomsoever he laid his hands, he might derive these miraculous powers upon them.

being reckoned up amongst the particular gifts of things." To what has been said concerning the Holy Ghost; nor is there any other to which these apostolical gifts, let me further observe, that it can with equal probability refer. A power to they had not only these gifts residing in them. inflict diseases upon the body, as when St. Paul selves, but a power to bestow them upon others; so struck Elymas, the sorcerer, with blindness; and that by imposition of hands, or upon hearing and sometimes extending to the loss of life itself, as in embracing the apostles' doctrine, and being baptized the sad instance of Ananias and Sapphira. This into the Christian faith, they could confer these was the virga apostolica, the rod (mentioned by miraculous powers upon persons thus qualified to St. Paul) which the apostles held and shook over receive them, whereby they were in a moment scandalous and insolent offenders, and sometimes enabled to speak divers languages, to prophesy, laid upon them: "What will ye? shall I come to to interpret, and do other miracles, to the admirayou with a rod, or in love, and the spirit of meek- tion and astonishment of all that heard and saw ncss?"* Where observe, says Chrysostom, how them. A privilege peculiar to the apostles; for the apostle tempers his discourse: the love and we do not find that any inferior order of gifted meekness, and his desire to know, argued care persons were intrusted with it. And therefore, as and kindness; but the rod spake dread and terror; Chrysostom well observes, though Philip, the a rod of severity and punishment, and which deacon, wrought great miracles at Samaria, to sometimes mortally chastised the offender. Else-the conversion of many; yea, to the conviction where, he frequently gives intimations of this power, when he was to deal with stubborn and incorrigible persons: "Having in a readiness to revenge all disobedience, when your obedience is fulfilled; for though I should boast somewhat more of our authority (which the Lord hath given us for edification, and not for your destruction) I should not be ashamed; that I may not seem as if I would terrify you by letters." And he again puts them in mind of it at the close of his epistle: "I told you before, and foretel you, as if I were 14. Having seen how fitly furnished the apospresent, the second time; and being absent now tles were for the execution of their office, let us I write to them which heretofore have sinned, and in the last place inquire into its duration and conto all others, that if I come again I will not tinuance. And here it must be considered, that spare." But he hoped these smart warnings in the apostolical office there was something exwould supersede all further severity against them: traordinary, and something ordinary. What was "Therefore I write these things being absent, lest extraordinary was their immediate commission being present I should use sharpness, according to derived from the mouth of Christ himself; their the power which the Lord hath given me to edi- unlimited charge to preach the gospel up and fication, and not to destruction." Of this nature down the world, without being tied to any partiwas the "delivering over persons unto Satan for cular places; the supernatural and miraculous the destruction of the flesh," the chastising the powers conferred upon them as apostles; their body by some present pain or sickness, "that the infallible guidance in delivering the doctrines of spirit might be saved," by being brought to a the gospel; and these all expired and determined seasonable repentance. Thus he dealt with Hy- with their persons. The standing and perpetual menæus and Alexander, who had "made ship- part of it, was to teach and instruct the people in wreck of faith and a good conscience;" he de- the duties and principles of religion, to administer livered them unto Satan, "that they might learn the sacraments, to constitute guides and officers, not to blaspheme." Nothing being more usual and to exercise the discipline and government of in those times, than for persons excommunicate, the church; and in these they are succeeded by and cut off from the body of the church, to be the ordinary rulers and ecclesiastic guides, who presently arrested by Satan, as the common-ser- were to superintend and discharge the affairs and jeant and executioner, and by him either actually offices of the church to the end of the world. possessed, or tormented in their bodies by some Whence it is that bishops and governors came to diseases which he brought upon them. And in- be styled apostles, as being their successors in ordeed this severe discipline was no more than dinary; for so they frequently are in the writings necessary in those times, when Christianity was of the church. Thus Timothy, who was biwholly destitute of any civil or coercive power, shop of Ephesus, is called an apostle; Clemens to beget and keep up a due reverence and of Rome, Clemens the apostle; St. Mark, bishop regard to the sentences and determinations of the of Alexandria, by Eusebius, styled both an apostle church, and to secure the laws of religion and and evangelist; Ignatius, a bishop and apostle. the holy censures from being slighted by every A title that continued in after ages, especially bold and contumacious offender. And this effect given to those that were the first planters or rewe find it had after the dreadful instance of Ana-storers of Christianity in any country. In the nias and Sapphira; “Great fear came upon all the church, and upon as many as heard these

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Coptic calendar, published by Mr. Selden, the seventh day of the month Baschnes, answering to our second of May, is dedicated to the memory of St. Athanasius the apostle. Acacius and Paulus, in their letter to Epiphanius, style him "a new apostle and preacher:" and Sidonius Apollinaris writing to Lupus, bishop of Troyes, in

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